Ship to stadium: Fisher Cats fly well-traveled flag

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- After graduating high school, Mike Georgiadis joined the Navy and traveled the world. After leaving the Navy, he became a groundskeeper and traveled all over the country. Throughout these global and domestic journeys, there’s been one constant: a unique and personally meaningful American flag.

Georgiadis, currently the head groundskeeper for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, was deployed four times over the course of his five years in the Navy. Three of those deployments were aboard the USS Iwo Jima; it is that ship’s flag that now flies at the Fisher Cats’ home of Delta Dental Stadium. It has also served as the ballpark flag at each of Georgiadis’ three prior Minor League stops: Helena, Montana; Lynchburg, Virginia; and Daytona Beach, Florida.

Georgiadis was aboard the USS Iwo Jima for three of his four deployments serving as an AO3 (aviation ordnanceman, third-class). His travels included a humanitarian mission to Haiti and serving as support for President Obama’s visit to Ghana.

“The USS Iwo Jima, it’s an LHD-7. Pretty cool ship,” said Georgiadis, a New Jersey native. “It’s an amphibious assault ship. I consider it like a marine aircraft carrier. It’s got Harrier jets on it, a lot of different helicopters, a lot of different tanks and things like that. Two L-Cats [landing catamarans] to deploy the Marines. It’s a pretty neat ship.”

Georgiadis spent three and a half years on the USS Iwo Jima, making it a huge part of his early adulthood. (One of his favorite memories was of a rare “swim call,” during which he was allowed to swim behind the ship.) When his time was up, he wanted a special keepsake to remember it by. Therefore, he put in a chit -- a Navy term with broad usage, but in this case meaning an official request for a special privilege.

“That’s always the thing, you’ve got to put in a chit. So I put in a chit, asking permission from the captain if I could have the flag when I was leaving,” said Georgiadis. “Because my duty with the ship was up. He was pretty impressed that I wanted it, and agreed to give it to me. It means a lot to me, and everywhere I’m the head groundskeeper I put it up.”

Georgiadis’ path to the groundskeeping profession was also inspired, in a roundabout way, by his time in the Navy. At one point during his travels aboard the USS Iwo Jima, he visited a Costa Rican rainforest. The lush foliage served as a vivid reminder of gardening with his mother when he was young.

“It was just like, ‘Oh, man. Plants are cool. I enjoy this,’” he recalled. “I’d always wanted to do something less stressful, something with nature. So then on the way home we were watching a baseball game on AFN, Armed Forces Network. Looking at the grass I was like, ‘Well, who takes care of the field?’ And that was pretty much it, right then and there.”

Upon returning home, Georgiadis landed a job with the Trenton Thunder grounds crew. From there he obtained a Turf Management certificate from Rutgers University, which led to an internship with the Philadelphia Phillies and a job as a golf course assistant superintendent.

“Next thing you know I was offered a job in Montana, with the Helena Brewers, so I took it. Kindrick-Legion Field, that was the first place that flag was put up. Then it went to Lynchburg, Virginia for the Hillcats, put it up there. And then in Daytona. The field [at Jackie Robinson Ballpark] was in really bad shape then. Tried to fix it up, but they went synthetic.”

Following time with the Milwaukee Brewers and a golf course in Pennsylvania, Georgiadis landed his current job with Toronto’s Double-A affiliate, the Fisher Cats. The team’s front office, like all the Minor League teams he has worked for, was happy to let him fly the USS Iwo Jima flag at the ballpark.

“I just ask right away. A lot of them like the idea,” said Georgiadis. “Who doesn’t want to have a battleship flag as the flag of the ballpark? ... I just love it. When I’m mowing and stuff I look up at it. I reflect on the ship, and it helps me get through the day sometimes. It’s a good motivator.”