I think I’m the luckiest person in the
world
my office is Fenway Park’s field I get
goosebumps everyday I walk on the field
and that’s not just because I’m allergic
to grass which actually am but because I
have the honor and the privilege to be
one of the caretakers the hallowed
hallowed ground at Fenway Park one of my
best parts of my job is helping people
create memories on the field I grew up a
baseball fanatic and play baseball
growing up and received college
scholarships to pitch my grandfather
played in 1902 in the majors and my
dream was to follow in his footsteps and
not only make it to the majors but
someday stand on Fenway Park’s Mound it
was difficult to see at the time but
July 10th 1981 one month after
graduating high school was the luckiest
day of my life
I was walking into a McDonald’s
restaurant across the parking lot and a
car came off the street and hit me throw
me 20 feet in the air I slammed into the
brick wall by the entrance of the door
of McDonald’s and the same car came at a
high rate of speed and hit me a second
time my first thought was not only was
my leg crushed I feared my dreams were
crushed I thought what am I gonna do and
my family raised me to believe adversity
makes you stronger and inspired me to
never give up they told me how lucky I
was
believe it or not how lucky I was to use
my time wisely to find a career I would
love to do because so many people go
through life without the joy of a job
that they loved they told me that I had
an opportunity to look at each challenge
as a detour and not as a roadblock I
walked on crutches for two and a half
years I walked with a cane for ten
months
my surgeon told me I’d never walk
normally again but I took my
my inspiration from my family and took
on that positive attitude and I’ve had
43 surgeries and I figure that’s better
than 44 I’m a big believer in
celebrating life every day because you
never know when that next challenge will
happen in fact this past offseason in in
the winter I was seriously injured on a
domestic airline that I’m still
struggling with every day and when my
family inspired me to find a career that
I’d love to do I came up with four areas
that I would love one was a job outside
because that made me happy and two was
science I love science in school and
three was landscaping I grew up taking
care of people’s lawns and enjoyed that
and four was baseball
I loved baseball so rather than just
pick one of those I put them all
together and figured someone had to be a
major league groundskeeper my brother
Terry lived in Milwaukee at the time and
told me if I could get a job with the
Brewers I could live with him to save
money so after many many phone calls and
letters and letters the Brewers hired me
34 years ago and gave me an opportunity
beyond their ground crew I was thrilled
I was always honored to have the
opportunity to work for the Brewers and
19 years ago legendary Red Sox
groundskeeper mr. Joe Mooney who was the
groundskeeper for the Red Sox at Fenway
for 30 years called me out of the blue
and said David I’m thinking about
retiring but I’ll only retire if you
replace me what my heart stopped I
couldn’t believe it I grew up a Red Sox
fanatic I was so honored humbled chills
went through me I couldn’t believe that
he had called that the Red Sox had
chosen me of all people the 19 years
since I’ve never taken my job for
granted I’m truly honored and humbled to
have this responsibility and be part of
the team to help care for this field my
job is truly the next best thing to
playing and I’ve made it to Fenway
Park’s Mound I feel truly blessed so
fortunate to have this opportunity you
know we all face ciao
one jizz in our lives I encourage you to
celebrate each day as you go on with
those opportunities you know if I would
have given up along the way at any point
none of these challenges none of these
opportunities would have happened not
only would I’ve not had the opportunity
to be groundskeeper here but if all
these curveballs who had been thrown at
me
none of these experiences would have
happened in my life either if I never
would’ve been a hit by a car that day in
July I never would have met my
incredible wife had two amazing
daughters in my life or had the
opportunity to face and overcome the
adversity in my life that’s helped shape
me into Who I am I truly feel blessed to
have the opportunity and the life that I
have I’m so fortunate to have that
opportunity resiliency and
groundskeeping just like in life is an
important part of taking care of the
field we all deal with challenges and
groundskeeping whether those challenges
come from mother nature baseball games
or extra events we use cutting edge
silence to help take science to take on
those challenges and I welcome and value
the input from players and their
feedback as we take on those challenges
to keep the field in tip-top condition
I’m very fortunate to have outstanding
support throughout the organization and
hard work for my crew and our vendors to
keep the field in its best condition
safety and playability is always our
first priority I remember when I sat
down with mr. Mooney in January of 2001
and we talked about how the fields are
different and similar and he said David
if it really rains hard the crown of the
field the dugouts will flood and if it
really really rains hard the storm drain
system on Yaqui way can’t handle a heavy
rainstorm the water will back up and
come up through the manhole cover in the
third-base concourse in the concourse
will flood and if it really really
really rains hard water will back up
through the city drain pipes and the
first-base camera pit will fill all the
way to the top with water and fish from
the Charles River will swim through the
city drain pipes and swim out on the
field well out of respect
mr. buney I just said Wow mr. Mooney
that’s incredible well fast forward we
opened April at home that year on a
Monday and on Friday night before
opening day forecast was for two to
three inches of rain so we put the tarp
on and sure enough by Saturday morning
when the rain stopped we had received
close to three inches of rain so I
walked out behind home plate along the
edge of the tarp got near first base and
there was a fish about six inches long
on the edge of the grass I looked up in
the stands for mr. Mooney thinking he
had set me up for a joke three months in
advance he was nowhere to be found I
went to the camera pit and sure enough
it was full of water between the camera
pit and the second base position there
were seven more fish in the Russia
getting ready for opening day the fish
were thrown away but luckily I took a
picture of him but I wish I would a dry
mounted one for his office for my office
and for ownership you know speaking of
ownership they’ve invested over 300
million dollars making incredible
improvements at Fenway Park including a
new field that drains great so the
dugouts don’t flood and it’s flat so we
don’t have the crown and also a new
camera pit so we don’t get fish on the
field anymore you know people often ask
me about the mowing patterns how they’re
created how we get the stripes in the
grass you know any mower will make a
pattern in the grass with its tires and
its blades but our mowers also have
rollers on them that help bend the grass
blade in the direction the mowers travel
you think of vacuuming the carpet how it
changes the NAP of the carpet you know
some people think it’s done with
different mowing Heights paint or if we
use different grasses but it’s really
just the direction the mower travels so
a light stripe or section goes away from
you and a dark section comes towards you
so it can be a traditional checkerboard
something festive like a flag for Flag
days you see on the video board or a Red
Sox logo however growing up a Red Sox
fanatic myself and being an Ohio State
Buckeye grad there are two patterns I
suggest you don’t do that would be a
Yankee logo or a Michigan logo so I
think those would kill the grass but for
those homeowners out there who love
their
I encourage you to use your imagination
mo like a pro and have fun you know
weather dictates so much of what we do
other than looking at my wife and Drago
first thing in the morning and the last
thing at night I look at weather all day
long it takes it so much of what we do
and weather technology over my thirty
four year career has improved vastly we
have two Weather Service’s that we can
call throughout the day for up-to-date
forecast we have some really cool apps
that we can use on our smart phones and
our iPads one of which is called radar
scope that gives us up-to-date radar
images and so we can use this
information to communicate with the
umpires the goal of the game is always
get nine innings in once again safety
and playability so I’ll get up-to-date
forecast in between innings when the
games going on and go out to see the
umpire during a rain game take the iPad
out to show them up-to-date radar loops
that helps with safety and playability
when the tarp goes on or when we’re
using drying agent another part of
whether we deal with this snow snow is a
great insulator it keeps the frost from
going and steep but timing is everything
with snow if it gets too close to
opening day we will actually have to
plow it off then there’s the risk of
damaging the turf five of the last seven
years I worked for the Brewers it snowed
the night before opening day but if it’s
within a few days to a week before
opening day will actually spread black
sand over top of the snow and black
Santo absorb heat from the Sun it’s
called the albedo effect we can mount up
to six to twelve inches a day of snow
and then once that snow is gone the
black sand falls into the grass acts as
a top dressing actually warms up the
grass to help it grow in the spring you
know the infield skin where the
infielders stand is that engineered soil
we don’t call it infield dirt because if
I think of dirt is what people get on
their clothes infield skin is an
engineered mix that’s carefully designed
at a percent sand silt and clay
there’s actually five types of sand find
very fine medium coarse and very coarse
think of marbles in a jar
they’re all big marbles or very coarse
pieces of sand it’s going to be unstable
underneath the players feet
and if they’re all very fine it’s gonna
lock up tight and get very hard what we
strive for is for it to be like a
corkboard
so that we build it so that it’s
engineered so the majority of the sand
particles are in the medium part of the
sand sand spectrum so we strive for it
to be just like a firm firm footing but
yet resilient for ball bounce and for
firm footing we also combine that with
water so how we water depends on weather
Sun wind dewpoint humidity cloud cover
wind wind chill frost all factored into
how we water but once again safety and
playability and player feedback all play
into that you know the Green Monster is
a historic part of Fenway Park I
certainly knew about it growing up a Red
Sox fan but it wasn’t so I had the
privilege and honor of working at Fenway
it’s seen it up close they realize how
magical it really is the top part of the
wall was resurfaced in 1976 so all the
balls that have hit the top of the wall
hard since then have left an imprint
into the wall that I called dimples if
you look at it in the morning or in the
evening the light catches it it looks
like a golf ball and it’s textured and
stained grossfeld a award-winning
article or writer and photographer for
the Boston Globe wrote a really fun
article in August of 2014 when he tried
to calibrate how many balls have hit the
monster since then and the bottom part
of the wall when the ball hits leaves
its own signature mark where you may see
the red see marks or even the ink coming
off the ball where it leaves a partial
to a full imprint of the MLB logo to the
word Rawlings that’s on the ball to even
the fine signature of major league
baseball commissioner
so it’s fascinating it has its own
imprint that I call baseball tattoo or
finger print of Fenway because no two
are alike you know I hope you’ve taken
some interesting tips from today’s talk
away I hope you’ll make time to
celebrate life every day because you
never know how quickly it will change
you know a baseball saying I used to
inspire me every day is called one base
at a time I encourage you to make time
to take
action to celebrate life every day thank
you all so much
[Applause]
took you in the Brewers and you know he
couldn’t be here today and you wanted to
say goodbye to him in an appropriate way
but he was an inspiration for you and
your inspiration to so many thank you so
much and any final thoughts well I just
I’m humbled to have the opportunity to
be here you know my brother did pass
away you know I he lived his wife lived
on a lake south of Milwaukee and my
family would go visit him and have
wonderful times together and we said our
normal goodbyes on July weekend in 1998
while see you later and gave each other
a hug two nights later my sister-in-law
called and said Terry’s gone and I said
where did he go and he said he had
passed away there’s so many things I
wish I had told him how much I loved him
thanked him for all his love and
sacrifices and I just got caught up
living my busy life I encourage you all
to make time to reach out to your loved
ones today and often and learn from my
mistake
well thank you all right [Applause]
world
my office is Fenway Park’s field I get
goosebumps everyday I walk on the field
and that’s not just because I’m allergic
to grass which actually am but because I
have the honor and the privilege to be
one of the caretakers the hallowed
hallowed ground at Fenway Park one of my
best parts of my job is helping people
create memories on the field I grew up a
baseball fanatic and play baseball
growing up and received college
scholarships to pitch my grandfather
played in 1902 in the majors and my
dream was to follow in his footsteps and
not only make it to the majors but
someday stand on Fenway Park’s Mound it
was difficult to see at the time but
July 10th 1981 one month after
graduating high school was the luckiest
day of my life
I was walking into a McDonald’s
restaurant across the parking lot and a
car came off the street and hit me throw
me 20 feet in the air I slammed into the
brick wall by the entrance of the door
of McDonald’s and the same car came at a
high rate of speed and hit me a second
time my first thought was not only was
my leg crushed I feared my dreams were
crushed I thought what am I gonna do and
my family raised me to believe adversity
makes you stronger and inspired me to
never give up they told me how lucky I
was
believe it or not how lucky I was to use
my time wisely to find a career I would
love to do because so many people go
through life without the joy of a job
that they loved they told me that I had
an opportunity to look at each challenge
as a detour and not as a roadblock I
walked on crutches for two and a half
years I walked with a cane for ten
months
my surgeon told me I’d never walk
normally again but I took my
my inspiration from my family and took
on that positive attitude and I’ve had
43 surgeries and I figure that’s better
than 44 I’m a big believer in
celebrating life every day because you
never know when that next challenge will
happen in fact this past offseason in in
the winter I was seriously injured on a
domestic airline that I’m still
struggling with every day and when my
family inspired me to find a career that
I’d love to do I came up with four areas
that I would love one was a job outside
because that made me happy and two was
science I love science in school and
three was landscaping I grew up taking
care of people’s lawns and enjoyed that
and four was baseball
I loved baseball so rather than just
pick one of those I put them all
together and figured someone had to be a
major league groundskeeper my brother
Terry lived in Milwaukee at the time and
told me if I could get a job with the
Brewers I could live with him to save
money so after many many phone calls and
letters and letters the Brewers hired me
34 years ago and gave me an opportunity
beyond their ground crew I was thrilled
I was always honored to have the
opportunity to work for the Brewers and
19 years ago legendary Red Sox
groundskeeper mr. Joe Mooney who was the
groundskeeper for the Red Sox at Fenway
for 30 years called me out of the blue
and said David I’m thinking about
retiring but I’ll only retire if you
replace me what my heart stopped I
couldn’t believe it I grew up a Red Sox
fanatic I was so honored humbled chills
went through me I couldn’t believe that
he had called that the Red Sox had
chosen me of all people the 19 years
since I’ve never taken my job for
granted I’m truly honored and humbled to
have this responsibility and be part of
the team to help care for this field my
job is truly the next best thing to
playing and I’ve made it to Fenway
Park’s Mound I feel truly blessed so
fortunate to have this opportunity you
know we all face ciao
one jizz in our lives I encourage you to
celebrate each day as you go on with
those opportunities you know if I would
have given up along the way at any point
none of these challenges none of these
opportunities would have happened not
only would I’ve not had the opportunity
to be groundskeeper here but if all
these curveballs who had been thrown at
me
none of these experiences would have
happened in my life either if I never
would’ve been a hit by a car that day in
July I never would have met my
incredible wife had two amazing
daughters in my life or had the
opportunity to face and overcome the
adversity in my life that’s helped shape
me into Who I am I truly feel blessed to
have the opportunity and the life that I
have I’m so fortunate to have that
opportunity resiliency and
groundskeeping just like in life is an
important part of taking care of the
field we all deal with challenges and
groundskeeping whether those challenges
come from mother nature baseball games
or extra events we use cutting edge
silence to help take science to take on
those challenges and I welcome and value
the input from players and their
feedback as we take on those challenges
to keep the field in tip-top condition
I’m very fortunate to have outstanding
support throughout the organization and
hard work for my crew and our vendors to
keep the field in its best condition
safety and playability is always our
first priority I remember when I sat
down with mr. Mooney in January of 2001
and we talked about how the fields are
different and similar and he said David
if it really rains hard the crown of the
field the dugouts will flood and if it
really really rains hard the storm drain
system on Yaqui way can’t handle a heavy
rainstorm the water will back up and
come up through the manhole cover in the
third-base concourse in the concourse
will flood and if it really really
really rains hard water will back up
through the city drain pipes and the
first-base camera pit will fill all the
way to the top with water and fish from
the Charles River will swim through the
city drain pipes and swim out on the
field well out of respect
mr. buney I just said Wow mr. Mooney
that’s incredible well fast forward we
opened April at home that year on a
Monday and on Friday night before
opening day forecast was for two to
three inches of rain so we put the tarp
on and sure enough by Saturday morning
when the rain stopped we had received
close to three inches of rain so I
walked out behind home plate along the
edge of the tarp got near first base and
there was a fish about six inches long
on the edge of the grass I looked up in
the stands for mr. Mooney thinking he
had set me up for a joke three months in
advance he was nowhere to be found I
went to the camera pit and sure enough
it was full of water between the camera
pit and the second base position there
were seven more fish in the Russia
getting ready for opening day the fish
were thrown away but luckily I took a
picture of him but I wish I would a dry
mounted one for his office for my office
and for ownership you know speaking of
ownership they’ve invested over 300
million dollars making incredible
improvements at Fenway Park including a
new field that drains great so the
dugouts don’t flood and it’s flat so we
don’t have the crown and also a new
camera pit so we don’t get fish on the
field anymore you know people often ask
me about the mowing patterns how they’re
created how we get the stripes in the
grass you know any mower will make a
pattern in the grass with its tires and
its blades but our mowers also have
rollers on them that help bend the grass
blade in the direction the mowers travel
you think of vacuuming the carpet how it
changes the NAP of the carpet you know
some people think it’s done with
different mowing Heights paint or if we
use different grasses but it’s really
just the direction the mower travels so
a light stripe or section goes away from
you and a dark section comes towards you
so it can be a traditional checkerboard
something festive like a flag for Flag
days you see on the video board or a Red
Sox logo however growing up a Red Sox
fanatic myself and being an Ohio State
Buckeye grad there are two patterns I
suggest you don’t do that would be a
Yankee logo or a Michigan logo so I
think those would kill the grass but for
those homeowners out there who love
their
I encourage you to use your imagination
mo like a pro and have fun you know
weather dictates so much of what we do
other than looking at my wife and Drago
first thing in the morning and the last
thing at night I look at weather all day
long it takes it so much of what we do
and weather technology over my thirty
four year career has improved vastly we
have two Weather Service’s that we can
call throughout the day for up-to-date
forecast we have some really cool apps
that we can use on our smart phones and
our iPads one of which is called radar
scope that gives us up-to-date radar
images and so we can use this
information to communicate with the
umpires the goal of the game is always
get nine innings in once again safety
and playability so I’ll get up-to-date
forecast in between innings when the
games going on and go out to see the
umpire during a rain game take the iPad
out to show them up-to-date radar loops
that helps with safety and playability
when the tarp goes on or when we’re
using drying agent another part of
whether we deal with this snow snow is a
great insulator it keeps the frost from
going and steep but timing is everything
with snow if it gets too close to
opening day we will actually have to
plow it off then there’s the risk of
damaging the turf five of the last seven
years I worked for the Brewers it snowed
the night before opening day but if it’s
within a few days to a week before
opening day will actually spread black
sand over top of the snow and black
Santo absorb heat from the Sun it’s
called the albedo effect we can mount up
to six to twelve inches a day of snow
and then once that snow is gone the
black sand falls into the grass acts as
a top dressing actually warms up the
grass to help it grow in the spring you
know the infield skin where the
infielders stand is that engineered soil
we don’t call it infield dirt because if
I think of dirt is what people get on
their clothes infield skin is an
engineered mix that’s carefully designed
at a percent sand silt and clay
there’s actually five types of sand find
very fine medium coarse and very coarse
think of marbles in a jar
they’re all big marbles or very coarse
pieces of sand it’s going to be unstable
underneath the players feet
and if they’re all very fine it’s gonna
lock up tight and get very hard what we
strive for is for it to be like a
corkboard
so that we build it so that it’s
engineered so the majority of the sand
particles are in the medium part of the
sand sand spectrum so we strive for it
to be just like a firm firm footing but
yet resilient for ball bounce and for
firm footing we also combine that with
water so how we water depends on weather
Sun wind dewpoint humidity cloud cover
wind wind chill frost all factored into
how we water but once again safety and
playability and player feedback all play
into that you know the Green Monster is
a historic part of Fenway Park I
certainly knew about it growing up a Red
Sox fan but it wasn’t so I had the
privilege and honor of working at Fenway
it’s seen it up close they realize how
magical it really is the top part of the
wall was resurfaced in 1976 so all the
balls that have hit the top of the wall
hard since then have left an imprint
into the wall that I called dimples if
you look at it in the morning or in the
evening the light catches it it looks
like a golf ball and it’s textured and
stained grossfeld a award-winning
article or writer and photographer for
the Boston Globe wrote a really fun
article in August of 2014 when he tried
to calibrate how many balls have hit the
monster since then and the bottom part
of the wall when the ball hits leaves
its own signature mark where you may see
the red see marks or even the ink coming
off the ball where it leaves a partial
to a full imprint of the MLB logo to the
word Rawlings that’s on the ball to even
the fine signature of major league
baseball commissioner
so it’s fascinating it has its own
imprint that I call baseball tattoo or
finger print of Fenway because no two
are alike you know I hope you’ve taken
some interesting tips from today’s talk
away I hope you’ll make time to
celebrate life every day because you
never know how quickly it will change
you know a baseball saying I used to
inspire me every day is called one base
at a time I encourage you to make time
to take
action to celebrate life every day thank
you all so much
[Applause]
took you in the Brewers and you know he
couldn’t be here today and you wanted to
say goodbye to him in an appropriate way
but he was an inspiration for you and
your inspiration to so many thank you so
much and any final thoughts well I just
I’m humbled to have the opportunity to
be here you know my brother did pass
away you know I he lived his wife lived
on a lake south of Milwaukee and my
family would go visit him and have
wonderful times together and we said our
normal goodbyes on July weekend in 1998
while see you later and gave each other
a hug two nights later my sister-in-law
called and said Terry’s gone and I said
where did he go and he said he had
passed away there’s so many things I
wish I had told him how much I loved him
thanked him for all his love and
sacrifices and I just got caught up
living my busy life I encourage you all
to make time to reach out to your loved
ones today and often and learn from my
mistake
well thank you all right [Applause]
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