CLEVELAND — For more than 30 years, seeding, mowing, fertilizing, watering, manicuring, and babying the most precious 100,000 square feet of Kentucky bluegrass in Northeast Ohio has been at the center of Brandon Koehnke's life.
Koehnke is the only head groundskeeper Progressive Field has ever known.
"It's a long process, and it's a daily process," he says, "and that daily process continues into the fall and into the winter and into the spring to prepare for the field."
Hired in 1993 after working at various spring training sites in Florida, he came here to take part in the process of building Cleveland's field of dreams.
"I got here in March of '93, while we were still playing at the old ballpark (Cleveland Municipal Stadium)," Koehnke recalled. "But I was here every day though, overseeing the contractors who were in charge of building this field and overseeing the nuts and the bolts of how this sucker was going to get put together."
And he's been here ever since, through 14 postseason runs and three World Series, the grass looking perfect through it all. He admits it's not easy work, and it's a job that never ends.
"We're still cutting grass until Thanksgiving," he explained, "but the way you put it to bed is what you're going to get in March."
Some off seasons are more difficult than others. Last year, the entire field was ripped out to make room for five construction cranes doing the stadium renovations. Koehnke's crew wasn't able to lay new sod until late February, yet on Opening Day, it looked perfect, and then the day-to-day grind of keeping it that way was underway.
"I was here at about 7:15 a.m. this morning, and the rest of the crew got here a little before 8," Koehnke told us. "The first thing we do is get the tarp off, check the weather forecast, see if we're still good. If we are, get the tarp off the field and then we go to work. We mow outfield, mow infield, mow all the grass, and then we're dragging the infield and giving it its first deep watering of the morning."
And that's just the beginning. The work on the field never stops, from final pregame preps to in-game dragging of the infield to wrapping it all up after the final out is made.
Koehnke's crew of 28 on game days is here anywhere from 10 to 14 hours a day, but it's worth every second that goes into it, and the players and staff don't take the work for granted either.
"I think Brandon does a fantastic job," team legend and current first base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. said. "(He keeps) the ballpark always looking beautiful like it is. The grass is always green, including in April."