BASEBALL
SFM: Whenever you are renovating a field, how does that impact your overall schedule and workload?
Dobbins: We rarely ever just shut down. So, we do a couple of fields per year with renovations, and then games are played on the other fields. It affects our tournament load a little bit where they might only have six fields available for a tournament instead of eight.
SFM: I know there’ s no such thing as typical, but what does a typical day look like for you? Donovan: During spring training it kind of turns into Groundhog Day. It’ s just the same thing, but it takes a little while because we get a lot of new part-time staff jumping on board right before spring training. The first few weeks are always dialing things in with the new hires and getting them on board. We have a big safety program and a lot of SOPs. But once you get stuff dialed in, it’ s just well-oiled machine. I get the schedules the day before from both the minor league and major league guys, and we all meet in the morning to go over the schedules. I divide my crew in half— half to the minor league side, half to the major league side— and float some guys around wherever needed. Sometimes there are six BP setups at one time, so we are rotating around, running around, getting stuff set up. We also work with the coaches— we’ re raking during drills, dragging, setting up if they have minor league games on the same fields. Then, at the end of the day, we’ re putting everything to bed, fixing everything, getting stuff prepared for the next day, and getting water going if we have to fertilize. We mow mornings, midday afternoons and where we can fit the mowing schedule in— mowing half the complex every day, so we’ re rotating. We do some edging and maintenance, and if we know there will be downtime on a field, we might do some aeration. It’ s pick a task and do it.
SFM: Is there anything else you would like to add or anything our readers should know? Dobbins: Major league teams have their major league stadiums, and minor league teams have their minor league stadiums. There’ s no real category for spring training complexes, but we are held to major league standards. We kind of get forgotten; we are in this gray zone. Donovan: One of the big questions we get is what we do outside of spring training. For me, it feels busier outside of spring training. For spring training, we’ re dialed in, and we’ re just taking care of the team. Everybody’ s on the same page. Outside of that, we have tournaments going on throughout the day. We have three different shifts per day— early shift, midday shift and night shift— so it starts getting more challenging with scheduling. You have more users on the complex because you have different clients— the team, tournaments, etc.; so, outside of spring training it feels a little bit busier. Many people have no idea what happens at these complexes outside of spring training, because they’ re labeled as a spring training complex. I like to educate people and let them know what we do year round. sportsfieldmanagementonline. com June 2025 | SportsField Management
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