COMSTOCK PARK, Mich — Another Whitecaps baseball season is here, meaning LMCU Ballpark will be packed with fans cheering on the team during games, but the team keeping this field playable deserves just as much fanfare.
“I take care of dirt, and I mow grass. That's the most basic thing that I do,” LMCU Ballpark Head Groundskeeper Mitch Hooten does a little more than that...
As Head Grounds Keeper, Mitch’s job is to make sure everything here is a cut above the rest for another season of Whitecaps baseball, and that starts with a new field.
“This field will be playable through pretty much any rainstorm that it can you know that it can face," Mitch told us. "We designed it that way.”
That’s why I said Mitch and his crew do a little more than just mow the lawn.
“This process has been going on five years now for me, fine-tuning what I wanted, what I didn't want,” Mitch said.
And what Mitch, his crew and the Whitecaps want is something that can hold up to a long, long season.
“The sub layers under it will help drain a lot better and a lot quicker," Assistant Groundskeeper Logan Complo.
“This grass, can, you know, it greens up really well in the spring. So this time of year, when it's cold, especially in West Michigan, it will green up a little bit faster than typically a variety would," Said Mitch. "This grass also has a great high traffic tolerance for what we need out here.”
A brand-new field, for a brand-new season, but the same hard work from the grounds crew team that is as dedicated and as the team playing on field.
“It can be long days, long weeks," said Logan.
“We've had a long haul already, and it's, you know, it's March, but we have even a longer haul. I mean, we're we got to go all the way till, you know, next November,” added Mitch.
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