The Buffalo Blue Jays are in business
After a mad scramble to get everything done on a tight timeline, the Blue Jays are finally prepared to move into their new home away from home.
Toronto will host its first “homestand” of the year when it opens a two-game series against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night at Sahlen Field in Buffalo. Following two weeks of homelessness, the displaced Jays have a place to call their own after being denied permission to host games at the Rogers Centre by Canadian public health officials.
The Jays technically played their first home game on July 29 against the Nationals, but the matchup was held in Washington because upgrades to Sahlen Field were not finished. Construction wrapped up over the last week and they arrived in Buffalo late Sunday night to check out their new surroundings.
“I think the challenges were in four buckets,” said Jays senior vice-president of marketing and business operations Marnie Starkman, who spearheaded the project. “One was infrastructure. There was no Major League Baseball infrastructure here. That’s not a knock on (Buffalo). It was just a triple-A facility.
“The second was general space. The third one was space in a pandemic, with a manual that continues to have more added to it, like outdoor eating spaces. The fourth, if I’m being honest, was time because we were trying to build this during a pandemic.”
Sahlen Field was constructed in 1988 as a triple-A ballpark, but Buffalo’s goal was to use the facility to attract a bigleague team. The “classic retro” design proved to be a big hit and inspired Baltimore’s Camden Yards and Colorado’s Coors Field, which were built soon after.
Buffalo’s bid for and expansion team failed in 1991, and the city has been focused on the minor leagues ever since. Plans to add an upper bowl were abandoned, but the ballpark remains one of the largest in triple-A and the Bisons own the top six attendance records in minor-league history.
The bones of the ballpark remain in good shape, but the amenities were not up to par and Toronto’s plan was further complicated by MLB’s evolving health and safety protocols, which must be followed during the pandemic. That’s why there was a mixture of expected upgrades along with a few surprises over the last few weeks as the Jays prepped their new facility.
One obvious change involved the lighting, which was not up to MLB standards. The league helped out by providing equipment from its “Field of Dreams” project, which called for a game to be played in Iowa near the infamous cornfield depicted in Kevin Costner’s 1989 movie.
The game between the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals was recently cancelled because of COVID-19, which gave the Jays access to additional temporary lights to supplement the ones already in place.
An unexpected obstacle was the playing surface. After employees from the Jays travelled to Buffalo along with their head groundskeeper from Dunedin, Fla., the club realized the lip between the infield grass and dirt was too big. That meant the grass had to be torn up and replanted for a better fit. Similar adjustments were made down the lines and approximately 20 feet into the outfield.
“We got the grounds crew back a long time ago because we knew our depth squad was going to be here,” Starkman said. “So (assistant GM) Joe Sheehan and I had been working with the Bisons since the end of May, early June. When we looked at it and talked to a few other teams who laid down grass fairly quickly — I think they spoke with the Red Sox and Pirates more recently — it just seemed like the best decision.”
Another big change involved spacing. Starkman estimated the old home clubhouse provided enough social distancing space to accommodate 15 players; the visitors clubhouse had enough room for just 10. That’s well below the capacity required for 28 players, plus an entire coaching staff, taxi squad and a slew of behindthe-scenes employees.
The lack of square footage prompted the Jays to build a temporary tent-like structure in the parking lot beyond the right-field wall. An open-concept clubhouse was constructed inside the tent with a training room, portable showers, an outdoor batting cage and a weight room. Toronto then used most of the space in the bowels of the stadium to accommodate its own players.
Most of these changes are temporary. The visitors clubhouse will eventually be torn down and the Jays’ equipment will be returned to Toronto. Cosmetic additions such as branding, team colours and motivational quotes could be replaced when the Bisons resume play in 2021. The upgraded playing surface will remain as is.
This was a monumental undertaking by the Blue Jays’ staff. Toronto didn’t receive word from the federal government it would be banned from cross-border travel until July 24, which was opening day against the Rays.
“These are plans that normally would have taken about a year,” Starkman said. “I keep joking with everyone: It’s literally like the worst imaginable fan fest. Putting it together in two weeks, that’s sort of what it feels like. As much as we had plans and drawings, there are a ton of things that come up as you do this.
“The grass, I think, was just a choice. It wouldn’t be that we wouldn’t have played with the (old) grass, I just think it was the right decision when we had the extra time. The other big one was air conditioning in the clubhouse. Because we use the hallways to create a larger clubhouse, we added a system to add air in there, so we have more circulation.”
Blue Jays players asked for, and did not receive, a bigleague ballpark to play in this summer. Instead the organization will attempt to make do with the next best thing: a transformed Sahlen Field. It’s not quite the lifestyle professional athletes are used to, but for now it will have to do.