Quick hit!

The Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays, is converting from FieldTurf to AstroTurf. The FieldTurf was comprised of 1,400 trays. The AstroTurf will be in rolls. Was the consideration the quality of the surface for the sports? No way, as usual the decider was the almighty dollar. Money quote:

With far fewer seams than the old FieldTurf, the new surface is expected to minimize tricky hops on ground balls. But Rogers Centre executives were not focusing on infielders' peace of mind when they made the move to ditch FieldTurf after five years of use.

The FieldTurf surface comprised 1,400 trays of fake grass. It took about 40 hours to remove, stack and store the trays so the stadium could be used for a trade show or rock concert. The new AstroTurf comes in long rolls -- roughly 90 pieces for the baseball field -- allowing crews to finish a stadium conversion in roughly half the time.

With the quicker conversion, more non-sports events can be booked around Jays baseball and Toronto Argonauts football games, generating more revenue for the under-used facility, said Rogers Centre CEO Paul Beeston.

The stadium hosted it's first Blue Jays game on June 5, 1989 so it will be some time before they need a new stadium when we can dream of a real grass field.

Sigh...

Until next time.