Regardless of what Al Gore has to say about it; after a week of baseball games played in football weather, fans in several northeastern and midwestern cities are very eager for climate change.
In the Bronx, broadcaster Michael Kay described the scene during the Bombers' first night game as looking like "a Yankee Stadium snow globe." Games in Detroit and Chicago were postponed due to extreme cold.
And then, there's Cleveland.
The Indians attempted to squeeze in Friday's game against the Mariners, ignoring weather that would have given a red-nosed reindeer pause. The game started nearly an hour late, was delayed on three separate occasions, and was finally cancelled with two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning -- just one strike shy of an official game, and with Cleveland's Paul Byrd throwing a no-hitter. (The umpiring crew offered an explanation of their decision, but it certainly seems that a bit of gamesmanship from Mariner skipper Mike Hargrove saved Seattle from a loss.) Snowstorms then forced the postponement of Saturday and Sunday's games... they'll try yet again on Monday.
Could all this have been avoided? More than possibly. For places like Boston, New York, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Philly and Pittsburgh, bad weather in early April will always be a possibility. And as ESPN's Buster Olney points out, (ESPN Insider Subscription Required) the idea that teams in those northern cities would be unwilling to start every season on the road has been disproven, to some degree. So why not play the first week's games in warm weather cities or in domes?
Failing that, the league could save itself a lot of logistical heartache by scheduling in-division games for the first week. This is Seattle's only visit to Cleveland this year, hence the urgency to make up the games right away. It's much easier to reschedule games between division opponents -- with the unbalanced schedule, teams play their division opponents several times during the season, making rescheduling a breeze.
Originally published at About Baseball
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