Candlestick Needs Transplant Now : Pro football: Rain-soaked field gets turf trucked in from Southern California to repair it in time for NFC championship game between Cowboys and 49ers.

One look at the Candlestick Park field after the Washington Redskin-San Francisco 49er game and NFL officials knew desperate measures were needed to prepare it for Sunday’s NFC championship.

With a football field that resembled nothing so much as plowed acreage, the league turned to its grass guru, George Toma. The turf consultant has gone right to work and promises a beautiful and sturdy field for the Dallas Cowboys and 49ers.

“We’re worried about the rain, but we’ll work in between the raindrops,” Toma said Monday while keeping a watchful eye on the repair work. “If it’s raining lightly, we can be laying sod.”

Beginning today, about half the rain-soaked field will be replaced with turf trucked all the way from the Southern California desert, some 500 miles. On Monday, about 20 groundskeepers were busy peeling off the top layer of chewed-up bluegrass turf and hauling it away in trucks.

Most of the new grass, which should be in place by Wednesday, will go in the center of the field in a swath 90 feet wide, with more being installed in front of the south goal line.

“We’re just going up number to number practically, and then doctor anything past the numbers out, which isn’t in too bad a shape,” he said.

Strips of Bermuda grass overseeded with rye will be laid in 36 foot-long pieces, and groundskeepers will punch about 36 pencil-sized holes in each square foot of turf to aid drainage. More than five inches of rain has fallen in San Francisco since Jan. 1, and the last two games at Candlestick have been played in wet conditions.

The field became a bigger issue after the 49ers’ mucky 20-13 victory last Saturday over Washington. Both teams complained about the slick surface and difficult footing.

For the NFC championship, the 49ers view a sloppy field as advantageous to them because the Cowboys rely on speed and play on artificial turf.

Toma is confident the new, heavier turf will be more durable and allow each team to play to the best of its capabilities.

“It shouldn’t be slimy and muddy because it’s a little newer and better sod,” he said. “Once you put that sod down, it will not kick up because it’s so heavy.”

Finding suitable sod wasn’t easy. Toma, who knows all the good sod spots, had to go to Indio, Calif., to find some dry enough to work. The last time he worked at Candlestick, his job was just as difficult, although the field wasn’t in such bad shape.

“One of the best sodding jobs I’ve ever seen--and I’ve been in the game 48 years--was done here in ‘82,” Toma said. “Nobody would cut the sod, so they went to Kezar Stadium and cut the grass and brought it in here. The (conference) championship game was played and nothing got ripped up down the center.”

That was the last time Dallas and San Francisco met in the playoffs, and the 49ers went on to win the Super Bowl.

“To me, the grounds crew was also the world champions because they have such good people,” he said.

The NFL, in conjunction with both teams and the city of San Francisco, made the decision to bring in Toma, who lives in Kansas City.

“Everybody was very cooperative,” NFL spokesman Joe Ellis said. “They understood we had to be equitable to both teams.”

The league won’t disclose the cost of the resodding, but Toma said the project is more expensive than normal due to the cost of transporting it from Southern California.

Toma also oversaw a complete resodding of Foxboro Stadium last year and a difficult replacement of both grass and soil at RFK Stadium before the 1983 NFC championship game between the Redskins and 49ers.

“Here you’re just skimming, like you’re peeling paint off a wall or taking off a Band-Aid,” he said.