Kansas City Royals All-Time 25-Man Roster

Groundskeeper #1—George Toma

(with Royals from 1969 to 1995)

George Toma got his first job working on baseball fields when he was 13 years old. He lived across the street from a man who worked as the groundskeeper for the Wilkes-Barre Barons of the Class A Eastern League and the man gave Toma a job when he was just a teenager. Three years later, Toma was hired by Bill Veeck as a groundskeeper in Cleveland.

Toma’s affiliation with Kansas City began in 1957. The Kansas City Athletics offered him the job of head groundskeeper at Municipal Stadium, which was the home field of the Athletics in baseball, the Chiefs in football, and the Spurs in soccer. He was warned against taking the job by the groundskeeper he worked with in Cleveland, Emil Bossard. Bossard told Toma, “Don’t go to Kansas City. It’s a very bad field. In the springtime it will flood you out, in the summertime it gets so hot it’ll bake you out.” Toma took the job anyway. He went to work on the baseball field on November 1, 1957. He didn’t have a full-time crew, so he did the work of multiple men by himself.

Sod farms had yet to be invented, so Toma and his mentor, Dr. James Watson (an agronomist for the Toro Company) had to figure it out for themselves. They used a combination of bluegrass, fine fescues, and ryegrass from March to May. Around Memorial Day, they added Bermuda. After nine months of care from Toma, the Kansas City field was considered the best in baseball.

Toma was an artist when it came to crafting a playing surface. He had little money, inadequate equipment, and limited manpower, but was resourceful enough to maintain the turf at a level never seen before in professional sports. His success with the field in Kansas City attracted the eye of NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle. Soon after, Toma was brought on board to prep the field for the league’s first championship in 1967. The NFL championship would be re-named the Super Bowl in 1969. Toma was the groundskeeper for that game and every other Super Bowl for the next 45 years. He was also hired to supervise the grounds crews during the 1984 and 1996 Olympic Games and the 1994 World Cup.

Through the evolution of playing surfaces, from grass to artificial turf and back again, Toma kept the fields he worked in in pristine condition. In 1997, he passed the torch to a member of the Royals ground crew named Trevor Vance. Vance said Toma’s perfectionism rubbed off on everyone he worked with. Toma was known for saying “and then some”, which signified the extra effort needed to maintain exceptional fields.

Vance said of Toma’s mantra, “It’s so true, that’s what separates people. What separates the great from the good is the ‘and then some’. It was really about taking your time and doing the job right the first time, because we might not have time to do it a second time. He really instilled that in everybody: if you’re gonna do it, do it right. Your work is the signature of you, so do it right.”

Toma and his mentor, Emil Bossard, were inaugural inductees into the Major League Baseball Groundskeepers Hall of Fame on January 8, 2012. Later that year, he was inducted into the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame.

Kansas City Royals All-Time 25-Man Roster:

More from Call to the Pen

Starting Lineup

LF Willie Wilson

CF Amos Otis

3B George Brett

DH Hal McRae

RF Carlos Beltran

1B Mike Sweeney

2B Frank White

C Salvador Perez

SS Freddie Patek

Bench

C Darrell Porter

1B John Mayberry

3B Kevin Seitzer

SS Alcides Escobar

OF/3B Alex Gordon

OF Lorenzo Cain

Starting Rotation

Kansas City Royals

SP Kevin Appier

SP Bret Saberhagen

SP Mark Gubicza

SP Dennis Leonard

SP Paul Splittorff

SP Zack Greinke

Relievers

RP Dan Quisenberry

RP Jeff Montgomery

RP Joakim Soria

RP Greg HOlland

Bonus Player

OF Bo Jackson

Head Groundskeeper

George Toma

Next: Phillies race for third

Just Missed the Cut (the next 10 players)

C Mike Macfarlane

3B Joe Randa

SS U.L. Washington

OF Johnny Damon

OF Danny Tartabull

OF David DeJesus

SP Charlie Liebrant

RP Wade Davis

RP Steve Farr

RP Kelvin Herrera