When the Red Sox play the Yankees next month at Olympic Stadium in London, it will mark the first time in their rivalry that the game will be played on artificial turf.
NEW YORK — The traditional rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox will take a radical twist when they meet in London next month: They will play on artificial turf for the first time in their rivalry, covering more than 2,200 games.
Major League Baseball has access to Olympic Stadium for 21 days before the games on June 29 and 30, the sport’s first regular-season contests in Europe, and just five days after to clear out. The league concluded that there was not enough time to install real grass.
Starting June 6, gravel will be placed over the covering protecting West Ham’s grass soccer pitch and the running track that is a legacy from the 2012 Olympics. The artificial turf baseball field, similar to modern surfaces used by a few big league clubs, will be installed atop that.
«It’s the first Yankees-Red Sox game out of the country, so why not a lot of firsts?» New York pitcher CC Sabathia said. «I think it will be fine.»
Starting June 4,141,913 square feet of FieldTurf Vertex will be transported by truck from the company’s plant in Auchel, France, a little more than 150 miles to a storage facility outside London, according to Murray Cook, the sport’s field consultant.
Clay for the pitcher’s mound and home plate area comes from DuraEdge in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania. Turface Athletics near Chicago provides the soil conditioner, while mound tamps, infield drags and nail drags are from Beacon Athletics in Middleton, Wisconsin. The U. S. materials, including 345 tons of dirt in 18 40-foot containers, left Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, during the third week of April and arrived on May 18 at Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk, about 95 miles from London.
