There is an hour before first pitch when the ballpark looks almost ready. That’s when the real work is still happening. The fans are starting to drift in. The players are somewhere between done with batting practice and ready to become the evening’s attraction. The field looks like a field, which is the idea; pro baseball fields always look the way they are supposed to, to the untrained eye. Green where they are green, brown where they are brown. Lines where lines go. Bases sitting there looking like pizza boxes.
Then you watch Oakland’s Lord of the Grounds - Head Groundskeeper Anthony Alejandrez- and Assistant Groundskeeper Jason move around Raimondi Park, and you realize the whole thing is held together by sweat, timing, water, dirt, and whatever emotional and physical conditioning makes a person choose this on purpose.
I have seen them rake, drag, water, fix, sprint, improvise, and fight equipment that looked like it had made a personal decision to ruin their day. During the recent opening homestand of this season, Anthony needed another body to help drag the infield, and I put my camera down so fast you would have thought I had just been called up to the show. I dragged the infield twice; I am counting it.
FYI: I am not exactly neutral here. I am an Oakland fan investor. I put $5K into the club, which has become one of those sentences I say today, with less pride and more of an internal wince; that’ll be another article for another time. I am also a season-ticket holder, a baseball photographer, a creator, an editor, a lifetime baseball sicko, and someone who has learned that organizations can disappoint you while the baseball people inside them are still worth paying attention to. Anthony is one of those people. When I visit Raimondi in Oakland, he’s always the first to say hi.
I met him at the Oakland owners meeting (Pioneer League) before the 2025 season. He was alone, on a ladder, working on a sign. I said what’s up because I like baseball people, especially the ones who fix things while everyone else is talking.
Raimondi itself is not a ballpark I love in the traditional sense. It is not cute. It is not polished. The nets are everywhere. Left field is really short. The batting cage area looks like it has been through an emotional era. The area around the park is better than it was, but it still carries that Oakland edge: rough, tough, passionate, guarded, and not especially worried about making you comfortable. But that is also part of what I love about Oakland. Shoutout to the putting green crew behind CF.
Raimondi is a historic ballpark. This is where professional baseball is being played; legends have been there (Frank Robinson, Rickey Henderson, Curt Flood). The place went downhill over time. The team cleaned it up, and The Town got a baseball team in a form that is imperfect, underpowered, scrappy, and actually is in Oakland. Especially when a team that shall not be mentioned ran away from the area recently. #FJF
Before Anthony became Head Groundskeeper, he was already doing the job in pieces. Facilities, event operations, and field stuff. Finding ushers to help when the crew did not have enough hands. Filling whatever gap the baseball team created that day. That is the part about Indy Ball that people romanticize until they are actually standing there with a rake and a deadline. There are not always enough bodies, and there is not always enough time, and you can guarantee that there is always another thing to do.
When the team decided to bring groundskeeping in-house, Anthony was not exactly a stranger applying from the outside. He had already been part of the place’s nervous system. He had been helping it survive. Ramondi Park turned into his baby.
He is not some all-knowing old wizard of grass. He just started the head position this season. That makes this better. He is learning the field in real time by trial and error. Like the athletes who play on the field he maintains, Anthony has his own daily routine: show up, adjust, make corrections, and come back the next day ready to do it again- only trying to bring a little less dirt home every day.
So I asked him to rank the things that give him the most trouble. The stuff that decides whether a baseball field is playable. The answer became the map.
Groundskeeper WAR Model -Anthony Alejandrez
Water > Grass > Dirt > Weather > Usage
Water
Grade: 80
Why: Controls bad hops, hardness, player trust, and whether the infield plays like dirt or concrete. Water is the ace pitch.
That is the part most fans miss. The field does not just need water because grass is alive, and dirt gets dusty. The field needs water because baseball is a game of surfaces. A hop is not just a hop. It is an accord among the players, the ball, the dirt, and whoever prepared the ground before the fans came in. Anthony said no infielder wants to play on concrete.
That is the whole thing. Nobody wants a hard-ass surface turning routine grounders into personal attacks. At Raimondi, he will flood the infield late at night after everyone is gone, sometimes spending around 45 minutes with the hose to get enough moisture into the dirt so it does not wake up useless the next morning. Then it gets watered again. Then again, after batting practice. Then one more full pass before the first pitch. That is not maintenance. That is routine.
Grass
Grade: 65 present / 80 obsession
Why: Fans see green grass. Anthony sees every place that could look better.
Grass is the part everybody thinks they understand because it is visible. You can look at a field and say it looks good. Anthony can look at the same field and see a list of problems forming in his head like a scouting report he did not ask for. Dry spot there, the color could be better here. Maybe that patch needs more water tonight. Maybe the whole thing is fine, except that the standard changes when you have to stare at it every day. This is where groundskeeping becomes art, or obsession, depending on how many hours you have slept.
I asked Anthony about his favorite grass, which is a ridiculous question and therefore an important one. He tried to think his way through the entire grass community and eventually landed where he had to land: Raimondi. I did help him, though. Hey, he’s still “green”.
Then I asked his least favorite grass. “Turf.” Which is correct, because turf is not grass. Turf is a perversion of the game. Baseball needs dirt and grass stains. Baseball needs a surface that can betray you honestly. Brown turf infields look shiny and wrong, like somebody tried to simulate baseball after only hearing about it in a meeting.
Dirt
Grade: 60 difficulty / 80 comedy
Why: Dirt is fixable, but it follows him home.
Dirt should be Anthony’s spiritual home. He worked at Long Beach State, the Dirtbags. That feels too perfect, almost too perfect. But his favorite kind of dirt was simpler: any dirt not directly on his face.
That is the groundskeeper's life. Dirt on the field. Dirt on the rake. Dirt in the car. Dirt under the fingernails. Dirt in places that were not part of the job description, but apparently signed up anyway. Anthony said one of the biggest learning curves was remembering not to sit anywhere when he got home until he was cleaned up.
This is why fans understate the job. They see dirt and think rake. The actual work is grading, raking, rolling, dragging, packing, painting, repairing, watering, reading, adjusting, and then doing it again because players have cleats and baseball does not care about yesterday. Dirt is fixable, but that does not mean it is easy.
Weather
Grade: 50 opponent / 70 respect
Why: In season, the weather behaves enough to rank fourth. But nobody beats the weather forever. Weather ranking fourth says more about Oakland than it does about the weather.
During the season, the sky usually gives Raimondi a little mercy. Not always, but enough. Rain is still a problem because Raimondi is not operating with the kind of resources that make weather feel like a manageable inconvenience. At higher levels, tarp pulls look choreographed. At places like this, the weather feels more like a negotiation with someone who already does not like you.
Usage
Grade: 40 headache / 100 purpose
Why: Because you play at ballparks
Usage is last because Anthony does not treat people using the field as a problem. Little League, high school, pro games, batting practice, events, fans, players- all of it wears the place down. But that is what the field is for. A perfect field with nobody on it is just a well-kept lot. The field is not supposed to stay perfect. It is supposed to be ready. Usage is last on the headache list because usage is the whole point.
Raimondi Park
Raimondi has 15 rocking chairs now. That might sound like a small thing, but it tells you how Anthony thinks about a ballpark. He is not just staring at the infield. He is looking at where people sit, where they gather, where the place breathes. When I asked what he would add with an unlimited budget, he did not go straight to some massive baseball operations upgrade. He wanted a green-and-gold rocking chair section. Simple. Gamer.
That is baseball at this level. Not luxury for the sake of luxury. Just a better place to sit, watch, talk, and exist inside a game. Anthony said he feels like a minor league baseball kind of guy. Places without a lot of hands, places that need work, places where one person can still matter. He said he might be wasted somewhere else. He probably would be.
When asked if Raimondi had a character, Anthony called it angry, and I believe him. It beats him up, it dirties his car, it takes his time. It once gave him a baseball injury, even though he isn’t playing baseball. He strained his UCL before the postseason and ended up in championship photos looking like a groundskeeper who had gone twelve rounds with the facility itself. That is brutally funny, but it is also the job. He keeps coming back because he loves it. Not because Raimondi is easy. He keeps coming back because baseball people do that. They show up. They fix the sign. They drag the infield. They water the dirt. They notice the grass. They fight the weather. They make room for the fans. Then they do it again.
DYK: Women in MLB Groundskeeping
Heather Nabozny became MLB’s first female head groundskeeper with the Detroit Tigers. Nicole Sherry later became the second with the Baltimore Orioles. Groundskeeping has its own history, its own barriers, and its own legends. Fans just rarely learn the names.
If you want someone who puts the camera down to drag the infield and still finds the story in it - I’m available. Photography, writing, video, podcasting. Independent ball, collegiate, amateur, women’s game, pro.
If you run a team, a facility, an event, or a brand that lives inside this sport - let’s talk. DM or email crod@9inningnomad.com