When Mother Nature throws a curveball: Snowfall no big deal for Fisher Cats groundskeeper
Apr. 5—When Mother Nature throws the groundskeeper a curve
NORMALLY by now, Mike Georgiadis would have the outfield mowed and patterned, the lines and logos painted and he would have fine-tuned the infield moisture.
Instead, he has to wait for Mother Nature to run her course and, hopefully, lend him a hand.
Georgiadis is entering his third season as the groundskeeper for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. The team, celebrating its 20th season as the Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, is scheduled to play the Somerset Patriots on Tuesday night (6:35) in its home opener at Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester. (The Fishers were scheduled to open their season on Friday night in Binghamton, New York.)
"Some guys will go out and try to plow it (the snow) the best they can without ruining their grade," Georgiadis said during Thursday's storm. "I'm not going with that way. Since our game is on Tuesday, I'm going to try to let nature take care of itself until a point where I think I have to take over."
Grading means leveling or sculpting land.
If snow is still lingering on the field come Sunday or Monday, Georgiadis, 36, will lay down black or green sand on the field, he said. Both sands help attract sunlight to melt the snow.
Obstacles like this April snowstorm are part of why Georgiadis, a New Jersey native, chose to take a job in New England after previously working for the Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies and at several golf courses.
"This is my third season coming into this and this is the first time that this has happened — that we've had snow so close to Opening Day," Georgiadis said. "But, I'll be honest, I actually expected this coming up to New Hampshire. I've worked in Montana, I've worked in Florida, I've worked in Virginia, Arizona, Milwaukee, New Jersey, Pennsylvania ... I'd been moving around the country pretty much for this — to deal with different challenges and climates."
Georgiadis earned a turf management degree from Rutgers University. He and his grounds crew, which consists of full-time assistant Brad Zongehetti, a seasonal intern and three or four game-day staffers, reconstructed and laser-graded the infield dirt two days before the storm. Laser-grading helps level the dirt.
The snow, Georgiadis said, will actually be beneficial in the infield and help water the outfield grass.
The infield dirt is loose when it is first reconstructed. The moisture from the snow will help it solidify into a durable slab and it will stay that way for the rest of the season. "The field, I believe, is going to play better because of this snowstorm," Georgiadis said.
The outfield grass, he said, shuts down and becomes dormant in the offseason — and still is early in the season. A pro secret, Georgiadis said, is that many MLB fields paint their grass green during the early parts of the season for that reason.
If not for the snow, Georgiadis would have painted the grass ahead of the home opener, he said, and would have put down ammonium sulfate fertilizer.
The grass starts to green up, he said, when the soil temperature reaches about 55 degrees. When grass comes out of dormancy, it loves having something to drink.
"The teams that are going to go out there and ... run all their tractors and all their equipment across their field (for snow removal), they're running the risk of damaging their levels, all the grading, the outfield, the grass," Georgiadis said. "They may not be on their infield, but even running around their outfield, that's going to affect the grade. It could easily start tearing it (the grass) up and stuff like that.
"Sometimes it pays to just be patient with this kind of stuff."
Typically on the day of the home opener, Georgiadis said, he and his crew arrive at the stadium at 8 a.m. and don't leave until an hour after the game, which often starts around 6 p.m. Before the game, the grounds crew cuts the grass and preps the infield dirt until it passes the moisture "key test." If they stab the infield dirt with a key but they key can't pierce the ground, the dirt is too hard. If the key pierces but comes out and pulls dirt with it, it's too wet. If the key pierces easily and is removed without dirt coming up, then the infield is just right.
"We kind of chase that the whole day," Georgiadis said. "That's the most important thing — making sure all those clays are squared away and that the cleats are going freely in and out. It really affects the playability and the safety of the game."
There's not a lot of pregame preparation to be done now, Georgiadis said, but he's hoping warmer temperatures over the next few days clear the way for him and his crew.
Manchester weather forecasts call for temperatures to reach the mid-to-high 40s this weekend and hit a high of 60 degrees on both Monday and Tuesday.
"This obviously sets us back a bit, but nothing we can't handle," Georgiadis said. "The weather, even though it was our enemy, it's going to have to help us."
