The smell of fresh cut grass is a familiar one for Brandon Ratti.

As a pitcher and center fielder for Pleasant Valley baseball, Ratti smells plenty of it.

He finds himself satisfied looking at perfectly trimmed grass, with evenly-measured stripes creating the iconic polished look of a baseball field. He savors the smell that for many floods the mind with memories of summer. 

Only, in 2020, Ratti mostly experienced the familiar scent and sight not from the depths of center field but atop his lawnmower. Having previously worked in landscaping for PV assistant coach Jeremy Gigliotti, Ratti used 2020’s canceled baseball season as an opportunity to start his own landscaping business.

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With his mom’s help, Ratti bought a professional 52-inch zero-turn lawnmower and a trailer to use with his pickup truck. He’s connected with clients through family members and his girlfriend’s mom, who’s a realtor.

Much like his repertoire of baseball skills, Ratti's landscaping service is multi-faceted. He's not the neighborhood kid pushing a lawnmower but a professional who mows, whacks weeds, edges, lays mulch, soil and stone — anything a client needs.

Without the baseball season, Ratti poured his time into building clientele. He still worked on his baseball skills, hitting in his batting cage or throwing with his younger brothers, but the missing magic of competitive baseball left him only with mechanics and lawns to perfect.

No organized baseball could've meant time off from the sport for Ratti. Asynchronous cyber school could've been an opportunity to slack off.

Instead, Ratti's work ethic drove him to continue practicing for his senior season. He used daylight hours for landscaping and cranked out assignments at night.

He took a negative situation and turned it into self-growth.

Ratti balanced the juggling act of maintaining his grades, focusing on baseball and building his landscaping company. Academics remained the top priority, he said, because there wouldn't be any college ball to play or classes to pay for without graduating high school.

"If school's not done obviously I can't play baseball, and if I can't play baseball and I can't do school, obviously I'm not going to be able to work," Ratti said.

With sufficient time blocked off for school and the return of scheduled baseball workouts during the fall, Ratti dedicated whatever free time he had to working for his clients, even if that meant starting a job in the morning and returning to finish before sunset when school or baseball called.

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Ratti's hard work practicing paid off on the baseball field, where he had the chance to return and compete his heart out for one last season with Pleasant Valley.

The star senior led the Bears to a Mountain Division championship and a 12-4 regular season — the program’s best season since winning the district championship in 2010. It’s meant victories over District 11 titans like Liberty and Easton on Pleasant Valley’s way to an EPC championship appearance.

Ratti led his team in every facet of the game. In center field, not a single error. On the mound, a 2.31 ERA with 58 strikeouts over 36 1/3 innings. At the plate, a .444 batting average and .612 on-base percentage.

Just like his landscaping, he does it all.

Ratti will attend Northampton Community College in the fall, where he will continue playing baseball and work toward a business degree to help expand his landscaping company.