Harland Pritchard, Brooklyn Eagle
BROOKLYN, May 22–In the great and noble game of baseball, where titanic batsmen duel with cunning pitchers and fleet-footed outfielders pursue looping flies, it is easy to overlook the humble yet indispensable figure of the groundskeeper. And yet, at Bromwich Park, the verdant home of our beloved Brooklyn Whales, one such man exerts his quiet dominion over the very earth upon which champions tread. His name is Ezekiel Murdoch, though to those who know him, he is simply “Ziggy,” the wizard of the sod.
A grizzled figure with the leathern complexion of a mariner, Murdoch has tended the Bromwich greensward since the ballpark first opened its gates. He is not merely a caretaker of grass and dirt but a conjurer of surfaces, a sculptor of base paths, and, some say, a practitioner of arcane horticultural arts. It is whispered among ballplayers that Murdoch can bend the infield to his will, making the clay quick or sluggish to suit the Whales’ particular needs. More than one opposing speedster has cursed the uncanny softness of Bromwich’s base paths, which seem to sap the very swiftness from their cleats.
Born to Scottish parents in a railroad camp near Pittsburgh, Murdoch’s childhood was spent with hands in the soil and eyes on the diamond. Before his tenure in Brooklyn, he honed his craft at Reds Park in St. Louis, where he forged a friendship and collaborative partnership with Whales’ manager Marques Williams. The two men formed a relationship out of mutual respect with Murdoch earning Williams’ admiration as a man who understood the game from the roots up—quite literally. When Williams made his way to Brooklyn after being fired in St. Louis, he made sure to bring Murdoch with him.
Something of a virtuouso, it is said that Murdoch can detect a blade of crabgrass at twenty paces and that his knowledge of Kentucky bluegrass is second only to his understanding of human folly. Yet it is not merely his mastery of grass that sets Ziggy apart, but rather the peculiar habits by which he enacts it.
Each morning, before the ballplayers arrive, he walks the outfield, speaking in low, cryptic tones—whether to the grass itself or to some unseen spirit of the game, none can say. He trims the outfield in intricate patterns, claiming that the geometry pleases the gods. When asked why he refuses to rake the base paths during a waning moon, he merely shakes his head and mutters, “Bad for the footing. Bad for the soul.”
His greatest enmity, however, is reserved for the pigeons that nest in the grandstand eaves, whom he regards as saboteurs of the highest order. “Spies,” he calls them, often with a baleful glare and a wave of his trusty rake. On more than one occasion, he has been seen launching well-aimed handfuls of infield dirt at the feathered intruders, cursing them in Gaelic for their insolence.
Yet for all his oddities, Murdoch’s genius over the Bromwich grounds is undisputed. The Whales have long enjoyed one of the fairest playing surfaces in the league, the envy of visiting clubs and a point of pride for Brooklyn’s faithful. The outfield is a velvet carpet, the infield truer than a surveyor’s line. And if the grass has been whispered to, if the clay has been cajoled into cooperation by strange incantations—well, who among us would dare question a man whose work speaks so eloquently for itself?
In the grand order of our national pastime, where the names of bat-wielding colossi are etched into legend, let us not forget the silent craftsmen like Ziggy Murdoch, whose labors form the very stage upon which our heroes perform. Whether wizard, madman, or merely the finest groundskeeper in the Republic, he is, above all, a Brooklyn man—and that, dear reader, is honor enough.