Waterworld

Thoughts and observations from another waterlogged night at Consol Energy Park:

Keep this in mind when reading this post: The thunderstorm that hit Washington and Greene counties Saturday night forced the stoppage at halftime and cancellation of the ProGrass high school football all-star game in Waynesburg; the Wild Things and Traverse City Beach Bums finished their baseball game after a rain delay of nearly two hours.

Something obviously is wrong here. The weather was too bad for a football game to be resumed. On artificial turf.

Yet it wasn't too bad to resume a baseball game on a grass field that was already deluged with rain one night earlier.

If it was asinine for the Wild Things and Beach Bums to play Friday night, what do you call the decision to resume play Saturday? How about foolish? Or just plain stupid?

To recap, the game was stopped after the top of the sixth inning with Washington leading, 3-1. The tarp was put down moments before the strong thunderstorm hit the area. The game was official at this point. Had it been called, the Wild Things would have won a rain-shortened game.

After roughly an hour passed, and with the outfield now a quagmire, Matt Neador (crew chief of the umpires) decided to resume play. There was some confusion as to whether or not Neader first banged the game and then changed his mind or not.

It was Neader's call at this point. Once the game's first pitch is thrown, the decision to stop or resume a game is up to the umpires.

Neader decided to resume play at 10:30 p.m. There was no doubt Washington manager Greg Jelks wanted the game to be called and put in the books. Traverse City manager Jon Cahill, of course, wanted play to resume. Both pleaded their cases. Cahill made a good point that the field had more standing water in the outfield Friday than it did Saturday, and there was no postponement of that game.

So Saturday night's waterlogged game was completed. Traverse City scored two runs in the top of the ninth for a 3-3 tie, but Washington won with a run in the bottom of the inning.

"That was just wrong to play in those conditions," Jelks said. "But the precedent we set by playing Friday caused us to play (Saturday). Cahill's point that the field looked better than it did Friday was valid."

The game should have never resumed. Baseball wasn't meant to be played in those conditions. But don't pin all the blame on Neader. He was just following standard procedure. The problem is the "Bill Lee Rule."

Lee is the commissioner of the Frontier League and a guy who has done many good things for the league. This, however, is not one of them. His mandate is that all games are to be played/resumed if the infield is dry and the weather forecast is favorable. It doesn't matter how much water is in the outfield.

(When telling this story late Saturday night to O-R assistant sports editor Joe Tuscano, his response was "If that's the case, then why don't they just go ahead and start the season in March?")

The outfield at CEP was simply too dangerous to play on after the water from the tarp was dumped in right field. To illustrate, the Beach Bums' Jake Whitesides hit a routine ground ball single in the 9th and ended up with a double because the ball stopped in a water puddle in right field. Washington's Matt Sutton couldn't scoop the ball out of the water and keep his footing at the same time. Or maybe Sutton was just blinded by all the water that was flying.

"It's sad to say, but it's probably going to take a kid getting hurt badly before we change things," Jelks said. "My question is, can't something be done about it before it gets to that point?"

At some point, common sense and the safety of the players has to come into play. In affiliated ball, Saturday night's game would have never been resumed. It wouldn't have been considered. Major-league teams won't risk getting their high-priced prospects hurt playing in such dangerous conditions.

Remember, the football game in Waynesburg (on artificial turf) was cancelled.

* By my count, when play resumed there were a mere 55 spectators in the ballpark. At least a few of these fans had a sense of humor about the situation. In the top of the ninth, when all was quiet between pitches, several diehards stood up and chanted "Let's play two! Let's play two!"

* The chanters were the Pat O'Brien Fan Club guys. "Pat-O-Bri-En!"

* Did anyone who stayed to the end notice that "Take me out to the ballgame" wasn't played at the seventh-inning stretch? Or that Jeff Williams was announced as "Now pitching for the Beach Boys" during a ninth-inning change?