The Blue Jays may have added a division-title banner to the Rogers Centre rafters last season, but the organization this year is losing a long-held, global distinction.

The stadium’s grounds crew will no longer be recognized as “The World’s Fastest.”

“We won’t use that title any more,” confirmed Stephen Brooks, the Jays senior vice-president of business operations. “I won’t say what we’re going to use instead just yet.”

Granted, the self-appointed title was always dubious. The groundskeepers did seem to be running as fast as they could as they raced from beyond the outfield wall to rake the dirt around the bases after the third and sixth innings. But as the only stadium in Major League Baseball without an all-dirt infield, they had the least ground to groom.

Of course they were the fastest, but those days are over.

While natural grass remains a distant dream, the Toronto Argos’ move to BMO Field means an all-dirt infield is finally a reality for the Jays. It will make its official debut in Friday’s home opener against the Boston Red Sox.

“It’s the way baseball was meant to be played,” said Brooks, who would not disclose the total cost of the project. “It makes us consistent with every other team now.”

Tampa’s Tropicana Field, the only other major-league stadium with artificial turf, has always had an all-dirt infield, which left many Jays fans wondering why the Rogers Centre couldn’t do the same. But a key difference between the two fields is that Tampa’s is permanently in place, while the Rogers Centre’s turf came up and down to accommodate football and other events. The constant conversions made an all-dirt infield impossible.

Before and After

Now the baseball turf will be down permanently, Brooks said. The Rogers Centre will still host concerts by either laying something on top of the turf or taking up parts of the outfield and roping off the infield.

The motivation for doing this now is a combination of aesthetics and player health — the infielders will no longer have to stand on artificial turf for half the game.

But it’s also what baseball is supposed to look like.

The Jays based the design and clay mixture on Baltimore’s Camden Yards after informally surveying players for their preferences on infields around the league.

They are using the same clay mix — Dura Edge, which is three parts sand to one part each of clay and silt — as the Orioles, and that the Jays use at their spring-training facility in Dunedin, Fla.

The various consultations out of the way, they got the jackhammers out in February and busted through the concrete floor. Brooks kept fans abreast with the progress on his Twitter account, which was both a personal and public service. The veteran Jays executive had long heard complaints from fans about what was so difficult about putting in an all-dirt infield.

“I hope a bit of the insight into this process provides some clarity around why.”

The crews actually broke a few jack hammers drilling down into some “high-quality concrete,” which they believed may have been from the base of the crane from the stadium’s original construction.

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They cut to a depth of about 30 centimetres, which is three times deeper than Tampa, with whom they had consulted and told them of the challenges in maintaining the appropriate moisture levels. There’s no drainage underneath the playing surface, but the infield dirt must be watered to ensure it doesn’t get too hard.

“Where we have the benefit where Tampa perhaps doesn’t is the depth,” Brooks said. “We still can’t overwater it otherwise it’ll be too muddy, and you can’t underwater it because it could evaporate.”

After cutting through the concrete they added a layer of pea gravel, then a layer of U.S. Golf Association bunker sand and then the clay mix, which was rolled, dragged and levelled to ensure it was perfect. Earlier this week, the Thornhill Reds and Toronto Mets, two of the GTA’s elite youth teams, were the first to test the new infield to ensure there were no inconsistencies and that any bounces were true.

It was a lengthy process, but Brooks said he is pleased with the final result.

“It looks and feels more like a ballpark.”