On Sunday, September 13, 2026, Tod Shafer took the mound at Louisville Slugger Field with a baseball in his hand. The location was very familiar, but the reason was not.
With his son Tommy stationed behind home plate and his grounds crew by his side around the mound, Shafer tossed the ceremonial first pitch before the Louisville Bats’ final game of the regular season.
For Shafer, that game marked the end of a stellar second career, as the Bats’ head groundskeeper retired from the Bats following the 2026 season.
While a future career as a pitcher appears unlikely, it was a full-circle moment for a man who never envisioned a second career on a baseball diamond.
“I wish I could have thrown it better. Especially throwing it to my son was special, too,” Shafer said. “It was pretty cool, a pretty good way to wrap things up.”
Shafer’s journey to Louisville Slugger Field was anything but conventional. After spending 25 years as an air traffic controller at airports in Tallahassee, Florida, and Louisville, Shafer traded in watching the skies for caring for the baseball diamond, initially volunteering to help maintain the field at Oldham County High School, where Tommy played baseball.
At the high school, Shafer worked alongside Oldham County head coach Scott Gerlach, who was also working on the Bats’ grounds crew at the time. Gerlach invited Shafer to help out for a handful of games near the end of the 2012 season. Shafer returned as a gameday member of the ground crew in 2013, starting a second career he never saw coming.
“I had no intentions of having this career or being a head groundskeeper or anything. No intentions whatsoever,” Shafer said. “I knew I loved doing the job but never thought I would be a head guy anywhere.”
From there, Shafer worked his way up, going from a gameday ground crew member to a full-time seasonal role and eventually becoming the Bats’ head groundskeeper in 2022.
While most people might only see the grounds crew dragging the infield or painting the lines before a game, there is a lot more that goes into keeping the field in playing condition, which keeps Shafer’s to-do list plentiful all year.
“People think we mow grass, we paint lines, and we drag the infield. There’s so much more,” Shafer said. “Cultivation on the field, the warning tracks, fertilizing and spraying. It’s pretty much constant. There’s always something to do. It’s like being on a farm. I always say, it’s just a small farm.”
Keeping that small farm in shape for the Reds’ Triple-A farm club is no easy task. During a typical Bats six-game homestand, Shafer estimates he works 80 to 100 hours per week, often arriving at the ballpark around 8 or 9 a.m. and staying well past the final out. Even when the Bats are away, his workload often reaches 40 to 60 hours a week.
Of course, some of those long hours are self-inflicted. Shafer admits he’ll occasionally come to the ballpark just to mow the grass, even when nobody else is around.
Despite the long hours and demanding workload, Shafer’s favorite part of the job has little to do with the dirt and the grass.
“The best part of the job is being around my guys. My crew is phenomenal. Brock (Hammond, Assistant Director of Field Operations) does a great job. My other guys do a great job. That is by far the highlight of the job,” Shafer said.
Beyond his grounds crew, Shafer enjoyed getting to know the players and coaches who have passed through Louisville, including current Bats manager Pat Kelly. Watching players make their way from Louisville to Cincinnati was another rewarding part of his time in the organization.
Kelly, who has been through a lot with Shafer since 2018, praised his attention to detail and ability to work with both teams while developing a friendship that extended beyond the field.
“I just think he has a great sense of humor. A lot of it is self-deprecating, which is similar to my humor, and I just enjoy being around him,” Kelly said. “I think he’s professional when he has to be, but I can also consider him a friend at the same time.”
Of course, that bond hasn’t stopped the Bats’ skipper from giving the groundskeeper a hard time over the years. When asked what he would miss most about Shafer, Kelly didn’t hesitate.
“Absolutely nothing. He stinks,” Kelly joked.
While Kelly will undoubtedly miss having Shafer around every day, one moment from the 2026 season left an impression on all who saw it. During a game between the Bats and the St. Paul Saints on June 23, a squirrel got loose on the field, briefly delaying the game.
At that moment, Shafer’s job turned from head groundskeeper to squirrel wrangler. He and the grounds crew emerged from the center field gate and took a couple of minutes to corral the squirrel off the field before the game could resume.
As it turns out, Shafer’s childhood growing up on a cattle farm provided some unexpected preparation for one of his newest duties.
“We had to move cattle. We didn’t have horses or things like that. We had to do it on foot. And you kind of learn how to do it, and that’s how I got my guys lined up and got the squirrel off the field,” Shafer said.
Having managed plenty of talent through the years at the helm of the Bats, Kelly had his own assessment of the grounds crew’s performance.
“I thought Tod did a good job of directing, and at the same time making sure it was going to be someone else who could get hurt, not him,” Kelly said.
Thankfully, no people or squirrels were harmed that day.
Fortunately for Shafer, he shouldn’t have to worry about another squirrel causing trouble at his next stop. That’s because he’s headed to a country where the furry creatures are virtually nonexistent.
That country? Australia.
In November, Shafer is headed halfway around the world to spend three months working on the field for the Perth Heat of the Australian Baseball League.
While Shafer isn’t sure what will come next after his three months down under, he doesn’t think he’ll completely step away from the profession anytime soon.
“I think I’ll probably always be part-time as long as people let me come in and mow the field or anything like that,” he said. “It’s just great to be around.”
As he moves on from Louisville Slugger Field, Shafer has one final message for the fans who have seen his work for the past 14 years.
“I’d just like to thank the fans for coming out. I always hear kind words from them and love seeing them,” Shafer said. “The fans have been great over the years. Keep coming back to the games and supporting the team.”