Field of dreams for Dave Mellor
5 Sep, 2008 Athletic Turf NewsThe handiwork of Dave Mellor, the grounds manager at Fenway Park, is seen by millions of people annually. These include the fans at the historic ballpark and those watching televised games. That audience has grown significantly thanks to the remarkable success of the Boston Red Sox in recent years.
In addition to being an excellent baseball "dirtman," Mellor is generally acknowledged as the master at producing eye-pleasing patterns and designs in the turfgrass portions of the baseball field. He has written two popular books on turf maintenance, one of them dealing specifically with mowing (more specficially using the rollers on the mower) to produce these stripes and patterns.
These facts are generally well known by most of his colleagues in the relatively small fraternity of sports field managers. What they probably don't know is that Mellor's links to Fenway Park actually go back several generations in his family.
Writer Jeff Horrigan wrote an illuminating article about Mellor and his round about journey to Fenway in a recent article in the Boston Herald. Click here for the article.
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