FIELD OF THE YEAR PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL
ment , that , he said , “ Would take a quarter pallet of sod to cover .”
He got a raise , and then another raise , moved to a townhouse , bought a car , and eventually moved to a condo . From there , Taylor landed a job with the Jackson Generals .
“ From day one I was like , ‘ I ’ m not going to take a day off . I ’ m going to check on the field and do something productive every day .’ We ended up winning the Field of the Year Award in 2017 from the TTA ( Tennessee Turfgrass Association ),” said Taylor . “ We came back in 2018 , and I decided to go back to the drawing board and reinvent what we were doing . We attacked it with a different mindset and a different fertility plan . I had more guys doing more things , trying to take stuff off my plate . We won the Field of the Year again from the TTA , and were the first to win it back to back .”
At the end of 2018 , the Tennessee Smokies called Taylor and offered him a job as head groundskeeper . Taylor was intrigued by the opportunity to rebuild the field , because it had died in 2018 . He worked with Dr . Tom Samples and Dr . James Brosnan from The University of Tennessee , and installed TifTuf at Smokies Stadium . Taylor and his crew won the 2019 Tennessee Turfgrass Association Field of the Year ( three years in a row for Taylor ).
But the TTA Field of the Year win was not Taylor ’ s biggest accomplishment of 2019 . On April 15 of that year , Taylor celebrated 10 years of sobriety . “ I had built my name back up ,
I was getting respect — or at least
people were not associating my name with being an idiot ,” said Taylor .
In the meantime , Hound Dog became a fixture at Smokies Stadium . He would go to work with Taylor every day . “ When I would drag the field , Hound Dog would stand in the middle of the circle and slowly move over as we dragged ,” he said .
Then , after overseeding one night in September of 2019 , Taylor couldn ’ t find Hound Dog . He was not in the stadium .
The Smokies community responded and quickly put together more than $ 20,000 worth of rewards for the return of Hound Dog ( including season tickets , food vouchers , donations from vendors , and more ). After 17 days of looking for Hound Dog , Taylor got him back . It turned out that someone had taken him from the stadium .
“ I got to spend 57 days with him after that ,” said Taylor . Just before Thanksgiving of 2019 , Hound Dog suffered a stroke in the parking lot at work . He died four days later .
“ I was devastated by it ,” said a clearly emotional Taylor . “ I still am .”
NEW BEGINNINGS Taylor eventually started looking for a new dog and found a bloodhound he liked and was thinking of buying . Taylor ’ s boss and crew ultimately surprised him by buying the bloodhound for him as a gift .
“ I ended up naming him Cooperstown after the Baseball Hall of Fame ,” said Taylor .
Now , fresh off his STMA Field of the Year win , Taylor is in Memphis as the new head groundskeeper for the Memphis Redbirds . “ The biggest thing that attracted me to Memphis is flipping it from soccer to baseball and back ,” said Taylor . He added that he knows flipping a field from one sport to another is difficult and time consuming , but he wants to embrace those challenges .
“ I want to be a more complete groundskeeper ,” he added .
Taylor has shared his story at industry meetings , and hopes he can inspire others . His message : “ Go out and hire one person you normally wouldn ’ t hire . We all want the nice-looking kid straight out of college . But some of the best workers I ’ ve hired were long shots … people with their backs against the wall . Take a chance on someone .” SFM
John Kmitta is associate publisher and editorial brand director of Sports- Field Management magazine .
16 SportsField Management | March 2021 sportsfieldmanagementonline . com