The Sodfather keeps Safeco Field in pristine shape rain or shine

It’s seven hours before game time and Safeco Field is empty &#8212 except for head groundskeeper Bob Christofferson and a few members of his team as they give the lush turf and pristine clay the first of several waterings before the first pitch.

“It’s not a job; it’s a way of life. I think about it 24-7, 365,” he said.

It’s been that way ever since Bob took over 16 years ago – actually, even before that as the head groundskeeper at Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium for 19 years, where his father worked on the original game crew as far back as 1960.

“I am not a good gardener but I mowed lawns. I mowed all my neighbors’ lawns. I was interested in straight lines even then. Who knew? I didn’t have any idea this is where I’d end up,” he said

Where he ended up is obsessing over every inch of his beloved Safeco Field.

Even when he’s not on the field, he’s watching it from a large monitor in his cramped office just steps from the visitors dugout along the third base line.

If he’s not looking at the field, he’s looking at the sky, or the radar.

“I always watch the weather reports and follow the weather from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep.”

Keeping the turf perfect is as much art as it is science. But he insists there are no big secrets.

“I think it’s time in. It’s just work. I don’t think it’s rocket science. I’ve done it for so many years. It just comes naturally,” he said. “I know there are books on it, but I think the best book is just living it.”

Bob obsesses over more than than just how the field looks. How it plays is just as important &#8212 if not more so. God forbid Kyle Seager or Robinson Cano take a bad hop to the teeth.

“I don’t want them to think about what’s underneath their feet … everybody likes their area different,” he said.

The one thing Bob doesn’t give nearly as much thought to is his dance moves, even though the grounds crew’s routines have become an integral part of the between-innings entertainment.

Bob admits he was ambivalent, at best, when the owners proposed the idea several years ago.

“I said as long as it doesn’t affect the job that we’re doing in the third inning, then we’ll do it. We got a choreographer. She used to be the Sonics’ choreographer. We’ve some really good dancers on the crew and then there’s me,” he said.

But when it comes to tending the turf, no one does it better than the Sodfather &#8212 at least at Safeco Field.

His own yard at his spread in Puyallup is another story.

“It’s not bad because I have a lawn service. I know, everybody laughs, but for so many years, I would spend my whole off days … I’ve got a big yard. I’d mow the lawn for eight hours and nothing else got done. Nothing else gets done now anyway, but at least it looks decent,” he laughed.