It’s Monday, time for us to ask the musical question: Why were they playing a night game in frigid Denver on Sunday, when the Twins and Yankees, who were playing in a nice heated dome, were scheduled for the afternoon? Couldn’t they have flipped that? (In Mr. Magoo voice) “Bud Selig, you’ve done it again.”
I guess there is nothing MLB will not do to accommodate television, even if it means frost-brewing several of their athletes, Rocky Mountain style. But the most hilarious part of Sunday’s Phillies-Rockies game was an apparent attempt by the home team to cover up the actual game-time temperature.
From the DENVER POST:
According to the Rockies, it was 35 degrees in center field, which only tied the first-pitch temperature for Game 4 of the 1997 World Series in Cleveland. Hitting is supposed to be harder than pitching in frigid conditions, but the Indians beat the Marlins that night 10-3.
The Rockies’ coldest regular-season game started at 28 degrees that same year, on April 12, 1997. That turned into a 12-8 slugfest with the Rocks prevailing.
But KOA Radio, which broadcast the game, had the first-pitch temperature at 28 degrees. TBS said it was 31. Which just goes to show how different things are in Denver, where they don’t cheat on the attendance count, just on the temperature.
More from THE POST:
The start time, of course, was absurd.
It was going to be one of the coldest postseason games in major-league history anyway, but on a day when playoff games in Boston and Minnesota were played at perfectly reasonable times, the cold one started at 8:08 p.m., presumably so California’s many Rockies devotees wouldn’t be inconvenienced.
Baseball serving as a flunky for television is old news, but this was a particularly egregious example, especially with the Yankees-Twins game in Minnesota being played indoors, where the thermostat could have trumped any starting time.
After a season full of nothing but Yankees and Red Sox in prime time, suddenly TV wanted to save the Rocks-Phils for last.
The Phils won, of course — with help from the umpires, who perhaps were suffering from snow blindness — to take this thing back to Philadelphia with a 2-1 series lead.
(1st-and-10 Colorado, on the Buffaloes … wait, this isn’t football?)
3:00 pm on October 12th, 2009
The Yankees-Twins game started at 7 Eastern, 6 local time in Minnesota. Did the people in Denver really think MLB was going to start a game between an eastern and central team at 10 Eastern, 9 local time? The Yankees and Twins did not play in the afternoon they played at night.
The game started that late because of a function of timezones. Originally all 4 series were scheduled for that day with 3 of them taking place in the Central or Eastern timezone. Because MLB does not want 2 games at once that left to only western game for the 10pm eastern (8 local) start.
3:06 pm on October 12th, 2009
FYI - there is still one more game to go in Colorado. Thankfully it will get started around 3:45 MST. It would benfit the Phils to wrap this up in Denver and head to LA directly instead of going to Philly and then LA after Game 5.
3:38 pm on October 12th, 2009
Game-time temps are mostly a sham anyway. I used to provide them for MLB games in NYC based on what weather.com said like a half hour before first pitch, usually for a location several miles from the actual stadium. Not surprising at all that a big difference could be measured in the stadium at actual first pitch.
4:05 pm on October 12th, 2009
they were not going to play the baseball game the same time as the Broncos - Pats, taking place across town
4:13 pm on October 12th, 2009
They missed a chance to bring out Ted William’s frozen head.
4:53 pm on October 12th, 2009
That’s cold, Ignatz - literally!
10:01 pm on October 12th, 2009
Hey Rick, do you know of any way that’s useful to protest crappy MLB officiating? and to dump Bud Selig !
I hate to give up baseball, but it’s just getting stupid.