Chris Ball
Sports Turf Manager

Biography:

Chris "Butter" Ball, enters his second season with the Gwinnett Braves after serving nine seasons with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans as the Senior Director of Sports Turf Management and Director of Ballpark Operations. Butter has a decorated career as Sports Turf Manager having previously won a record five consecutive Carolina League Field of the Year Awards from 2006 to 2010. Butter was named the Class A Sports Turf Manager of the Year of 2010 in a national accolade presented by Minor League Baseball and the Sports Turf Managers Association (STMA), an award which he also claimed in 2007.

Butter's duties include maintaining the playing surface of Coolray Field and helping to ensure a competitive and safe area of play as well as bullpens for the G-Braves and their International League competitors. He joined the Gwinnett Braves after stints in Greensboro, North Carolina with the City of Greensboro Parks and Recreation as Supervisor of Athletic Facilities, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as the Head Groundskeeper for the Double A Senators, and most recently Myrtle Beach, SC with the Advanced A Pelicans.

Butter received his degree in Parks and Recreation Administration from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1998.

Hogan, Butter's 10-year-old yellow lab and duck hunting partner, serves as the Second Assistant Groundskeeper at Coolray Field and is known to be the welcoming committee for everyone who visits the ballpark.

In the offseason, Butter duck hunts and spends a lot of time outdoors, whether on his boat chasing saltwater fish, in a duck blind, or in a field chasing quail. The Greenville, North Carolina native is an avid East Carolina Pirates fan.

chris.ball@braves.com
ext. 70314