Weather Isn’t The Only Reason Games Are Scrubbed

By Dan Schlossberg

Games have been delayed or postponed for rain, snow, hail, lightning, and even tornadoes but lots of other unexpected reasons also dot the baseball history books.

Just last Tuesday, for example, the first pitch of the game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks was delayed by busy bees behind home plate at Chase Field in Phoenix.

Never mind this is a ballpark with a retractable dome that could have been closed to keep the annoying bees on the outside rather than the inside.

With the bees gathered on top of the betting behind home plate, the D’backs instructor fans to “please bee patient” while the organist played Let It Be, a popular song by the Bee-tles.

Amazingly, this was not the first time the D’backs had a bee delay. It happened once before, on April 3, 2014, during a game against the San Francisco Giants.

Baseball has also had a sun delay — when the setting sun made throws from third to first impossible to see at Jarry Parc — and plenty of fog delays.

Standing on the tarp keeps the wind from blowing it off the field.Photo byWikimedia

When Harvey Haddix threw his 12-inning perfect game against the Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium on May 26, 1959, the fog was as thick as pea soup. And fog is no stranger to games played in the Bay Area, especially San Francisco.

And, speaking of San Francisco, how about the 1989 earthquake that stopped the World Series between the A’s and Giants for 10 full days? It struck just before Game 3, when the teams were taking warmups at Candlestick Park.

That stadium was more notorious for wind, which often played tricks with the ball, than Wrigley Field, where hitters loved when the wind blew out but pitchers celebrated when the wind blew in. Hall of Famer Greg Maddux said the changing conditions helped him as much as they hurt him.

On May 20, 1960, the Cubs and Braves were victims of the first fog-out at Milwaukee County Stadium. Umpire Frank Dascoli, having trouble seeing the outfielders from home plate, took his three crew members and headed into the outfield, where the Cubs’ three men were already stationed. Frank Thomas of the Cubs hit a fungo and one of the seven could see it. That clinched it: the game, 0-0 in the last of the fifth, was wiped out.

The only previous fog-out in NL history also involved the Cubs — at Brooklyn in 1956.

The Cubs had previously lost a game to the elements when gnats descended on Ebbets Field in the sixth inning of a doubleheader nightcap on Sept. 15, 1946. The sun was out but the gnats so irritated the fans that they waved their white scorecards to shoo them away and created a hazard for players’ vision. The Dodgers were awarded a 2-0 win since five innings had been completed.

Sudden cancellations often hurt individual players. Bill Terry of the New York Giants lost the 1931 National League batting crown by three-thousandths of a percentage point because he lost a base-hit in a game cancelled by darkness. During a doubleheader in Brooklyn, Terry singled in his first at-bat of the second game. Confident he had won the batting title after a three-way race with Jim Bottomley and Chick Hafey, Terry voluntarily left the game. But Dodgers executive Fresco Thompson set fire to several scorecards as a signal it was too dark to continue. Umpire Bill Klem forfeited the game, giving the Cards a 9-0 win in the record books, but none of the individual records counted.

Six years later, Cardinals slugger Joe Medwick lost sole possession of the NL’s home run crown because of stalling tactics by the Phillies. Medwick’s homer had helped St. Louis take a 3-0 lead in the third inning of a doubleheader nightcap but the game began late because of a heavy shower that began just as the first game ended. It would have been hard to squeeze in the required five innings before curfew curtailed the game but Phillies pilot Jimmy Wilson wanted to be sure. He began a deliberate effort to delay proceedings — despite several warnings from Bill Klem — before the ump awarded the game to the Cards by forfeit. Since five frames had not passed, Medwick lost the home run and finished in a tie with Mel Ott of the Giants (31 each).

Rowdy fans have forced forfeits too — most notably when White Sox owner Bill Veeck staged Disco Demolition Night as a promotion at Comiskey Park on July 12, 1979. A fan riot triggered by the burning of disco memorabilia made it unsafe to play the second game of a doubleheader.

Way back in 1907, unhappy fans at the opening game of the New York Giants started pelting players — and each other — with snowballs during the eighth inning of a game against the Phillies. Play had to be halted but the Phils got a 9-0 win by forfeit.

Records of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League show an Oakland game called because Army troops in training dug up the turf; a seismic shock in Seattle during a game; a midday game in Ventura, CA called off because of a total eclipse; and a 24-inning, 1-1 tie in Sacramento forced to stop when the playing field was obscured by thick black smoke from a neighbor’s burning trash.

But the all-time best reason for cancelling a game occurred in 1921, when an Appalachian League game was postponed by a homicide. After a girl’s body was found at the Kingsport, TN ballpark, police closed the stadium to avoid confusing bloodhounds in their search for the killer. The game against Knoxville was called.

Here’s The Pitch weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ has witnessed numerous postponements, usually from severe weather. He even saw Hank Aaron lose a home run in Philadelphia when a pre-game deluge struck Connie Mack Stadium before five innings could be completed. Dan’s email, in fair weather or foul, is ballauthor@gmail.com.