The few, the proud, the foolhardy dedicated fans who turned up for Tuesday night’s Cincinnati Reds-Chicago Cubs scheduled game at the Great American Ball Park were in denial, but what truly hammered home their Don Quixote-like quest to see Major League baseball that evening was what greated them on the gigantic videoboard in left field: A super-large weather map like the ones on TV, complete with the ominous moving color schemes that represent violent storm activity.
Pictures of players and stats of players were replaced as the world’s largest weather map told an ugly story. Not only was it raining so hard it looked like snow against the backdrop of the outfield lights, but peace in our sky was not promised soon. Every once in a while a pacing Reds manager Dusty Baker would peek his head out from the protection of the dugout roof, look upwards, and retreat to his office.
A game scheduled for 7:10 p.m. was postponed at about 9:20, and really only the most hardcore optimists thought this game might be played. Still, weirder things have occurred on soggy nights and MLB is much more hesitant to call off a game than familes are to call off a picnic. Given that batting practice was going strong at 4:30 and rain began soon after, it was a long vigil in the clubhouse. To play or not to play, that was the question.
Everyone was dressed up in uniform with nowhere to go and plenty of time to kill. So, Mr. Baker, what did you do during limbo time?
“I was staring at the radar,” he said, indicating the television set in his office. “I answered fan mail. I ate. I was trying not to each everything in the kitchen. I was on the phone with Walt (Reds general manager Walt Jocketty) and the umpires.”
Compared to decades ago it seems more difficult every year for weather to provoke an official postponement. That’s because in the olden days teams just immediately re-scheduled as part of a next-day doubleheader. These days there is a much greater reluctance to forfeit a gate. Indeed, before the evening news came on this game had been re-scheduled for an open date in August.
Guys in the clubhouse knew as much as fans (couldn’t have been more than 2,000 in the park) about the likelihood of play. Mike Leake said he walked back and forth between every room in the clubhouse. That would be the trainer’s room, the bathroom, the players private room. In any case, the walks were short. You could only go so far.
After a bit, more ingenius time-killing ways took over. “We played a little putt-putt,” he said, “played a little football catch.” Not enough room or open space in the clubhouse to go long. “It almost gets to the point where you don’t want to play.”
Meaning who wants to start a game that won’t end until 2 a.m. or later? Apparently the Philadelphia Phillies. Baker said that he for sure remembers a game in Philadelphia starting about midnight after a rain delay. Leake said about 9:30 p.m. is his personal latest. Pitcher Matt Latos had a different take on the entire situation after being acquired from the Padres this year.
“I played in San Diego,” he said. “It never rained.”
Leake and Latos are starting pitchers who weren’t scheduled to start Tuesday, so they weren’t overly affected by the monsoon. Bronson Arroyo, who thinks he has begun a rain-delayed game as late as 10 p.m., was the scheduled starter. With 13 years in the majors and 113 wins on his record, the righty has pretty much seen it all, so although he was the thrower of the hour he was experienced enough to assimilate the weather into his preparations.
“I hadn’t fired up or anything for the game yet,” Arroyo said when the sky opened up. “I was starting to get prepared. It looked like we were going to go at about 8 o’clock. I thought we were going to be OK.” Some starting pitchers retreat into a zone when it’s their turn, but Arroyo mingled. “I was just hanging with the guys,” he said.
Except for the short period when he came up with the finest idea of all to make the time gallop. “I look a little nap,” Arroyo said.
Now that’s a savvy veteran.
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