Yankee Stadium will be the venue for 17 home games for New York City, a franchise partly owned by the Yankees, during the MLS season, with excitement building ahead of Sunday's visit of the New England Revolution.
Their have already been 30,000 tickets sold for New York City's home opener, but the Yankees are far from thrilled about the prospect of a groundshare with the likes of David Villa and Frank Lampard.
"It'll definitely cause an issue, but it's nothing that we can control, so we can't worry about it," Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira told The Wall Street Journal.
"It's terrible for a field... Grass, dirt, everything gets messed up."
The football and baseball clubs will have to share the stadium for a few years while a football-first stadium is built somewhere in New York's five boroughs.
The grounds crew will have at least three days to convert the field from baseball to football and vice versa, aside from one two-day swing.
"We worked within the parameters of the Yankees, and what they felt they needed to convert the field into a soccer field and convert it back to baseball," chief business officer of New York City Tim Pernetti said.
"Their staff, they're the best grounds crew in the country, we've worked out a schedule that gives them the time they need to convert it in and out. We're not concerned."
Mobile lighting will be used to regrow grass in the outfield between games, while the pitchers mound is far enough away from the football boundaries to stay during football matches.
Yankees left fielder Brett Gardner said soccer games haven't posed a huge problem in the past, but did say the risk of injury is elevated with planting and regrowing new grass so often.
"Problem is the root system. After you put new grass down, there's no root system, so essentially you're running full speed on top of astroturf that's sitting on top of cement," Gardner said.
"And that grass will give way, and you blow something out - knee, ankle."
