Rant #2,995: Ball of Confusion

Last night, a debacle occurred at Yankee Stadium and it had nothing to do with a game being played.
 
In fact, it had to do with a game not being played.
 
Last night’s scheduled American League Divisional Series game between the Yankees and Guardians was postponed about three hours after it was originally scheduled because of weather conditions that prevented the game from being played.
 
That is all fine and good, but then you have the back story to this whole fiasco, and it I was one of the nearly 50,000 fans with tickets to the game and/or in attendance yesterday, I would not be a happy camper today.
 
Major League Baseball, which rules over such decisions and was certainly in cahoots with TBS, which was slated to televise the game, knew well beforehand that the evening would be a touchy one.
 
Every weather forecaster in the area predicted that there would be rain throughout the game, and in particular, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and that the game could be delayed as much as two hours at the start.
 
So MLB, and TBS, had that information in hand—that the game would almost definitely be delayed two hours, and that even when the rain let up, it would be soggy the entire evening—yet they persisted in the belief that they could play this game.
 
With that in hand, Yankee Stadium opened its gates at 5 p.m., because they were told that there was going to be a game on that night.
 
From what I read, that was the end of the communication to the fans about the probability that the game would be played. I am sure that the Yankees and Guardians were in contact with M:B, but the fans simply continued to flow into the stadium, not knowing anything about what was going on.
 
Well, the game was held off in a delay at 7 p.m. which everyone knew about, including the fans, but the fans continued to flow into the stadium with the belief that there would be a game played that evening.
 
But Mother Nature had other plans.
 
Yes the hardest rain stopped by about 9 p.m. but the grounds were saturated, making it unsafe for players to do their thing on the field—
 
And while the major rain stopped, it continued to rain far worse than any weather forecaster had predicted after 9 p.m., as supposedly another rain front came into the area that was not anticipated.
 
(In fact, in my neck of the woods, we were not supposed to get this rain until very late in the evening, but it started teeming by me at about 8:30 p.m. or so, or about two or three hours before we were supposed to get our rain.)
 
So MLB and TBS were in a quagmire of their own doing, promising a game, allowing the Yankees to let people into the stadium, but not communicating with the fans about what was going on.
 
By 10 p.m., it was clear that there could be no game in these hazardous conditions, and the game was called—but the only person to address the media about the postponement was the Yankees’ general manager Brian Cashman.
 
Nobody from MLB addressed the media, and there is good reason for that move on their part.
 
They knew that there was going to be some dicey cognitions to play the game in, yet they steadfastly held to the belief that they could get the game in even though they knew of these conditions even 24 hours earlier.
 
Why did they not move the game to a 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. start, and that way,, the game could have been played without a hint of rain?
 
You would also probably have to ask TBS this question, because you just know that they wanted this game in prime time, not at 4 p.m.
 
Since MLB knew well in advance that the playing of the game was going to be questionable, if they would have announced an earlier starting time—or simply gave in right from the get go and rescheduled the game for 4 p.m. as they did after they postponed the game—it would have given fans time to readjust their own schedules to be there, and they wouldn’t have had to waste their time going to the Bronx on Monday night.
 
And remember, these fans paid top dollar for these tickets, and that does not include the price of gas, tolls, parking etc., money that they had to waste for last night’s eventually postponed game.
 
This is a debacle that must be addressed by MLB, which once again, cares about only one thing, and it is not the fans, it is the money.
 
This sort of thing should never happen, but if it isn’t addressed, it will happen again and again and again.
 
And the serendipitous thing is that now, because of its own stupidity, MLB, and TBS, got exactly what they didn’t want, and that is a 4 p.m. start to this game, out of prime time and out of the money as far as a wider audience watching at home is concerned, and the paybacks they will have to make to advertisers.
 
And the fans … they pay the bills, but evidently, they do not fit the bill of entities that MLB cares very much about.