Orioles groundskeeper Nicole Sherry leaving Camden Yards after 20 years

Nicole Sherry spent Monday night watering the infield at Camden Yards, even as the Orioles prepared to send her out Tuesday with one last ceremonial mound-grooming turn and a first pitch before the game against the New York Yankees. After 20 years shaping the field at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, her departure marks a rare staffing change in one of Baltimore’s most visible sports jobs.

Maryland’s Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that Sherry had joined the agency as assistant secretary for Plant Industries and Pest Management. In that role, she will help oversee turf and seed, pest management, pesticide regulation, forest pest management and related programs, moving from the daily demands of a major league ballpark into state-level oversight of plant health and land stewardship.

Sherry’s path through the Orioles organization stretched back to 2001, when she began as an intern and later served as assistant head groundskeeper from 2001 to 2003. The Orioles promoted her to head groundskeeper in 2006, making her the second woman in Major League Baseball history to hold the title. Two years earlier, in 2004, she became the first female head groundskeeper in Eastern League history. Since 2023, she had served as senior director of field operations.

Her departure matters because the head groundskeeper is part caretaker, part operations manager, and part public face of a ballpark’s playing surface. At Camden Yards, where field quality is closely watched by players and fans alike, Sherry’s name became tied to the condition of the grass, the infield and the mound through seasons of weather, homestands and schedule pressure. The Orioles also publicly framed her as a trailblazer, describing her in 2021 as one of only two women in MLB history to work as a head groundskeeper and as a role model in the baseball community.

For Baltimore, the change is more than a personnel update. It ends a 20-year run of continuity in a job that helps define how Oriole Park at Camden Yards looks and plays every night, and it sends one of the club’s most recognizable behind-the-scenes figures into a new role with statewide responsibilities.