Gary Shepherd
HEAD GROUNDSKEEPER, TULSA DRILLERS
Shepherd takes his job maintaining the playing surface at ONEOK Field just as seriously as the athletes who play on it. His most complex task is coordinating the transformation of the field from baseball for Tulsa Drillers to soccer for Tulsa Roughnecks (and back again). Since the two clubs share the stadium and their seasons are concurrent, Shepherd usually performs the conversion 8-10 times a season. Typically two matches occur per conversion, but occasionally there is only a single game. Pre- and post-baseball season soccer matches might see more field uses. Shepherd, who joined the Drillers in 1993, has been the club’s head groundskeeper since 1999. “I knew immediately when I first started working out here, that I would want to do this on a full-time basis for a long time,” he says. “There’s nothing else I’d want to do.” The conversion from baseball diamond to soccer pitch makes for a long day, but five years since the Roughnecks began, Shepherd has the process down to a science. The work begins immediately after the final out of the last Drillers game of the series: 10 P.M.: Once the baseball game ends, Shepherd and his grounds crew of six remove the top quarter-inch of conditioner from the infield dirt. “That’s guys with rakes and shovels and utilizing our utility vehicle to remove it and then put it in a pile down here in our storage area,” Shepherd says. They also have other typical post-game duties, such as covering the bullpen areas and the pitcher’s mound with a tarp, among other things. 11 P.M.: Home for the night. 7:30 A.M.: The next morning, Shepherd coordinates with a private company, JonesPlan, which handles much of the grass overlay. With about six to eight of its own employees, JonesPlan begins preparing the infield, taking some more dirt off the edges, to eventually blend the new grass in with the existing outfield grass. They also lay down a barrier on top of the infield dirt. “It’s called a geo-textile material — it’s real thin, but it’s permeable so water can get through but not dirt or sand, so that the soil from the sod will not mix with our infield dirt,” Shepherd says. 8 A.M.: While JonesPlan works on the infield, Shepherd and his assistant take care of the pitcher’s mound area. The retractable mound drops into the ground. Eight pie-shaped pieces of solid foam material levels off the mound, which Shepherd tops with a tarp, and then 2-3 tons of sand on top of that. “That levels everything out to the existing grade of the infield,” he explains.
Gary Shepherd has been the head groundskeeper for the Tulsa Drillers since 1999. He leads his team in the conversion of ONEOK Field from a baseball diamond to a soccer pitch for the Tulsa Roughnecks.
11 A.M.: Once the sand is in place on the pitcher’s mound area, a layer of that thin fabric is put down to prepare for the installation of the grass on top of it.
as well as the pitcher’s mound area and some small sections of the outfield warning track where the soccer field also extends. “They lay the sod because it comes in big rolls, 40 inches wide and 150-feet long rolls, so it’s huge,” Shepherd says. “And you need equipment to lay it out, which we don’t have.” While JonesPlan installs the sod, Shepherd follows behind them and begins hand-watering the areas already down. He also sets string lines to prepare for painting the soccer field markings afterwards.
NOON: Truckloads of fresh sod grass arrive, and JonesPlan starts laying it down on the prepared infield,
5 P.M.: When the sod is down and the grass is watered, JonesPlan leaves, but Shepherd still has a few other
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TulsaPeople JULY 2019
tasks. Next, he’ll get out a big, 1-ton roller and drive it all over the sod to secure it. “That firms it up a little bit and then we top dress it, putting a ton and a half of sand on top of the sod to help keep it in place,” he says. 6:30 P.M.: “Sometimes it needs to be mowed, sometimes it doesn’t,” Shepherd says of the newly installed sod, which he has to blend in with the already-existing outfield grass. 7:30 P.M.: Shepherd paints the soccer field lines onto the field, or perhaps he’ll wait, depending on how much time there is before the next soccer game.