Even the blind squirrel finds the nut eventually, my Mom once told me. And for once, Bud Selig and Major League Baseball did the right thing.
Calling the game when they did in its suspended fashion was absolutely the obvious choice in deciding this sticky weather situation.
Via the magic of the internet and the Comcast DVR, I’ve had quite an evening. My evening began at the Ravens team Halloween party to benefit Goodwill Industries at Dave & Buster’s at Arundel Mills Mall. My comrades Casey Willett and Ray Bachman joined me and we did a series of wnsTV interviews with Joe Flacco, Todd Heap, Jason Brown and Jameel McClain. It was a great party, raising over $100,00 for the charity and there were 15 Ravens players in the house, including co-host Mark Clayton, Haruki Nakamura, Adam Terry and a bunch of others.
I got home at 10 p.m. I had both the World Series and the Tennessee-Indianapolis game set on the DVR. I got caught up in the baseball game before we even left the bar and joined it in real time. By 10:30, it was raining pretty hard and anyone who was watching had to be asking the same question we were: “Why in the world are they playing? This is no way to settle a World Series title!”
So, they halted the game in a rain delay right after the Rays tied the game 2-2, and 45 minutes later (after we had started the Colts-Titans game on the DVR), we heard about the “suspended” status on MLB.com. We tried for a few minutes to get the info about the rules, the makeup time and date — ya know, the basic 411 and “what are they doing?” stuff. Ten seconds later, I’m listening to the Bud Selig press conference in real time on the internet as I watch the second quarter of the football game from Nashville. And this shapes up to be a pretty good game right now.
(Shh, don’t wreck it for me!! And don’t send me result-related texts in real time during a gamenight. I’m in delay probably 80% of the time.)
It’s a perfect sports world, being around and on the internet in 2008, right?
I’m pretty sure the game is over and I’m avoiding surfing the web because I’m now watching the second half of the Titans-Colts game in delay.
It’s midnight. One false move and “Titan win late” or “Colts pull out big road win” headline blare and it wrecks my whole night.
I have no idea who won and I might even turn it off and pick it up in progress for breakfast. In my living room, sometimes Monday Night Football often becomes Tuesday Morning Football. With coffee and cereal…
Certainly tonight has been memorable and Game 5 of the 2008 World Series has instantly become a fascinating “footnote” in baseball history.
The game is suspended. And they’ll pick it where they left off. And the darts will come from every direction.
Should they have even played past the fourth inning?
Should the Phillies be ahead or tied?
Does Bud Selig have the power to change the rules and decide anything he feels like deciding on short notice?
And they might not even play until Thursday night with the weather forecast ominous over the next 48 hours. Who knows?
But it’s gonna make for a good water cool talk.
Or a day’s worth of sports talk radio.
Hey I’m watching a great football game and we’ll pick the baseball tomorrow.
Or Wednesday.
A perfect sports night…
