As most of you read this, Major League Baseball is gearing up for its 2025 season with spring training activities in Arizona and Florida. At about the same time, landscaping professionals looking to up their game were doing the same thing in advance of the start of their busy season.
Admittedly, the connection between the green industry and our national pastime does require a bit of a leap. But stick with me because I couldn’t help but see the similarities between the two during a pair of recent events I attended — Weathermatic’s SmartCon 2025 in Phoenix and Marty Grunder’s GROW! 2025 event in Columbus, Ohio.
Maybe the resemblances stuck out more to me because, admittedly, I’m a baseball guy. That’s rarer now than in the past, with baseball falling behind football and basketball in terms of popularity, and hockey and soccer looming in the rearview mirror.
But I started playing T-ball in kindergarten, played years of Little League baseball and played the game in high school. I even thought about college baseball before realizing I had maxed out my meager athletic ability and shifted my attention to beer-league softball.
I’ve even been lucky enough to stay close to the game in my adult life, too, after landing a unique gig with MLB doing statistical work for my hometown Kansas City Royals. It’s a side hustle that gets me to the ballpark 40-50 times a season and lets me scratch that baseball itch while putting a little extra cash in my pocket.
So yeah, I’m a baseball guy. Maybe the links between what the players were doing in the Cactus and Grapefruit leagues and what the green industry pros were doing at SmartCon and GROW! came a little more naturally to me than someone who could give a rip about the game.
It didn’t hurt that SmartCon took place in the Valley of the Sun, where 15 teams train during the spring and where I’ll spend a week this month for a little spring training of my own to get ready for my MLB job. But just like those players getting sharp ahead of a new season, the more than 300 landscaping pros at SmartCon were getting themselves educated on Weathermatic’s SmartLink product line and absorbing words of wisdom from an all-star lineup of industry thought leaders. You can read more about that event in Need to Know on page 12.
That vibe continued a week later at GROW! in Columbus, even though there was more chatter about Ohio State’s recent national championship in college football than the upcoming baseball season. This was my first time attending The Grow Group’s big event, and I’ll admit I was blown away — more than 1,000 attendees looking for an edge heading into the heart of the 2025 season dove into a full slate of educational offerings taught by some of the brightest minds in the business and got a behind-the-curtain look at the operations at Jason Cromley’s Hidden Creek Landscaping.
Even though I might have been looking at both SmartCon and GROW! through baseball-colored glasses, I do think the comparison holds. Like their ballplaying counterparts preparing for another season, I’m sure the landscaping pros came away from both events better prepared to thrive in the year to come, thanks to their own version of spring training. Play ball!
And before I go, here’s a little sneak preview of next month’s issue … we’re welcoming another new member to the LM family in April, marking the third new addition to our stable of columnists in 2025. He’s someone who’s been shaking up the green industry — some might even say he’s been “disrupting” things — for some time now, and we couldn’t be more excited that he’s agreed to join the team. It’ll be a debut you’ll definitely want to check out.
