SportsTurf

September 2016

SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.

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FACILITY & OPERATIONS 30 SportsTurf | September 2016 www.sportsturfonline.com world—and his reasons may surprise you. As a young man in 1981, Mellor's prospects were good. He was a star athlete. A scouted pitcher in high school with scholarship offers, he set his sights on the pitcher's mound at Fenway Park. Then, one night, he was crossing a parking lot heading into a McDonald's restaurant. He heard a car rev its engine. He stopped to let the car pass. The driver waved him on, then the car lunged forward and hit him straight on, throwing him 20 feet across the parking lot, landing him in a crumped heap against the wall of the McDonald's building. He heard the engine rev again and the car lunged forward for a second time, pinning his leg. In that moment he knew his dreams of pitching at Fenway were over. Mellor had to fi nd a new dream. "When I got hit by the car and realized I couldn't play anymore after my third surgery, my family urged me to fi nd a career that I would love to do because so many people don't like their job. I thought, 'What do I like? I love being outside. I grew up taking care of people's lawns. Science was a subject that I enjoyed in school. And I loved baseball.' I thought, 'Somebody has to take care of the fi eld.' My brother Terry lived in Milwaukee at the time and he told me that if I could get a job with the Brewers, I could live with him to save money to make ends meet," Mellor says. But how do you get a job on Major League Baseball crew DAVID MELLOR OF THE BOSTON RED SOX: THE LUCKIEST MAN IN THE WORLD ■ BY STACIE ZINN ROBERTS D avid Mellor says he's the luckiest man in the world. And if all you knew about this lifelong Boston Red Sox fan was that he works as the Senior Director of Grounds at Fenway Park and is responsible for the sports fi eld for the BoSox, you'd probably very quickly agree. But the Green Monster, the breaking of the Curse of the Bambino, and the fated World Championship that resulted are not the reasons why Mellor says he's the luckiest man in the PHOTO CREDIT JACKSON HOLEWA Dave Mellor and Drago.

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