Effectively Wild Episode 1256: Grounds Crew Questions

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Ben’s book activities, David Bote‘s exciting grand slam, Ramon Laureano‘s highlight throw, a few surprisingly (and not-so-surprisingly) streaking players, Taylor Ward’s call-up news, and a weird walk-off win in the minors. Then (26:10) they bring on Zach Ricketts, assistant head groundskeeper at the Oakland Coliseum, to talk about many aspects of being a groundskeeper at the last ballpark to house both an MLB team and an NFL team, including: his daily routine, how to become an MLB groundskeeper, lawn care, configuring the field for baseball and football, moving the mound, groundskeeping equipment, the groundskeeper hierarchy, gamesmanship and field manipulation, sewage encounters, animal encounters, wrestling the tarp, the differences between old and new parks, field-design hypotheticals, playoff shares, what’s under the field, foul-territory size, and more.

Audio intro: Guided By Voices, "See My Field"
Audio interstitial: XTC, "Grass"
Audio interstitial 2: Jack White, "Temporary Ground"
Audio outro: Ocean Colour Scene, "In My Field"

Link to Jeff’s Bote post
Link to video of Laureano throw
Link to video of minor-league walkoff
Link to video of Cardinals groundskeeper cat encounter
Link to video of Nationals groundskeeper getting caught in tarp

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