When the Brewers' grounds crew first arrived, they faced a nightmare. Photocourtesy: David Mellor.

Milwaukee Brewers' Rainy Day MiracleBy Bob Tracinski

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en the ordinary suddenlybecomes extraordinary, well-defined procedures, teamwork,

innovative planning and persistence canpull off victory. Imagine yourself in thetrenches with the Milwaukee Brewers'grounds crew and slosh in their shoesthrough a devastating rain last summer.

Day One - The Rains Fell"It all started on June 21st, after the

June 20th ball game," says DavidMellor, assistant director of grounds atMilwaukee County Stadium. "We sawthe storm on our DTN weather system,but it looked normal, so we followed ourusual precautionary procedure: we puton the tarp and went home."

"At 3:10 in the morning, my house litup with lightning. I turned on theweather channel and saw an ugly redstorm-line directly over Milwaukee."

Although crew report time was 7a.m., Mellor headed out at 5:30.

"The highway ramp was flooded with2 1/2 feet of water, and the inbound lanewas closed," Mellor says. "It took 1 1/2

hours to get through what is usually a15-minute drive."

Eight inches of rain had fallen innine hours. Meteorologists later saidthe rains came from a "chaining effect,"storm fronts linking together and main-taining a long-term assault on an area.But in the early morning, Mellor onlyknew that water was coming up andrain was falling down.

"Soon two-thirds of the outfield wascovered," Mellor says, "and by mid-morning the water reached a three-footdepth."

Since Milwaukee County Stadiumhas a crown running through the mid-dle of the field, the infield grass was notflooded. But water seeped beneath thetarp, and homeplate and all bases weresubmerged.

"We felt, if the rain stopped, thewater would go down," GaryVandenBerg, director of grounds, notes."We had a night game scheduled andone of the biggest crowds of the yearbooked. Mr. [Bud] Selig, our owner, obvi-ously wanted to play and wanted us tomake it happen if there was any way."

"Coming into the stadium that morn-

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ing was like walking into a nightmare,"says Kirt Bakos, lead person for theBrewers' grounds crew. ''You hoped youcould just open your eyes and it wouldall go away. We didn't know what toexpect. But Gary and Dave were pre-pared for everything, coordinating plansand feeding information and assign-ments to us. That approach - that thiswas just another challenge, not a crisis,and here's how we're going to handle it- kept it all on track."

"Finally, at 11:00 a.m., the rainstopped," VandenBerg says. "At thatpoint, we still hoped to get in the game."But that was not to be.

''The rains had come so fast and hard,"Mellor says, "the city sewer system filledwith debris. The water kept backing upbecause it had no place to go."

Besides water, the crew also had tocope with a flood of reporters.

"I spent much of my time sitting onthe sidelines with Mr. Selig and ourboss, Gabe Paul Jr.," VandenBerg says,"dealing with various media represen-tatives and assuring them that once thestorm sewers would take water, thefield would drain." He also needed to

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correct earlier media reports that therewas no water on the field.

"Those on the morning helicopterflights over County Stadium saw greenand thought everything was okay,"Mellor says. "What they really saw wasgrass clippings floating on top of 3 1/2feet of water."

Fighting BackDuring the early morning hours,

crew members wove their way throughflooded streets, reported for duty andjoined the battle.

"Obviously, working conditions werefar from ideal," VandenBerg says. ''Yetno one complained; no one begged offan assignment."

"Everyone was ready for action,"Mellor says. "Once the rains stopped,our first area of attack was the infield.We squeegeed as much water as wecould from the tarp. Then crew mem-bers formed a line and folded back oneside. They moved around the tarp, fold-ing in the other three sides, and thenfolded in each corner to expose wetareas."

"Homeplate wasn't just covered withwater," Bakos says. "It was submerged.We formed a big chain line and passedbuckets of water back to the stands.Crew members on the line were up totheir knees in standing water."

"Removing the water was only thefirst step," Mellor adds. "Much of theclay in the homeplate section was sowet you would sink over your foot if youtried to step on it. We couldn't bring atractor onto the field or even a wheel-barrow."

"Two of us concentrated on thehomeplate section," Bakos says. ''Weraked up the soggy clay with bow rakesand put it in buckets. Other crew mem-bers moved it to the parking lot. Wekept raking down until we hit clay thatwas at least semi-workable. We startedadding Pros Choice, and eventuallyadded 50 bags to get the plate back inshape."

Finally about 2 o'clock, the sun cameout, and optimism built for getting inthat night's game. But with the suncame heat.

"We knew things were heating upunder the tarp," Mellor says. "When welifted a corner, the air underneath feltas hot as opening an oven door. Thetarp itself was an island. The area

For six hours the grounds crew pumped fresh air beneath the infield tarp toprevent scorching and disease. Photo courtesy: Milwaukee Brewers.

around it was soggy, and the outfieldwas still flooded. So there was nowhere to go with the tarp, even if wecould have rolled it up."

VandenBerg and Mellor devised aworkable alternative. They had 14 or

15 crew members hold one side of thetarp and "do the wave."

"In synchronized action," saysMellor, "they lifted the edge of that 16-ounce tarp above their heads and low-ered it, repeating this again and again

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David Mellor (left) and Gary VandenBerg direct a helicopter to help dry thefield. Photo by: J. Adcock.

to pump cooler air underneath the tarpto replace the super-heated air. After ashort break, they'd move to anotherside. This kept the grass from scorching

and helped avoid disease."At 3 p.m., that night's game was

called off. Making the announcement,Selig noted that to his knowledge, it

was the first Major League game can-celed by a flood.At that point, 3 1/2 feetof water covered the warning track andoutfield and was receding only an inchan hour.

The crew kept up their pace. Theydidn't want to lose the 1 p.m. gamescheduled the next day, too. The tarp"wave" cool-down continued for six longhours.

"Anyone who has rolled up a tarpknows how heavy they are," Bakossays, "and can imagine how tiring thisprocess was. We alternated people asoften as we could. Short breaks reallyhelped. Finally the sun dropped lowenough so the super-heating stoppedand temperatures stabilized."

VandenBerg and Mellor monitoredthe situation that evening and fine-tuned their plans for the next day'smassive cleanup. Fortunately, the fieldwas in excellent condition prior to therain, and it was vertidrained eight daysbefore. When the sewer system finallycleared, it was like a huge toilet flush-ing.

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"The water started going downabout eight that night," Mellor says.''We could see air bubbles rising to thesurface as the water went through thevertidrain holes." Knowing the drain-ing process was underway, they gaveup for the day.

"I asked the night crewman to callme if anything unusual happened,"VandenBerg says. "He called about10:30 that night, about an hour and ahalf after we left, and reported thewater had all gone down."

Day Two - Executing the PlanOn day two, the field was nearly

clear of water, but brown scum coatedpreviously submerged areas.

"The siphoning effect not only pulled.the water down through the drains,"VandenBerg notes, "it also pulled warn-ing-track materials right on throughthe drainage system."

The dugouts were filled with water,which sump pumps cleared. The cam-era pits also were flooded, and two$250,000 cameras floated on top - anugly sight for the TV crews that showedup later that morning.

But to the grounds crew, there was nodoubt: they would have the field readyfor play by 1p.m. The plan developed thenight before was executed.

"The entire surface of the warningtrack, over one-quarter mile, was cov-ered with a slick, ugly residue," Mellorsays. "One set of crew members beganraking and removing those top 1 to 2inches of contaminated, scummy mate-rial. They transported it to the parkinglot, then brought in new crushed gran-ite to replace it.

''We arranged to have a helicopterfrom a local TV station help dry out thefield and 'fluff' the turf. They came at 6a.m. for the first session and stayed forthree hours. We had a crew member inthe helicopter with a two-way radio,and had him move them around to wetareas that needed it the most. Theykept sweeping across the field fromspot to spot."

"Along with the residue," Bakossays, "the flood left all kinds of debrison the outfield. Ten of our crew con-verged on the outfield turf with metalfan rakes and cleaned the entire area.They found all sorts of stuff, includingwood chunks and spikes." Luckily, thefield escaped deposits of raw sewage,which had backed up into the base-

ments of many homes from the cloggedsewer.

"Instructions to the crew were spe-cific," Bakos says, "with a specialreminder about the basics. We didn'twant players slipping or twistingankles. Crew members walked the basepath making sure there were no softspots, and those raking the outfield andwarning track checked every inch as

they worked."About 8 a.m., mowing started."We were working on the homeplate

area," Bakos says, "when they broughtthe walk-behind greensmower out tomow the infield turf. We looked at thejob it was doing and thought, 'Why notgive it a try?' We covered the homeplatearea with that mower about 15 times,making each pass in a slightly different

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Because of thetarp, some areas ofthe infield skin werenot saturated. Whenpreparatory water-ing began, "Therewere interesting re-actions from every-one except our crew,"VandenBerg reports,"so I put more timeinto the explanationend of the job."

"Because thegrass was so muddy,"Bakos says, "mowingwas a bear. The dustwould come up and

hit you in the face. Dave said I lookedlike that Pigpen character from the'Peanuts' comic strip moving across thefield. It took about a week or so beforethat dust all filtered its way down tosoil level."

The rest of the day's activitiesfocused on business as "unusual."

"There were multiple extra thingsthat had to be done over and above the

The June 21 rain left 3 1/2 feet of water on Milwaukee'sfield. Photo by: Rob Erdman.

direction. The clay didn't stick to theroller, and it did a great job of smooth-ing out the surface."

Later that morning the helicopterreturned for a 45-minute drying ses-SIOn.

"At that point," VandenBerg notes,"the air movement from the helicopteralso helped to move some of theremaining dusty residue off the turf."

usual," VandenBerg says, "includingextra work on the homeplate area, theoutfield and the warning track. We hadto make sure safety standards were notneglected in the rush to get the fieldready."

"Safety was our main priority,"Mellor adds. "Gary and I concentratedon the overall picture so everyone elsecould pay attention to what they need-ed to do. We couldn't let the distrac-tions get in the way. That was key."

VandenBerg and Mellor met withthe Brewers' and Royals' managersaround 11 a.m. Infield practice startedat 11:30 and the game at 1 o'clock, asscheduled.

"One thing is constant in sports turfmanagement," Mellor says. ''Whenstrange things happen, you're right in themiddle, and everybody looks to you foranswers. It's your job to have them." 0

Bob Tracinski is public relationsmanager for John Deere Co. in Raleigh,N.C., and public relations co-chair forthe national Sports Turf ManagersAssociation.

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