Blue Jays transform Bisons stadium into new (temporary) home

It was delayed 137 days but it’s finally here: the Toronto Blue Jays home opener. Well, their temporary home (opener). On Tuesday, the Blue Jays host the Miami Marlins in Buffalo at the Buffalo Bisons Stadium known as Sahlen Field.

The stadium had to undergo massive renovations to meet MLB standards, which was lengthy in itself, but also new guidelines as they’re playing baseball in the middle of a global pandemic.

“We replaced the infield, we replaced behind home plate down the lines, and then 20 feet out,” Marnie Starkman, senior vice-president of marketing and business operations of the Blue Jays, said in a press conference. “We didn’t have time to do the entire field.”

The Bisons have been playing in downtown Buffalo for 32 years, but season ticket holders may not recognize it anymore. Take a look at some of the before and afters starting off with the entrance to the club house:

The stadium is much smaller than where MLB teams are so they had to get creative with spaces to make sure that players and staff would be socially distanced. What once was the batting cages in Sahlen Field is now the Blue Jays clubhouse.

Look at the path they would take to walk out to the field, if they didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t believe it was the same building.

The Blue Jays organization tried to make it feel as close to their Toronto home as possible. If you look at manager Charlie Montoyo’s office, they brought his instruments and photos of his family.

“We brought four large trucks worth of stuff from home (Toronto),” Starkman said. “It’s not going to look like home exactly, but anything we could do to make it look like home, we did. So we packed up our entire home weight room, we packed up our entire visiting weight room and all of the clubhouse chairs too.”

The Blue Jays took over what used to be the visiting teams room, and there was enough room for the other teams to practice with the new COVID-19 MLB guidelines, so in the parking lot beside the stadium a giant tent was put up where the visiting teams locker is, weight room, etc.

And like many other MLB teams this season the Blue Jays will have fans in the stadium, well at least cardboard cutout versions. Fans are able to purchase cutouts for $60 for the season with a portion of the profits going towards the Blue Jays Care Foundation and its efforts to help Canadian families affected by COVID-19.