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What do you do with 250 tonnes of San Diego clay no longer needed at the Sydney Cricket Ground?
You sell it.
No sooner had the Major League Baseball circus packed up and left town then tradesmen returned to the SCG to transform the city’s temporary field of dreams back to its former self.
There was no time to waste – on April 5, St George Illawarra and South Sydney require a rugby league ground to play on for the NRL’s heritage round.
Last pitch for the baseball on Sunday was at 5.15pm.
By 7pm workers were already dismantling the dugouts used by the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers for the historic opening-season series.
On Monday morning the removal of the in-field clay and pitcher’s mound begins.
By Wednesday the warning track dirt will come out.
Basically all the materials used to make the famous cricket ground look like a baseball field can now be re-sold.
And in time, grass that’s been waiting patiently on a farm in Sydney’s west, will be transported back to fill in the gaps.
SCG curator Tom Parker has said from the beginning that getting the ground back to its original state was his No.1 priority.
Scott Eggleton, the project manager for organisers Moore Sports, said no stone or iota of clay would be left unturned.
“We’ve done as much planning on getting it out as we did on the way in,” he said.
“We’ve got different standards to meet.
“The hardest thing will be getting the turf signed off to the SCG standards at the end.
“But that’s been done before. What we’ve already done, had never been done.
“It’s the same pride you put in for the (baseball diamond), you want to put in to get it back.”
With a decent run of weather, the SCG should have no problem meeting its NRL deadline.
Organisers and the MLB have indicated opening day of the baseball season could return to Sydney in the future, and Eggleton is confident his team can do it even better the second time around.
“That’d be great,” he said.
“You learn a lot in doing it. We could probably do it a little differently, probably better the next time.”
The Diamondbacks and Dodgers, their friends, family and media all promptly flew out on Sunday night just hours after the game finished.
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