Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Ok, 2 weeks have passed since the opening of the season. yes I'm a little behind. But of any game I worked in the last 15 years, April 16th could very well the most memorable. By a large margin. it was the first home start for thew Nationals # 1 dude, Stephen Stasburg. It was a sold out game, all the media including ESPN and Fox sports would be there. I expected chaos. But I never expected what was about to unfold this Fri. evening. As I came onto the island the traffic was heavy and the line of fans waiting to get into the ballpark was long, as I expected. I had been watching the radar at work all day, and frankly, it didn't look good. I made my way into the park, I could feel a few sprinkles starting. I hurried to get changed and headed down field. When I got there everyone was milling around speculating about the chance of rain. Tim told us to go ahead and get the field prepped and to hustle. We got busy and banged everything in record time. and not a moment too soon. We had barely finished when the wind kicked up, and when we looked to the western sky it looked nasty. We hauled out the mound and plate tarps, while the rest of the crew ran for the tarp. We laid the tarps down but it was so windy they kept blowing off. We recruited a couple of players to stand on the near edges to keep the plate tarp in place until we could get the field tarp over it. Unfortunately, out on the field, they were having some problems of their own. Some of the crew grabbed the wrong layer of the tarp and it became twisted. so we had to stop and untwist it and start over. By this time the rain had started to fall in earnest. We managed to get the field covered and as we were putting on the sandbags the wind really picked up. There were some air bubbles underneath and as one big gust blew through it picked up the tarp with one of the front office crew still hanging on and flipped him right up in the air about 3 feet. We retreated into the dugout to wait out the rain to the catcalls of some very unhappy fan. They were all there to see Mr. Strasburg pitch not watch us wrangle that old field tarp. It was close to actual game time at that point, and it looked like it was going to be an extended wait, according to the radar. So far, so bad. It sure didn't look like it was scaring anyone away. Any other night, weather like this would have cleared the seats out pretty well. But not tonight. Everyone wanted a glimpse of the # 1 prospect and they weren't budging until he threw the first pitch. That's the feeling I got. About 9:00 pm, it looked like we were going to get a little window. Any other night, this game would have been postponed by 8:15. But with all the fans, the media, and the Nationals in the house, there was no way we weren't going to play. in the previous 2 hours we must have taken the tarp off and put it back on 4 times, and felt the wrath of the fans every time. I can't remember ever being booed by fans before. Sorry folks, we don't control the weather or make the calls, we just do the work. And last time I checked, none of us were the Mayor of Harrisburg. A little after 9, we were able to get the tarp off and get things back in order and ready to play. Strasburg was warming up in the bullpen and the buzz in the ballpark was really unlike anything I've ever witnessed before. The crowd was that juiced. A huge cheer went up as he made his way to the dugout. Just about then, all the power in the stadium went out. For about 30 seconds, it was pitch dark. The emergency lights came on and then the ribbon boards. Most everybody had pulled out their cell phones to give a little light, and slowly things became a little brighter. But now, the delay would last even longer as the stadium lights would have to cool off before they could be restarted, about a 20 minute wait. The game finally got under way at about 9:50. Stephen Strasburg got a another huge cheer as he took the mound and threw his warm-up tosses. His first pitch was a blazing strike right down the middle, eliciting another huge cheer from the crowd. He set the hitter down swinging, getting an even bigger cheer from the standing room only crowd. The Sens retired the side in order and moved to the bottom half of the inning. nothing of any consequence happened until the bottom of the 2nd when the heavens opened up again, bringing the tarp back onto the field. This time the delay was about an hour and 20 minutes. That would end Mr. Strasburg's evening and cause a noticeable thinning of the crowd. By the time we were able to restart it was heading for midnight, not my idea of a good time. The game was completed around 1 am, just after Eastern League curfew. The curfew rule states that no inning may start after 12:50 am, but we were so close, that they let us finish up. We gathered up the tools and started to clean up the mess. And quite a mess it was. The temperature had dropped considerably since we had first showed up, about 15 degrees and it was very comfortable with just a windbreaker. The weather forecast for tomorrow was decent weather, but much cooler. We got everything cleaned up, had our adult beverage and reviewed the evening's events. One for books, we all agreed. Nothing ordinary about this one, for sure. It was about 2:00 am. Time to call a night. One helluva a night indeed. Who won. I'll have to look it up and report back in the next entry. Until then, later...