That was well worth the click. They couldn't move that tarp to save their lives.

Comedy gold, Jerry!

I was mesmerized by this, flipping back and forth between Yes and Rangers broadcast. Kay was doing his best to defend the crew. Rangers crew did crack wise a bit. That grounds crew was badly defeated.

How convienent. I drove by the stadium about the same time the game was finally called in the Yankees favor. It was not raining.

So when the game was called, did Sterling go into his inane "The Yankeeeees winnn!" spiel?

I'm not a violent man by nature, but I'm afraid if I ever met Sterling, I'd be tempted to punch him in the face to keep him from doing play-by-play for several weeks. In the meantime, the Yankees could hire a real announcer, not a pompous ass who insults New York fans' intelligence.

Indeed, that was entertaining.

As to the game, I have to admit, it leaves a bad taste for NY to win a game primarily because their ground crew failed at their job.

Home field advantage. A lead with an inept ground crew.

Best BTF lead in ever.

Obligatory.

How convienent. I drove by the stadium about the same time the game was finally called in the Yankees favor. It was not raining.

Earl Weaver having the grounds crew dump the water from the tarp over the Memorial Stadium field in 1978 is the reason we have "suspended games" now. It's also indirectly why Red Sox fans hate Bucky Dent.

Didn't this happen in 2005 when the Nats were playing the Mets? Randolph petitioned to overturn the W for the Nats on grounds that the crew was unable to comply with the umpires order or something. But that was RFK and I remember a light most would cover the infield in water after about 10 minutes, so playability was always an issue there.

And Darvish gets the loss, wasting an appearance. Perhaps they can bring him back a day earlier for his next start … ah, who cares :)

I went to a Marlins game in 1993 where one of the grounds crew guys tripped and fell and got caught under the tarp. No one noticed until the tarp was on the field and there was a man shaped bump in the middle of the infield. They had to remove the tarp to let him up.

This was one of those classic Miami downpours that lasted like 20 minutes but during that 20 minutes you thought the world was ending. The delay wound up being about 3 1/2-4 hours as I recall. I would be curious why this game wasn't picked up after that sort of delay last night.

As tempted as I am as a Red Sox fan to scream "Fix!" and suggest that Yankees be charged with a forfeit the conditions looked pretty bad. I suspect this sort of thing has happened to every team at some point.

Was the grounds crew inept? Or was the rain just too heavy to move the tarp? Is wasn't clear from the clip.

Was the grounds crew inept? Or was the rain just too heavy to move the tarp? Is wasn't clear from the clip.

Seems like a combination of wind and rain.

The problem last night was that it went from no rain at all to a torrential downpour in about 30 seconds, with nothing in between. It wasn't the ground crew's fault, it was the fault of whoever decided to let the game go on until the rain was actually falling, because by then it was too late. It's not as if they didn't know what was coming, either, as the YES feed had shown ominous clouds almost immediately over the Stadium for the past half inning, and had been relaying the weather reports that said that heavy rains were imminent. About five minutes of proactive precaution could have prevented this from happening.

Yeah, it went from "not raining at all" to "torrential downpour" in about 30 seconds, so while you could say that the umpires *should* have put the tarp on before the inning in anticipation that the rain would be coming through, it's rare for it to get that bad that fast. I didn't see anything wrong with the way the grounds crew got the tarp out there, there seemed to be no delay.

Having helped pull a tarp onto a baseball field a few times, I can tell you, that ###### is heavy even before the water gets on it.

It wasn't the ground crew's fault,

Not totally, but had they gotten the tarp over the field on the first attempt, the infield wouldn't have turned into a beach at high tide. RE: who decided to let the game go on, isn't that also the grounds crew which does the weather monitoring? That's been my impression over the years. I know the Umps make that determination once the game begins, but I've seen plenty of games where the GC super. runs up to the crew chief between innings with presumably weather info. After all, Dale Scott and his crew were in the middle of the game, while these storms were rolling into the area.

I've also done tarp duty before, it does suck ass. This was definitely a bad hand for the grounds crew last night, I'm just saying it wasn't their finest hour.

I know the Umps make that determination once the game begins, but I've seen plenty of games where the GC super. runs up to the crew chief between innings with presumably weather info.

And the head of the grounds crew was doing that. Dale Scott knew the situation, and the grounds crew was watching him and waiting for him to give the go-ahead to put the tarp on.

this sort of thing has happened to every team at some point

Jeff Wilson points out that the same thing happened last season in Arlington. I was there that night and it was hilarious but scary, as the winds took the tarp and blew it around the stadium like a handkerchief. That game was rained out altogether and we got rain checks.

The design of certain stadiums might lead to these weird wind effects more than others, but it just might be a freaky happenstance anyway.

Jeff Wilson is a Ft Worth sportswriter, BTW, not just some guy who looked into my office this morning. Not that it would matter if he was.

Having helped pull a tarp onto a baseball field a few times, I can tell you, that ###### is heavy even before the water gets on it.

This time's a thousand...in minor league ball the tarp crew is basically every full-time member of the front office, from GM on down - and each body, plus the grounds crew and a couple of security guys or something like that is needed under "easy" conditions. In a downpour is rough...a downpour with wind is the worst, because the thing just wants to take off on you.

Rolling it back up - while usually done under better weather conditions is just as bad sometimes - the thing is soaked (hence the dumping into the OF) - and by the time you are done, you are too.

I missed out on the worst tarp debacle though. My second year with my last team, the tarp was due for replacement. It came in during spring training while I was with the team in Florida, and arrived on an enclosed trailer. The team didn't own a forklift and no one thought to rent or borrow one...so the solution was to simply have the whole front office get in the truck and just push the thing out...and from their enjoy the fun of wrangling it from the parking lot into the stadium....all while I was enjoying all of the comforts of the Tiger's lakeland comlplex (which is a whole other fun story).

Watch out, Vince Coleman!

What happened to automatic tarp machines like that? Did they get rid of em because of Vince's injury or do they only work on turf or what?

The design of certain stadiums might lead to these weird wind effects more than others

The tarp was *thisclose* to flying out into the right-center field seats last night.

See, now if they still had ARod around, they could have just hitched the tarp to him and had him pull it.

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I do wonder that they make the process so hard on themselves. But some removable bolts out in the field and a couple 1.5 ton winches could make the job significantly easier. It might not be necessary for every rain delay, but it also wouldn't be so expensive as to be prohibitive.

Speaking of inclement weather, check out this from yesterday's Nationals-Rockies game. My favorite part is the vortex surrounding Jayson Werth at 1:20.

Yeah, it went from "not raining at all" to "torrential downpour" in about 30 seconds, so while you could say that the umpires *should* have put the tarp on before the inning in anticipation that the rain would be coming through, it's rare for it to get that bad that fast. I didn't see anything wrong with the way the grounds crew got the tarp out there, there seemed to be no delay.

Having helped pull a tarp onto a baseball field a few times, I can tell you, that ###### is heavy even before the water gets on it.

Consider yourself lucky that you weren't around when the tarps were made of canvas, which were much heavier to begin with and quickly got saturated with water and provided little protection once the rain got beyond a certain level of intensity. It's no coincidence that before World War II teams would schedule one or two home doubleheaders a year, and yet often wind up playing 10 or 15 of them after rain had wiped out one game after another. Even in the 50's, you'd see some teams having to play half a dozen makeup doubleheaders in the last six weeks of the season. The coming of lightweight waterproof tarps did away with most of that.