Inside the Blue Jays' Switch to a Dirt Infield

On the bare concrete floor of the Rogers Centre in Toronto, broken orange lines form a map to guide workers with jackhammers. When their dig is done and the rubble is hauled away, the gaping scar on the surface will look familiar to baseball fans.

It will be a mold of sorts, 12 inches deep and covering 12,000 square feet. Add a layer of gravel, topped with a blend of sand, silt and clay. Groom and water. Surround it with AstroTurf. And voila—for the first time in their history, the Toronto Blue Jays will have a dirt infield to play on.

The job is a tad more complicated than voila might suggest. If you thought it was simply a matter of cutting out some turf and replacing it with dirt, guess again.

Throughout the Blue Jays' 27 years at the Rogers Centre, various logistical issues precluded the installation of a dirt infield until now. Last year, the Jays and the Toronto Argonauts football team played on different sets of turf, so the artificial surface was often uprooted. The Argos' move to BMO Field finally cleared the way for a baseball-only facility and set in motion long-discussed plans to build a proper infield.

The Blue Jays announced Wednesday that the upgrade will be ready for the April 8 home opener, when the Boston Red Sox come to town. The timeline will be tight. Excavation of the concrete is set to start next week, with final testing of the new field scheduled to be complete four days before the first home game.

For fans, the esthetic improvement will be obvious. Club officials believe infielders will like the change, too—so long as the ball bounces the same way when it hops from the artificial turf to the dirt surface. The Jays installed new AstroTurf last year. In relative terms, it played slower than previous versions. The dirt infield will be designed to maintain that consistency.

"Our plan is to keep it soft so it matches the texture of the turf," said head groundkeeper Tom Farrell. "You control that by how much nail-dragging you do during the day, how much water you add and avoiding over-compaction."

Farrell and other Jays officials consulted with groundskeepers at several major-league parks, including Tropicana Field, where the Tampa Bay Rays play under a dome that doesn't open. Dan Moeller, the Rays' head groundkeeper, provided useful tips, including advice on how to keep the ball bouncing in a consistent pattern.

"You've got to get your clay basically the same speed as your turf," Moeller said. "If your infield turf is fast or slow, you want your clay to be the same. Most infielders, all they're asking for is consistency. They want to know what the ball is going to do."

Farrell believes the Jays' infield will be superior to the one at Tropicana Field, where Moeller admits that the shallow depth of the dirt infield and the air conditioning can make it difficult to keep the clay from drying out. But Farrell also acknowledges that he and his crew have a lot of experimenting to do once the infield is installed.

Excavation is set to start Monday. Workers will dig down 12 inches to the foundation layer beneath the concrete. Next, the fill: a two-inch layer of pea gravel, then a five-inch layer of sub-angular sand (not too smooth, not too jagged, just right for controlling moisture from watering) and finally the layer the infielders play on. That layer will consist of 60 percent sand, 20 percent silt and 20 percent clay. That blend should keep the field soft enough. The mix will be firmer on the mound and at home plate.

This is the tricky part. The Rogers Centre field has no drainage. The infield will need just the right amount of water before every game, and that will vary according to the weather once the roof is opened in May. Farrell says the combination of pea gravel and sub-angular sand will retain moisture. "Through capillary action, as the surface water starts to evaporate, water will actually be pulled up to the surface. That will help keep the top layer a little bit more moist," he said. At Tropicana Field, the infield depth is only five inches, which can create headaches for Moeller. "You've got the concrete underneath, which just sucks the living life out of the clay, and then you've got the air conditioning blowing the top of it and drying it out," he said. "We're always kind of dancing with the devil, trying to keep it as moist as possible without going over the line." One change fans will notice pregame in Toronto: seven groundkeepers hauling a one-inch hose attached to a buried fixture behind the mound. In previous years, the crew used a common garden hose to water the mound and cutouts around the bases.

Suddenly, the Jays' grounds crew will have to dish a lot more dirt. "It's going to change everything," Farrell said. "Previously, every time the team left to go on the road, we'd have to tear up all our dirt areas. So we basically rebuilt the field every time the team came back. Now it's a permanent field, which is great, but it's going to require a lot of maintenance because there's more of it." So instead of using hand tools for grooming, the crew will use machinery. They will also dress up the infield after the third and sixth innings instead of just once, after the fifth.

Once the infield is installed, Farrell and his staff will test it—"dialing in the field," as he calls it. They will ensure they have the appropriate blend of sand, silt and clay, and experiment with various doses of water to see how quickly it dries out. They will use a machine to fire balls into the turf to test how they bounce on the two surfaces. They may bring in some elite amateur players to field ground balls. And the club's top brass will give everything a close look. "There will be a lot of eyes on it to make sure everything is working right," Farrell said.