The 2014 MLB Season Will Open in Sydney with Dodgers - Arizona

OzSox · Jun 13, 2013

The choice of the SCG over a baseball-only facility like Blacktown (or Olympic Park?) is interesting. On one hand, it's a historic stadium with a capacity of 40,000 (or whatever it will be after the redevelopment) and it's well located, so it's an obvious choice. But it will be a challenge to convert a circular playing surface to baseball. There will be lots of foul ground (for bullpens?) and no close seating up the first and third base lines. Things like the home run wall (which will rule out a few rows of ground level seats), the infield dirt + warning track and the dugouts will also be a challenge. With such a tight window between cricket/footy seasons they won't have much time to adapt it for baseball, especially if the ground hosts the Sheffield Shield final in about mid-March.

Spacemans Bong · Jun 14, 2013

Baseball layout FYI:

I'm assuming there are going to be some changes here - there don't appear to be moveable stands and it seems bizarre to just throw up a wall to make foul territory smaller and stick the bullpens behind the outfield fence. Especially since that takes up bleacher real estate and there's a strong suggestion they'll sell bleacher tickets at some point (perhaps when they shift all the $500 platinum seats?).

Hey Sydney, any reason why the Sydney Showground/2000 baseball stadium was ruled out? Would the AFL Giants make that impossible?

singaporesoxfan · Jun 14, 2013

Can we have them round the bases clockwise?

Lose Remerswaal · Jun 14, 2013

They have special stands for the Ladies?

Philip Jeff Frye · Jun 19, 2013

Wow, and people thought playing games in Tokyo would discombobulate the players! Glad the Sox didn't draw that assignment.

CaptainLaddie · Jun 20, 2013

Lose Remerswaal said:
They have special stands for the Ladies?

Yeah, what the fuck?

Lowrielicious · Jun 20, 2013

Lose Remerswaal said:
They have special stands for the Ladies?

Its a "Ladies" stand in name only these days obviously. First opened in 1896.

The SCG is arguably* the closest equivalent to Fenway in Australia given it's preserved historic stands (Members - the one with the clock tower and Ladies - to the left of the members in the picture below) and it's relatively small size.

It is used primarily for Cricket (hence the name) and Australian Rules Football (or AFL = Australia Football League).

* I guess Adelaide Oval could make a similar claim ?

Spacemans Bong · Jun 20, 2013

Considering they bulldozed the historic Western stands, drastically shrunk the hill and are even getting rid of its crazy shape, no.

Fucking disgrace what they did to Adelaide Oval. It's like building Three Rivers Stadium on top of Fenway Park, but keeping the wall.

Brianish · Jun 20, 2013

singaporesoxfan said:
Can we have them round the bases clockwise?

This really needs to get some more love.

Lowrielicious · Nov 19, 2013

Thanks for the heads up Syd.

Orel Miraculous · Feb 27, 2014

Start the clock.

HriniakPosterChild · Feb 27, 2014

Orel Miraculous said:
Start the clock.

Like Oakland, only more so.

Frank Fenway · Feb 28, 2014

Centerfield is... interesting

Reverend · Feb 28, 2014

Frank said:
Centerfield is... interesting

Is it?

I like how runners trying to score apparently have the option of banking it off the backboard. Seems like a nice twist.

Lose Remerswaal · Feb 28, 2014

Frank said:
Centerfield is... interesting

Reverend said:
Is it?

Isn't there a fence being set up in the photo?

HriniakPosterChild · Feb 28, 2014

SydneySox said:
By the way ... Something people in cricket care more about, but there is a riveting webcam of the SCG pitch you can follow and literally watch the grass grow.

http://www.sydneycricketground.com.au/venues/webcams/scg-cam/

They are actually laying the infield and removing the pitch (its hallowed ground) in its entirety over the next few days.

I call bullshit on the webcam. It's pitch black.

Orel Miraculous · Mar 1, 2014

Well that was fast.

Reverend · Mar 8, 2014

SydneySox said:
Nacho hats!

http://m.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/big-beefy-and-totally-american--and-thats-just-the-food-at-the-major-league-baseball-opener-20140307-34cr4.html

the Chipper (a nachos-like dish made with meat and waffle fries)

Meat fries!!

Lowrielicious · Mar 17, 2014

Time lapse of the stadium conversion.

http://media.smh.com.au/featured/batter-up-transforming-the-scg-5270470.html

OzSox · Mar 18, 2014

SydneySox said:
In actual news though, the pitch - which they can't and won't dig up - has been grassed over, and is basically just to the left of center. But it's still rock hard.

Stupid question: is it really not standard to remove the cricket pitch for the AFL season anyway these days? I'm certain that's what they do at the MCG.

Lowrielicious · Mar 19, 2014

SydneySox said:
Yeah - and the pitch has been 'dropped out' so it's not there, but the ground around it is harder than the surrounding field. I imagine AFL players have leaned to live with this their entire careers but baseball players (from the US) not so much.

Funny, I was playing CF in a game of baseball here down at beautiful Tonkin Park in Cronulla and there's a synthetic pitch in the middle of the outfield there - saw a sinking liner hit that, rebound up and then over and into the bay. It's one of those hazards you get used to playing down here! (The other being tracking a fly ball and tripping as you hit the pitch)

Tonkin was the first field that came to mind when I was reading about the pitch complaints earlier today.

Realistically it can't be any weirder bounce than astroturf can it? Although I guess the difference is the variable bounce in different areas whereas turf would be uniform all over.

soxhop411 · Mar 19, 2014

Leskanic's Thread · Mar 19, 2014

Vin Scully is an international treasure.

Lose Remerswaal · Mar 19, 2014

Leskanic's_Thread said:
Vin Scully is an international treasure.

He's a bit of a dick, too.

Lowrielicious · Mar 19, 2014

Not that I am specifically trying to avoid you Syd....but I'm going tonight and Sunday.

Lowrielicious · Mar 20, 2014

Yeah crowd was pretty damn disappointing.

Although some of that had to have been the lack of marketing for these exhibition games I would say. I was told about them only fairly recently through baseball friends, saw no advertising or anything specifically for the non-MLB games.

Atmosphere was pretty good nonetheless in the seating behind the plate. Quite quiet early on but crowd got into it well in the later innings.

For the MLB games there are plenty of tickets being resold online below cost. Some friends of friends trying to get rid of theirs well below cost too.
Example a set of 5 for saturday night in upper members that were $259 retail price asking for $100 a pop as of yesterday afternoon and as far as I know they haven't offloaded them yet. If anyone is interested give me a shout.

Lowrielicious · Mar 20, 2014

Couple of low quality phone pics.

just prior to first pitch:

nice night for it:

Despite some reports of the ball flying everywhere in batting practice earlier in the week the carry seemed pretty normal to me. Puigs was a no doubter but not enormous. Couple of warning track shots to right that looked to have normal carry.

Lowrielicious · Mar 20, 2014

New grandstand (behind the plate) is pretty nice, though some advice to anyone sitting in this area. Entry is via gate G which is on Moore park road.

The nearest gate to the parking area (Anzac Parade side of the ground) is gate C (churchill stand) which is on the direct opposite side of the ground. On this gate there is signage saying you can enter this gate if your tickets say Gate G, but yesterday gate G tickets where not scanning at this gate as ticketec apparently had not configured the gates for it. So a LOT of people were stuck at this gate waiting for them to be loaded for about 20-25 mins and the locals became quite restless. I would hope they have this corrected by tonights game but something to be aware of.

Eventually they just let everyone through there anyway without scanning.

Lowrielicious · Mar 20, 2014

Gate C was the closest to where we parked and met someone else who also parked in the same area.

Once we were in it was actually good to walk around the ground from inside (rather than the outside the ground to gate A or G - I have seen the outside of the SCG often enough) to see the setup for the bullpens, your bar area and the view from the LF line (where our seats are on Sunday). If not for the scanning issues it would have been fine.

MentalDisabldLst · Mar 21, 2014

The Dodgers attempt to speak "Austrlian"

Unclear if the word "Fosters" was used.

The 2014 MLB Season Will Open in Sydney with Dodgers - Arizona

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