O's Soaking Mad

The Baltimore Orioles have gotten their feathers in a bunch, and no one can blame them. Thursday night against the Yankees, the skies opened and released a downpour upon Camden Yards. The score was tied at 6-6 in the top of the eighth inning. The Yanks had runners on second and third with Derek Jeter coming to bat when the rain began falling harder. The game had already been delayed once for rain, and this looked like the perfect spot for another delay. However, the umpires let the teams continue although it was visibly clear on my TV screen that all the players were having a difficult time dealing with the heavy precipitation. Jeter was shaking water off his helmet and cleaning mud from his spikes. Still, play continued, and Jeter eventually lined a single that scored the two runners giving the Bronx Bombers an 8-6 lead. At that point, the umpires sent the teams off the field and the grounds crew rolled out the tarp, for the night, as it turned out. Melvin Mora was seen on TV arguing with the umps, and frankly, all of the Birds should have been on the field to convey their displeasure. I’m not sure why the umpires kept the game going through the downpour, unless they were hoping Jeter would make a quick out to complete the inning.

The Baltimore Sun’s Roch Kubatko has some good quotes from Mora, who was tossed for airing his grievances with the ump, and O’s hurler Chris Wray, who was on the mound during the rain.

The game was suspended and will resume July 27.

Below is nice AP photo of Jeter's go-ahead hit in the driving rain.

Rain Delay Talent Show

I'm not sure what the SLC Tournament is, but this is a pretty funny rain-delay act.

Cricket Cure For Drought?

If I have learned one thing while writing this sports/weather blog, it is this: A region suffering through a drought should immeditately stage a cricket match. It seems to me that playing cricket is somehow equivalent to performing a rain dance. Today... well, I don't even care to write about a cricket rainout because I can't even pretend to understand the sport (Stupid American!). However, if you care, you can read the story here.

From Pennsylvania to Pakistan

As I was searching for sports-weather news today, I bumped into the above photo (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash) of Pakistani boys playing soccer in a street during a downpour following a scorching heat wave in Islamabad. According to media reports, dozens of people died during the heat wave and hundreds hospitalized with heat strokes and gastroenteritis.

Soft Greens
The U.S. Open teed off today and many ahead of the event wondered aloud if the course at Pennsylvania's Oakmont Country Club might be too tough with its hard, fast greens. Even Arnold Palmer predicted this year's championship would be rough-going through the first two rounds. However, less than a half an inch of rain from a thunderstorm Wednesday softened the greens and may have made playing the course a bit tamer. Tiger Woods was among those who shot under par in the opening round Thursday, however reports are now coming in saying many first-round scores are high.

"It's not going to be what we planned for. Things were moving along quite well (before the storm). We thought we'd have a true, hard test for players on Thursday. The rain has altered this a little bit. We're going to try and do everything we can to get the golf course back to where it was before this little rain." -- Tim Moraghan, USGA agronomist

Sprinkles
Rain knocked out play Thursday in the DFS Classic in Birmingham, England. Maria Sharapova, among others, had her match postponed, and weather reports predict more rain Friday for the Wimbledon tune-up tournament. All this does is give me an opportunity to post of pic of Sharapova getting all wet at Wimbledon. Check out the grounds crew. Pay attention to the task at hand guys.



On this date in 1959: The San Francisco Giants’ Mike McCormick tossed a 3-0, five-inning no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies. Richie Ashburn singled in the top of the sixth for the Phillies, but the hit didn’t count because the game was stopped by rain. …In Japanese baseball, the game between the Chunichi Dragons (You know, the team Tom Selleck played for in Mr. Baseball.) and Rakuten Eagles ended in a 1-1 tie after rain forced the contest to be called after the 11th inning. Koji Nakamura gave the Dragons a 1-0 advantage in the first, but Rick Short (Hmmmm!) tied the game for the Eagles with a solo homer in the seventh. I wish I had photos from the rain portion of the game, but here's a cool photo gallery from the Rakuten Eagles Web site. Check out the cheerleaders dressed in cowgirl gear in the first photo. … This can't end well.

WEATHER TERM OF THE DAY
HABOOB -- Sudanese name for duststorm or sandstorm with strong winds that carry small particles of dirt or sand into the air, particularly severe in areas of drought.

Out From The Rain

The Rainout Blog sure picked a heck of a time to go on hiatus. It was about three-and-a-half weeks ago when I made my last post, and during that time frame there were numerous sporting events affected by weather, particularly rain. The most prominent was the rain-shortened Indianapolis 500. Some great images came from the event, but perhaps the best was those pictures of, not the winner, but of the winner’s wife. Wow, Ashley Judd and a rain-soaked sundress go very well together. There were a couple of NASCAR events affected by the wet stuff in the last 30 days, and most recently, so was qualifying for the Champ Car's Grand Prix of Portland. We also had some baseball games, both in the Majors and in the NCAA super regionals, showered upon. Plus, there was rain at the French Open. Oh, and you would never fogive me if I forgot to mention the Macedonia soccer championship. Also while we were gone, The NFL Network, or “The 212” as we DirecTV subscribers have dubbed it, ran a pretty cool hour-long show featuring the Top 10 Weather Games. I only saw portions of the show, but what I saw was great.

So, where has the Rainout Blog producer-guy been? I’ve been around, here and there – mostly there. There have been many rumors that I can neither confirm nor deny. However, I can confirm there is no truth to the rumor that I took Rhianna up on an invitation to stand under her umbrella – ella, ella, ay, ay ay… (Sorry. That’s just dumb!)