{"id":250286,"date":"2025-09-24T00:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250286\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T00:48:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T00:48:13","slug":"after-18-seasons-giants-groundskeeper-is-leaving-for-another-bay-area-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250286\/","title":{"rendered":"After 18 seasons, Giants groundskeeper is leaving for another Bay Area team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want the latest Bay Area sports news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<\/a> to receive regular email newsletters, including \u201cThe Dime.\u201d<\/p>\n

For 18 seasons, Giants head groundskeeper Greg Elliott and his staff had the challenging chore of keeping the Oracle Park field in pristine condition to improve the ballpark experience for fans but, mostly, benefit players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe provide the canvas for the artist,\u201d Elliott said.<\/p>\n

A career with the Giants that began in 2008 and included three World Series runs is coming to a close after the final 2025 homestand as Elliott is moving on to become head groundskeeper for the San Jose Earthquakes.<\/p>\n

Elliott, 51, not only oversaw field preparation and maintenance for every game of every homestand but the transitions from the many non-baseball events the Giants hosted when the team was on the road, all having an effect on the grass and dirt. He also dealt with the tricky elements due to San Francisco\u2019s unique weather patterns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful for the opportunity to work here and the trust the team put in me over the years,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cYou always want to leave your mark, and you always want to leave a place better than when you started.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his 2008 arrival, Elliott, who was hired by Jorge Costa, the longtime ballpark operations chief, was on the ground floor of the championship run. He has three World Series rings and rode in three parades. He later dived into the analytics age, especially after Farhan Zaidi showed up in 2019, with new methods of field testing and moisture readings for playability and safety. And this year, it was a full-circle experience with Buster Posey returning to prominence as the president of baseball operations.<\/p>\n

Elliott played a role in various Oracle Park reconfigurations, especially when the outfield walls were moved in and the bullpens were removed from beyond the foul lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat move made it a safer playing surface for the athletes,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cIt also made it a more enjoyable experience for players. With the bullpens on the field, we had everyone in the dugout. So now the pitchers are separate and have their space to focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few players were involved in the field process as much as four-time Gold Glove shortstop Brandon Crawford, who often communicated with Elliott about his likes and dislikes regarding the infield. The grounds crew generally caters to players\u2019 preferences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always tried to hit the individual position spots for how they wanted it,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cFor example, the third basemen. Pablo Sandoval liked it a little more wet, a little more slippery because he liked to dive and get dirty. For Evan Longoria, it was more about making it wet and firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrawford was not too different, but we would have conversations if it wasn\u2019t feeling right or wasn\u2019t playing the same, what we would do, and then we\u2019d see each other over a course of three days and crack the issue, whether it\u2019s moisture management, whether the amount of conditioners were down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current third baseman, five-time Gold Glover Matt Chapman, recently expressed to Elliott his disappointment in the hardness of the infield around the bag, a reason his hands have been scraped and bloodied so often this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe field was really hard,\u201d Chapman said Tuesday. \u201cObviously, I was getting cut up and scraped up all year, so it was unfortunate. But I know they\u2019re putting their best effort out there now to get it fixed up for this last homestand, and hopefully it won\u2019t be an issue moving forward.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a challenge for the grounds crew to transform the field back to a playing surface after non-baseball events are staged on the field. There were eight this season, meaning for most of the Giants trips, events were taking place on the Oracle Park field. With concerts, the speaker stand often is placed right around the third base area.<\/p>\n

More recently, an Aug. 23 soccer match involving Bay FC prompted the grounds crew to turn the baseball field into a soccer pitch and back to a baseball field. Last homestand, after hearing from Chapman, Elliott made an effort to soften the dirt around third base and other spots, placing 25 bags of conditioners (50 pounds each) across five infield locations.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest job is to prevent players from noticing anything different when they are gone and come back,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cRecently, we haven\u2019t done as good a job as we would have liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elliott said his move to the Earthquakes isn\u2019t related to any particular player feedback; it\u2019s been in the works for two months. With the Earthquakes, he\u2019ll have more time, especially nights, to be with his family. He has four children, the youngest 8 years old.<\/p>\n

Elliot has two full-time assistants, Johnny Franco and Kevin Wallace, who have been on the crew nearly as long as Elliott, along with 60 part-timers.<\/p>\n

Alfonso Felder, who oversees ballpark operations, called Elliott \u201can amazing part of the organization. This is an exciting opportunity, so we\u2019re happy for him and incredibly appreciative with everything he\u2019s brought to the Giants the last 18 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for a replacement, Felder said nothing would materialize until after the season and added, \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of confidence with the team we\u2019ve got.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want the latest Bay Area sports news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here to receive regular email…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,1275,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-250286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-san-francisco-giants","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115256525344151321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}