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Blue Jays hope to install dirt infield for next season

Richard Lautens / Toronto Star / Getty

The Toronto Blue Jays are looking to compliment their revamped roster with stadium upgrades, and the changes could start as soon as next year.

A team official tells the National Post that the club is hoping to install a dirt infield for the 2016 season, ahead of its eventual move to a natural grass playing surface in 2018 as part of a massive five-year, $250-million project to upgrade Rogers Centre.

The dirt infield would replace the existing AstroTurf and represent the first step toward making Rogers Centre a "baseball-first" stadium, as opposed to a baseball-only venue, according to Stephen Brooks, the Blue Jays' senior vice president of baseball operations.

"(The dirt infield) would be Step 1 in the real-grass project," Brooks told John Lott of the National Post. "We're working on the cost of that and what we have to do to cut out the turf and what drainage requirements would be need to make that happen."

Brooks told Lott the playing surface is just one of several planned renovations for the 26-year-old stadium. Among the proposed changes, the Jays would replace all stadium seating and possibly make the seats larger, which could result in the loss of 2,000 to 3,000 seats, Brooks said.

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