Nearly a year after the Bisons last took the field downtown, it's finally time to play ball again in Buffalo. But this game will be historic.
The Toronto Blue Jays will stage their "Home Away from Home Opener" against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night and the 6:37 p.m. first pitch by Jays' ace Hyun-Jin Ryu will come from the mound of a remarkably transformed Sahlen Field.
Only a few finishing touches remain, but the Jays revealed a full rebranding of the downtown ballpark Monday for the debut of Major League Baseball. Health protocols prevent reporters from accessing the secure areas of the ballpark, so the Jays talked about the changes on Zoom calls and provided pictures and videos of the multi-million dollar project. The team was off, so no players or coaches were available for comment.
Ryu, Toronto's $80 million free agent signee, is 1-1 in his first three outings. He will oppose Miami right-hander Elieser Hernandez, who threw 4 1/3 scoreless innings in his first start, a no-decision on Wednesday at Baltimore. The Blue Jays, playing their first of 27 games here, are 5-8. The Marlins, managed by former Yankees star Don Mattingly, lead the National League East at 7-3 despite being sidelined for eight days due to a coronavirus outbreak in their clubhouse. Toronto will debut its "Baby Blue" throwback jerseys for the opener.
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The Blue Jays had four key areas of focus at Sahlen Field: Installing brighter lighting for evening games, extending the dugouts, repurposing areas for player and staff resources, and redesigning ballpark spaces to make it feel like home.
More than two dozen Blue Jays staffers are on site working with officials from Major League Baseball and BaAM Productions, an Ontario firm that does numerous special events for Major League Baseball such as the Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pa. It also was preparing for Thursday's Field of Dreams Classic in Dyersville, Iowa, which was postponed by the pandemic.
"Our team down here has done a ton of work and I'm crazy proud of what we were able to put together for our guys, trying to make Buffalo the best home possible," said Marnie Starkman, the Blue Jays' senior vice president of marketing and business operations.
After the initial points of emphasis, the Blue Jays added another key element with a complete reconstruction of the infield turf.
The Blue Jays already were using Sahlen Field as their alternate training site, but studied the field deeper when the decision was made to play MLB games here. Pat Skunda, the turf superintendent from the team's spring training site in Dunedin, Fla., ultimately made the call.
"Once he got here, he felt the lip between the dirt and field was just too deep," Starkman said. "It wasn't anyone's fault. We got the grounds crew back in Buffalo a while ago for our depth squad. When we looked at it and talked to other teams who had laid down grass quickly like Pittsburgh and Boston, it just seemed like the best decision."
The entire infield grass was replaced, as was the grass behind home plate and the outfield grass 20 feet out from the infield. The Jays determined the entire outfield did not need to be replaced.
Take the tour! Sahlen Field, 2020 Home of the #BlueJays 🤩😍🤯 https://t.co/cVtop1pLvy
— Buffalo Bisons (@BuffaloBisons) August 10, 2020
With no fans admitted, the Blue Jays were able to use large swaths of the ballpark concourse. Batting cages for both teams and workout areas for the Blue Jays are now in the 100 level hallways, where fans in normal Bisons seasons are buying peanuts, pizza and beef on weck. Both clubhouses on the service level were changed, with Toronto coaches using the normal Buffalo room and the visitors room becoming a Blue Jays stretching area.
The Blue Jays have socially distanced locker space in the service level hallway, with plenty of space now because the batting cages and pitching mounds normally there were removed and rebuilt upstairs. The Blue Jays brought their entire inventory of weight-room equipment and clubhouse chairs from Toronto.
Many of the ideas came from the way the Red Sox have used Fenway Park this season.
"What they did with space really gave us a little bit of creativity in how we can use the concourse," Starkman said. "They were great in sharing their plans."
Toronto coaches, including manager Charlie Montoyo, came to the ballpark Sunday night to check out the arrangements, and players drifted over Monday. Montoyo's office was built to replicate what he has at Rogers Centre, complete with pictures of his wife and children and his drum set.
"it was a cool moment to watch the coaches' reaction with our staff that had done all the work," Starkman said. "So that was fairly emotional."
The visiting teams will be housed in a giant tent area in the right-field parking lot complete with workout equipment and full plumbing facilities, in a plan similar to what MLB was using for the Field of Dreams game. Visiting players will have to evacuate the area in case of lightning and will be moved to the suites on the club level during such a delay.
"We knew from the get-go that the Bisons owned that parking lot and that's where we were going to put the visiting compound," Starkman said.
Among other items at the ballpark:
• The Bisons have been in the first-base dugout since the stadium's opening in 1988, but the Blue Jays will be on the third-base side to mimic Rogers Centre. All seats in the lower reaches of the 100 level have been tarped off with advertising, and cardboard cutouts of fans have been installed in seats behind home plate. The dugout roofs are adorned with Blue Jays logos and all wall padding around the field has been switched from green to blue.
• The bullpens will remain on the field as they have been since the park's opening, even though MLB frowns on that arrangement. "There was really nowhere to move them," Starkman said.
• The bottom 15 feet of the scoreboard will be blacked out during play to add to the batter's eye. Players often complain here about losing the ball out of a pitcher's hand due to the lights on the board. Yankees slugger Aaron Judge told New York reporters a couple of weeks ago about the problem when he played here for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2016.
• Going forward, the Bisons will benefit from the change-out of all existing light bulbs on the stadium towers as well as the new infield. The service level got large amounts of new carpeting and painted graphics, much of which incorporates the Blue Jays' logo. The Herd can keep that work after the Blue Jays leave following their Sept. 27 finale.
