The man holding the keys to the Cadillac at Dodger Stadium stood in shallow centerfield last week admiring the view.
“Just another day at the office,” head groundskeeper Jordan Lorenz said with a smile.
The stadium was empty. Everyone was in Arizona for spring training. It was just Jordan and a few members of his team winding up their own spring training getting the playing field ready for another opening day.
“We give the athletes the canvas to play on, and get out of the way,” he said. “We don’t need anybody to know our names.”
I’m not so sure about that. If you beat the traffic and get to Dodger Stadium early, (I know, good luck) Jordan and his team are the pre-game show. They take their positions with a hose, a rake and a line chalker to put the finishing touches on their canvas.
You don’t hand Shohei Ohtani, Freddy Freeman and Mookie Betts the keys to a used Prius. You give them a Cadillac.
Credence Clearwater Revival was blasting through the stadium’s speakers when I arrived, drowning out the noise of rivet guns tearing out and replacing all the wooden seats in the right and left field pavilions.
Something is always going on to keep the third oldest ballpark in the major leagues — at age 62 — looking young.
Jordan’s crew was working on the infield and around home plate, where most of the game action is in baseball, he said.
Mowers were standing by to cut the outfield grass at different angles so a ground ball hit out there didn’t snake — move from side to side.
“Ball snaking is one of the things we hate seeing,” Jordan said. “If an outfielder’s running up on a ball to throw somebody out at home plate and the ball’s snaking, it’s tough to pick up cleanly and throw.”
His game time crew varies, but it’s usually around eight men, many of whom started working part time at the stadium in their 20s. Now, they’re in their 40s and still there.
When your office is a ballpark and you get to wear shorts to work everyday, it’s a hard job to quit. Like Jordan, they didn’t initially plan on making this a career, but they have.
Many of the veterans on his team are also groundskeepers for local colleges and universities, while still working with the Dodgers.
Every five or six years, they’ll replace the outfield grass unless something unexpected happens first — like Elton John’s final concert in 2022 killing most of the outfield grass.
“One of the things that seems to surprise people is how much the stadium is used for concerts, corporate events, college tournaments and even a few weddings at home plate during the year,” he said.
The day we talked there were dozens of divot marks in centerfield from golf balls hit from the top tier of the stadium at a recent corporate event.
Jordan wasn’t worried. The divots would fill in, the grass would grow, and the mowers would take care of the rest before opening day.
There’d be no ball snaking on his canvas this season, he promised.
After the game starts, the grounds crew hangs out in the break room until they return to the field before the 4th and 7th innings to drag the infield from spike marks that can cause bad hops.
“When the game starts I usually grab a rake and post up at the far end of the dugout with the security guys,” Jordan said. Waiting for the inevitable.
Visiting players will walk up to home plate in the first inning and wipe out the batter’s box chalk lines with their cleats.
“I don’t mind when the players do it, but we have one or two umpires who kick away the chalk for the catcher’s box,” he said. “We put those lines down to help them do their job, and they wipe them away?”
Jordan doesn’t say anything to them. I think he’d rather not be the first groundskeeper in the majors to be tossed by an ump before the game.
His tradition on opening day is to enter the stadium from level 8, as far from the field as you can get, and look out over the empty stadium, taking in the full, panoramic view of the canvas his crew has created for the athletes. They’re the stars. Everybody knows their names.
His team is just the supporting cast. They’ve done their job and have gotten out of the way. Nobody needs to know their names.
Ladies and gentleman, the veteran starting line up of the grounds crew for your 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers: Dominic Guerrero, Ryan Costello, Jaime Huezo, Andres Sanchez, Mike Aguirre and team manager Jordan Lorenz.
Give them a hand.
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.
