NEW YORK (WJLA) — When you think of Yankee Stadium, you think of an iconic Major League Baseball stadium filled with history. But there was no baseball being played in the Bronx on Wednesday. Instead, college football took center field.
The Maryland Terrapins took on the Virginia Tech Hokies in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl Wednesday, giving sports fans in NYC a taste of the DMV.
But how did they fit a football field inside a baseball stadium? How exactly was it transformed?
What goes into the process of changing Yankee Stadium into a football stadium?
Yankees head groundskeeper Dan Cunningham explained the process ahead of game day.
“Well fortunately for us, this isn’t our first one,” Cunningham said. “So, the infrastructure is in place, our field goals are in the ground, the sleeves so to speak.”
Cunningham and his team of 25 had already transformed the baseball field into a soccer field earlier this month, but to change it into a football field was an entirely different process due to the need for a different type of sod.
“Most of our work is inside the dugout, regrading, taking out sod, putting in new sod,” Cunningham explained. “So we have to put in a special sod that can handle the weight of these gentleman and what they do in a normal game circumstance.”
And what about postgame? Well, after three weeks, 25 men, and one football game, the team will take it all apart and get ready for 2022 baseball season.
“It’s pretty much all going away after the event, this will be our last event of the season. We’ll put a new field in, in February, and we’ll have a new field ready for next year’s baseball season,” Cunningham said.
