My Life in Rain Delay

This morning I woke up and went through my usual routine of getting ready to leave the house on my way to work. It was business as usual until I went to open my front door and head off to the train station. I crack open the door and what do I see? Pouring rain. Awesome. Not only pouring rain, but the heaviest downpour I have seen in my area during my morning commute since I moved here a little over a year ago. Needless to say I was none too pleased. Compounding my frustration was the debilitating lack of an umbrella. You see, every time I need one at home it just so happens to be at work and vice versa. So I stood there, momentarily stunned, weighing my options. It is Friday. I mean, I could just wait for it to subside and go in late, especially since I am always on time, right? I seriously considered this approach for a second before I caught myself and started to chuckle. I just thought about imposing my own personal rain delay on my life. I was ready to bring the tarp out on the front lawn, head back into my bedroom dugout and wait out Mother Nature with a nap.

Unfortunately, this excuse probably wouldn’t have flown at my office, although it would have been fun to see the response when I said I was late because my morning commute had been in a rain delay. The humor of the situation could not, though, prevent the inevitable. Super screwed. I gave up and, with a sigh, ran (kind of maybe a little) to the train station. As I was drying out in my seat this whole thing got me thinking about rain delays in baseball and I decided to do some research, specifically, what was the longest official rain delay in MLB history.

The first thing I found was that there are no official records kept on rain delays. The MLB and Elias Sports Bureau (the people that keep track of all statistics and supply ESPN with their meaningless filler stats like only 2 players have ever hit a single at 2:37 pm in a 2-0 count in the Midwest with the middle initial Q) do not feel that rain delays are worth archiving or even a stat at all. Luckily for me, though, there is a man named Phil Lowry. Good old Phil. I found an article on MLB.com with an email he sent in to Jason Beck’s blog in 2007 explaining exactly what I was looking for.

Throughout baseball history (as of August 2007) we have been subjected to 6 rain delays of four hours or more. Which one was the longest you ask? Well I will answer that in two ways. First, the longest rain delay in MLB history was for a game that got called after the delay. Lowry has it listed as a game between the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox on July 23, 1990. However, it seems Phil Lowry’s dates are wrong. When I went looking for box scores from that date (thinking there wouldn’t be any) I found the Rangers played the Yankees in Texas and the White Sox were home at Comiskey Park against the Cleveland Indians. Good Job Phil. It’s ok, we forgive you. After a little more digging I found that the correct date was actually Sunday August 12, 1990. Based on the starting pitchers the following day, the 13^th, it seems as though it was scheduled to be young rookie Alex Fernandez, in only his 3^rd start of his career, against veteran Kevin Brown and his 12-8 record and 3.51 ERA. Let’s set the scene.

Chicago was a second place team sitting 4.5 games behind the Oakland Athletics and Texas was in third place, a whopping 13 games back. The game was scheduled to start at 1:35 pm central time. It was not to be that day as the skies opened up, and for some godforsaken reason, the game was delayed for a brain numbing 7 hours and 23 minutes (!!111!!1!1!!) before it was finally and mercifully called at 8:58 pm central time. We can only imagine what Sammy Sosa, Ozzie Guillen, and future Yankees Jack Mcdowell and Melido Perez were doing with their time in the White Sox clubhouse. Maybe this is when Scott Radinsky decided to start a punk band after he retired (Pulley Homepage). Or, over in the Texas clubhouse, maybe Nolan Ryan, Charlie Hough, and Julio Franco were making a bet to see who could get closest to 50 before retiring? Only God knows. By the way, Julio won by retiring at age 48 while Hough and Ryan only made it to 46. Amateurs.

The longest delay of a game that was actually played (double-checked as I learned not to trust Lowry’s dates), was 5 hours and 45 minutes on October 3, 1999 in Milwaukee when the Reds and Brewers were supposed to start at 3:15 pm central time. This game was delayed for so long because of its playoff implications. It was game 162 and the Reds found themselves 1 game out of first place in the NL Central behind the Houston Astros and in a dead heat with the Mets atop the Wild Card standings. Mike Hampton led Houston over the Dodgers to secure the division crown for the Astros earlier in the day, and the Mets also won, defeating the Pirates behind a solid relief outing from none other than Armando Benitez. If the Reds won, they would face the Mets in a 1 game playoff the next day to determine the Wild Card winner. Imagine the agony of watching both the Mets and Astros win in early day games and then having to sit through almost 6 hours of rain. The pain! Well, the game did finally happen and the tandem of Pete Harnisch and Greg Vaughn led the Reds to victory. Unfortunately for the Reds they ran into big game Al Leiter who tossed a complete game shutout to put the Mets into the playoffs. All that waiting and rain for nothing.

So, in conclusion, I guess I have to give a shout out to Mother Nature for the torrential downpour I was greeted with this morning for giving me the inspiration to pen such an investigative piece of sports journalism. Thanks sweetie. Never change.