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Most sports fans in New York City are excited about the arrival of the Big Apple’s Major League Soccer (MLS) expansion team in 2015, but Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees aren’t among them. The franchise known as New York City FC (NYCFC) begins play in the 2015 season and since the club is co-owned by the Yankees and Manchester City of the English Premier League, it will be playing its 17 home games this season at the famous Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

The club sold 30,000 seats for its home debut and already seems to be quite popular among New Yorkers. However, the Yankees have to share the field with the new kids in town and have 81 home games to play this year. The ball club is a bit apprehensive about sharing their turf with the soccer team and Mark Teixeira, the Yankees’ first baseman recently told the media, “It’ll definitely cause an issue, but it’s nothing that we can control, so we can’t worry about it. It’s terrible for a field… Grass, dirt, everything gets messed up.”

Actually, the Yankees will have to get used to sharing their digs since it looks like NYCFC may be playing their home matches at the stadium for the first three years. NYCFC is planning on building a soccer-only stadium somewhere in the city, but there aren’t any concrete plans as of yet. According to the soccer and baseball schedule this year, the ground crew at Yankee Stadium will have a minimum of three days to convert the field from soccer to baseball and vice versa. There will be one occasion during the season where they crew will have just two days to complete the job.

Tim Pernetti of NYCFC said the two teams agreed on a suitable schedule which will give the ground crew plenty of time to make the conversion. He added that the Yankees have the best ground crew in baseball and he doesn’t foresee any problems for them. The crew will re-grow the grass in the outfield by using a mobile lighting system between the clubs’ games. The pitcher’s mound won’t have to be touched since it falls outside of the boundaries of the soccer pitch.

Brett Gardner, the Yankees’ left fielder said the turf has held up well in the past when soccer games were played at the stadium, but there is an injury risk for players since the grass will be re-planted and grown so many times during the season. He said the grass doesn’t really have any roots and it’s like playing on artificial grass which is just sitting on cement. He added that a player could blow out his ankle of knee if the turf gives out.