Re-Creating a Stadium Before Its First Pitch is Thrown

Brendan Harris' groundout to end Minnesota's American League Divisional Series with New York started a 171-day clock until the christening of the Twins' new ballpark, Target Field. Sony's MLB The Show will have to have the grounds ready much sooner.

New stadium construction is not just a problem knotting up state legislatures and city councils. Any sports title developer - any that presents its game as a true-to-life simulation, anyway - must also cope with changes of venue. In the current console generation, baseball has seen this more often than its counterpart team sports in North America, adding five new parks since 2005. The NFL has seen three and the NBA and NHL one each in the same span, and none of those sports' on-field play involve park dimensions in the way that baseball necessarily does.