GRASS DISMISSED
Shapiro downplays need to replace artificial surface
Jays president Mark Shapiro says the Rogers Centre doesn’t need real turf, and that the artificial surface doesn’t repel free agents. Richard Griffin thinks he’s dead wrong,
Distressingly, under the Blue Jays’ new regime, grass has become a four-letter word. In his final briefing with reporters prior to the New Year, Jays club president Mark Shapiro strongly suggested he did not view the installation of a natural surface at the Rogers Centre as a priority. He added that free agents don’t even mention the unique, in a bad way, artificial surface as a deterrent from signing. Say what?
“In my opinion, we don’t need it. My opinion is clearly it would be better. It’s just a question of the alternatives and what are we going to have to choose between,” he said.
“I like the game better, I think everyone likes the game better on natural grass. Do we need it? No.”
This is crazy talk. The artificial turf at the Rogers Centre has forever been a negative in terms of the Jays’ ability to compete and sign veteran free agent players.
(Well that, and a five-year maximum on long-term contracts; there was a time when it actually was a three-year max.) As Dick Allen, the former slugging first baseman of the Phillies and White Sox in the 1960s and ’70s said: “If horses won’t eat it, I won’t play on it.”
Further, the fake stuff has always been a negative in terms of money lost to unnecessary injuries to joints and legs caused by the pounding on an unnaturally hard surface. It has cost the Jays, and other teams that played on turf, countless games lost to injury, with players lost to the DL and huge amounts of salary paid out while they heal.
Outfielder Carlos Beltran dismissed the Jays as a free agent landing spot because of the playing surface. Instead, he signed with the New York Yankees. Shortstop Jose Reyes, early this season, reiterated his initial reluctance to play on it when he found he was traded from the Marlins. He said he wished it was 2018 already, with its promise of real grass and less physical stress on his lower body.
Former Jays president Paul Beeston had alluded years ago, at one of the annual “rah-rah” state of the franchise addresses for season-ticket holders, that by far the biggest thing standing in the way of grass at the stadium was the presence of football. That included the Argos and the one game by the Buffalo Bills played at the Rogers Centre. As long as football was in, grass was out. As a result, fans looked forward to a field of dreams in 2018 when the Argo lease expired.
But when the Bills experiment died and the Argos moved out early, the expectation was that grass might just be installed sooner.
Full-speed ahead. Yes! Natural grass and the Jays at last.
The reality is this — artificial turf is simply a bad playing surface. There are reasons why only two franchises — Toronto and the Tampa Bay Rays — still have phony grass as their playing surface of choice. The game of baseball, as we know and love it, sucks when played on the fake stuff.
Jays vice-president Tony LaCava stated on Thursday he had watched home games in previous years in which a groundball through shortstop had gone all the way to the fence and that with the new turf that was installed for 2015, that doesn’t happen. He said the current turf is almost like grass; that comparison to the real stuff is simply not true.
After one game this past April, Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter threatened not to play the next night’s game and to leave town early. He cited a couple of reasons for his dissatisfaction. One, there is no actual warning from the warning track. The only difference was the different colour of fake grass underfoot; he said that his outfielders were looking up chasing a flyball and had no idea when they were about to crash into the fence. Second, was that prior to the first game on the new turf, O’s infielder Jimmy Paredes had been struck in the eye by rubber pellets.
Likely Showalter was just stirring things up and making a point. They did, in fact, play the next game and did, in fact, lose once again, but his point was that Toronto’s artificial surface was not up to MLB standards. He was right, but fans believed they just needed to remain patient.
Now, with no football and a clear opportunity to compete with other teams in major-league baseball for the hearts and minds of free agents, and with the chance to save the physical pounding on their own players, Shapiro and the Jays appear to be waffling and moon-walking towards the status quo. The aging scoreboard and shoring up the concrete are bigger priorities.
The fans want a grass surface. The players want a grass surface. Whenever there is a team with a superstar position player in town for a series, you can be certain his manager will choose the Jays series to rest that player and not subject him to the turf. Blue Jays fan pay to see majorleague stars but don’t always get that opportunity.
The Jays even paid researchers at Guelph University to find and develop the best, the hardiest grass with which to use for the much-anticipated new surface. So Thursday’s comments no doubt disappoint Jays fans.
In the space of two months, fans here have gone from the thrill of Jose Bautista’s flip of the bat to the agony of Mark Shapiro’s flip of the bird.
Apparently the only new grass will be found at the LCBO.