Pocono News Section

One Week til Opening Day at New PNC Field

One Week til Opening Day at New PNC Field - Thursday, April 1, 2010 at 04:10AM EST

Reported by: Eric Deabill
Thursday April 01 2010
MOOSIC, LACKAWANNA COUNTY - Opening Day at PNC Field is now just one week away.

Just after 10:00 A. M. Thursday Eyewitness News found Ken Havir in line at the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees box office.

He was exchanging tickets from last year, gearing up for opening day. I'm very excited to come here. I've got my granddaughters that can't wait," he said.

What most people also can't wait for is to see the brand new field at the stadium. After months of work in the winter, contractors finally turned it over to the stadium's groundskeeper Thursday.

Stadium Field Consultant Murray Cook said, Its basically a new field, you know? We went in and did new drainage, new construction of new grass, new infield clay. We actually used some of the old infield clay from the previous field and mixed that in."

The last time we saw it it was being torn up because drainage problems caused delay-after-delay at game after game.

You're not gonna have any drainage problems with this field. Its gonna drain. In fact, it rained here this past week. They had the tarp on the field and after they dumped the tarp, there was no water where you walk," said Cook.

With opening day now less than a week away, work is underway everywhere you look as stadium workers get ready.

Stadium Authority Vice President James Timlin said, We will be ready to go, unless we have a major, major snowstorm and we're not planning on that."

Instead everyone's planning to play ball, as long as the drainage delays are in the past.

Opening night is next Thursday, April 8th. The Buffalo Bison are in town and there are specials planned and fireworks at the end of the night.