How to have a Perfect Philly Day, according to Phillies head groundskeeper Jeremy Wilt

It might surprise you to learn that the man tasked with tending the city’s most prominent lawn — the pristine green expanse of the Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park field — does not actually have a well-kept yard himself.

“Oh, my own lawn is awful,” says Jeremy Wilt, the 46-year-old head groundskeeper for the Phillies.

It’s true.

“I don’t have in-ground irrigation, I don’t feed it, I don’t do the things that we do here,” Wilt admits. “And I let my kids do whatever they want. ... If they want to play Wiffle ball in the same spot every single day and wear a hole in it, that’s what they’re doing.”

This approach does not translate, however, to the office, where since becoming the team’s director of field operations in 2022, Wilt has overseen the team devoted to ensuring that every blade of grass at CBP is in place each night.

The bane of his professional existence, it seems, is unruly weather, and he takes great pains to ensure that he is never caught off guard. On his phone, he has access to at least four different weather apps at any given time. There is also a two-person forecasting company on speed dial.

With apologies to Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz, there might be no one in the city more attuned to the local weather on a per-minute basis.

“To put it bluntly, I know what the weather is going to do just about every hour I’m awake from April through — hopefully — November," Wilt says.

Not surprisingly, then, his Perfect Philly Day at the ballpark — a day game — includes sunshine, a Phillies’ victory, and, perhaps most notably, a forecast void of precipitation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I get up in the morning, and the first thing I do is check the radar, making sure that the forecast from last night is still accurate and there’s nothing that’s popped up.

I’m just constantly checking the radar. Constantly. From there, I head into work, spend 45 minutes in I-95 traffic. For a 4:05 p.m. game, I get in at 10 o’clock, and our crew gets in before me.

In a perfect world, it’s a beautiful day, high of 80, low humidity, and the sun’s out.

As far as the field is concerned, I’m making sure the moisture in our infield’s clay is right, I‘m making sure everyone has done their jobs, which they’re always on top of that — I have the greatest crew in Major League Baseball. Then it’s whatever office work I’ve got going on — usually it’s meetings. I’m more administrative now, unfortunately, so it’s less time actually on the field.

When the press dining opens, we like to be there first — get our lunches and get out before lots of people get in there. I tend to just get a sandwich or a wrap — go light, because if you got to go out there and pull the tarp later, you don’t want to be weighed down.

It’s hard to leave the ballpark for lunch, because unfortunately, even on a perfect day, you still have weather issues. I can’t tell you how many times a thunderstorm’s popped up and it wasn’t in the forecast. Being in this industry as long as I have — I’ve been here for 20 years — you learn the weather real quick, and you know there’s no certainty.

Batting practice is 1:15, and a lot of times you’re moving things — moving screens off the field, setting up for BP, and I’ll hang there for 5-10 minutes of BP, make sure the players don’t have any issues.

Then I head to my office and I just get my office work done — submitting invoices, replying to emails. I have a monitor in my office that’s always on that has the radar on it, so I’m checking that, making sure we’re good. This is an ideal day, so everything’s good.

I watch the game from my office. I’ll have my radar on — even on a perfect day. I’m also paying attention to the game because:

There are things that happen on an infield playing surface that are just out of our control — if a ball is hit at the edge of the grass and clay, it might take an awkward hop and you can’t do anything about that. But whatever we can control, we’re definitely doing.

It’s a perfect day, so we’re winning and closing it out in the top of the 9th inning. Then we go out to the field. My whole crew has assignments, and basically the postgame routine is cleaning up the field: We’re packing the plate, grooming the infield, cleaning up seeds and gum on the [warning] track, cleaning up bullpens. That usually takes about a half hour.

Occasionally after a game on a Friday or Saturday, we go out and get a drink at a place like the Philadium or Chickie’s & Pete’s.

I’m probably checking the weather while I’m out, then I’m checking the weather before I go home. Then it’s the last thing I do before bed.