South Carolina has not played its final game at Sarge Frye Field after all. The Gamecocks announced Friday that their new baseball stadium will not be ready for the 2008 season, so it’s back to Sarge Frye, their home since 1977. A bit like Boston’s Big Dig, the price tag for the new stadium project continues to rise–it’s now up to $35.6 million, more than three times its original cost, according to The (Columbia, S.C.) State. And there will be a big dig of a different sort at the site of the new ballpark, where a number of massive granite boulders must be broken down and hauled away.

The new ballpark should be finished in time for the start of the 2008-09 academic year, giving the Gamecocks a chance to settle into their new home during fall practice.