ALDS Drizzle Out, Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York - October 4, 2006

These pictures were taken with my Fujifilm Finepix S9000 digital camera at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York, on October 4, 2006. There was supposed to be a baseball game - Game 2 of the American League Division Series between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees.

The game was cancelled by the threat of heavy rain rather than by the rain itself. With 56,000 people in the Stadium and not a drop of rain yet to be seen, the field was prepared, the Star Spangled Banner sung, the ceremonial first pitch tossed. But no sign of the starting pitchers warming up. Shortly after the scheduled start time, the tarp went on and we sat for 20-30 minutes, waiting for the rain to start. It started but only briefly came down hard enough that it would cause a possible stoppage of play. An announcement in the Stadium said that the rain would end around 9:30 and that the game would be played. Liars. The rain did end, and the grounds crew had the field ready to go. But again, no sign of pitchers warming up. Those with radios or with people at home watching ESPN to call them on their cell phone with updates learned that the game had been postponed. The tarp was being put back on (while there was no rain falling) and people started to leave. However, still no official word inside the Stadium that the game was postponed, when it would be made up, or if anything needed to be done with tickets. A good 15 minutes later, the announcement finally came. A 1:00 game the next day -- all but useless to those who had a significant amount of travel or maybe a job that requires more than 15 hours notice to change plans. Sure, bad weather happens, but this was handled poorly. I am convinced that the decision was made a lot earlier and the fixing up of the field between 9:30 and 10 was only a way to keep as much of the crowd on hand and buying concessions as they could. I'd expect better. At least announce the decision in the Stadium at the same time that the viewers and listeners at home find out. And how about updates on the weather during the delay? Put the radar loop on the big scoreboard so fans can make their own judgements and decide whether to stay or go. After the cancellation when we knew we couldn't come back and had no hope of finding anyone we knew to take the tickets, we gave them away to some of the people who were sitting near us. And the frustrating part is that if they just started on time and played through the lighter rain, the game probably could have been over by the time the heavy rains came well after 11 PM.

Even so, there are a handful of pictures. We did hear the national anthem and got to see Paul O'Neill toss out the ceremonial first pitch... Well worth a hundred dollars plus and 13-hour round trip..

Images are shown at a resolution of 640x480, but many are available either in full size or cropped from the 3488x2616 originals, or in half size by clicking on the links after the captions.