Speechless in the Rain

Hey, I got a lot of real-world crap to do today, so I'll be brief. 

I know this is a sports weather blog, but you may want to know that President Barack Obama's primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night has been moved indoors to the Time Warner Center in Charlotte. 

Obama campaign officials had been saying for weeks the speech would take place outdoors "rain or shine," but a strong threat of thunderstorms forced the move. (And, perhaps a lack of confidence by campaign officials to fill the 75,000-seat Bank of America Stadium.) 

Here's where'd I'd like to throw in a joke about the cluelessness of Mitt Romney, but I just can't make it fit. This is a not-quite-ready-for-primetime-blog, ya know.

Ok, moving forward to the sports stuff. It's been raining like hell at the U.S. Open in New York, and it appears the weather will be a menace again today. Only two  matches reached completion Tuesday. One being Victoria Azarenka's three-set win over Sam Stosur under glooming skies. I love Azarenak, but I really wish she stop with the post-match dances, unless she's dancing in a downpour. I'll make that exception.

Maria Sharapova, speaking of someone I'd like to see dancing in the rain, and Marion Bartoli pick up their suspended match today at 11 a.m.

Oh, and you may have heard, Andy Roddick will try to stave off career elimination tonight. His match was rained out Tuesday night. It's sort of a big deal to a bunch of tennis pundits. I love tennis, but I've never been a Roddick fan. 

I keep hearing how great he is, but it seems every time I look at tournaments results, Roddick has lost in the second round. The excuse I keep hearing is he played in a tough era. Big deal. If he really were great, the era wouldn't matter. To be truly great, you have to get the job done no matter the competition.

Wow, I really went off on a tangent there.

Didn't I say I was going to be brief? Oh, well.

One more thing: The NFL season kicks off tonight, and there's a strong chance of rain and thunderstorms for the Cowboys-Giants matchup at MetLife Stadium. Awesome!

I know I said more thing, but I got another "one more thing." Ok? Did you hear there was a rain delay in Toronto for the Blue Jays-Orioles game Tuesday night? That's right. A brief, unofficial rain delay at the indoor Rogers Centre. Apparently the retractable roof was moving a bit slowly… like Robinson Cano moving toward a ground ball.

Ok, that's it. Good night, everybody. I wish the real world would just stop hassling me. We're have I heard that before?

Wimbledon, Wet Sox, Wet Birds and All Wet Rules Changes

There’s a new rule here at The Rainout Blog: Less Writing, More Photos. The rule goes into effect immediately, and… there I go writing again. So let me briefly tell you that the photo above is from Wimbledon 2007. The tournament is making news today, in April, about three months before the ’08 edition takes center stage, because Wimbledon officials have said they will not allow the tournament to be played on the middle Sunday, no matter how many rain delays the tournament suffers during its first week. Good for them. Every one who complains can suck it up. Right? Right.

In other rain out, rain delay news… the Mets and Pirates were rained out at Shea Stadium last night, and the White Sox and Orioles were suspended in the 12th inning because of persistent rain in Chicago. No date to resume the game has been announced. The start of that game was delayed more than two hours because of continuous rain that has plagued the White Sox home stand. The good news for the Damp Sox is that they’ll be playing under the roof in Minnesota over the next few days. Oh, and that Pirates at Mets contest will be played Aug. 11, which had been an off day for both teams. Don’t ya hate being called into work on your day off? At least they have a four-month notice.

All right, so much for writing less. I’ll try harder next time. I swear. Speaking of swearing, today is the 25th anniversary of this…

Oh, and can you believe I wrote about wet tennis and never mentioned Maria Sharapova?

Now That's Hot, Mary Todd

What’s hotter than an Australian Open women’s final match between Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic?

Ok, you’re right. Nothing!

But the court temperature during the final was pretty close as it sizzled to 113 degrees, according to Bud Collins during his pre-match report. The excitable Collins, who is one of my favorite sports guys, seemed ready to… ok, ok, I’m trying to work in a joke here about Collins watching the two hot, young tennis stars by using the old Keith Olbermann line about premature jocularity, but damn it, it’s just too late for me to think of clever @#$%& like that.

Anyway, the Aussie Open wraps up sometime in the next day or so with the men’s final between some dude and another dude who defeated Roger Federererererer in straight sets. Talk about a TV ratings nightmare. Mary Todd Lincoln just called and said she’d rather watch Abe get shot again.

Hey, I think that’s my first Mary Todd reference this year.

What? I Missed It?

This year’s Wimbledon was one of the soggiest in recent memory, and I, a person who from time-to-time writes a sports weather blog, made no mention of it. Big deal. “I just didn’t feel like it,” is my only excuse. (Plus, I just couldn’t find a great photo of Maria Sharapova getting wet.) It’s not that I don’t like tennis. I do. But this year, I just couldn’t get into it. I’m not sure I watched one live serve and volley. That said, I promise, to the three of you out there who read this nonsense, that’ll I’ll do better next Wimbledon. And then in 2009, a brand spankin’ new retractable roof will be in service over the grass courts and everyone can stop bitchin’ about the rain.

I should have mentioned this yesterday – Give me a break, I’m moving into a new house…Jeez – but there was some uber cool fog that moved in the Double A Eastern League All-Star Game Wednesday night in Norwich, Conn. The game was called because of what one local media outlet there called “thick-as-pea-soup fog.” Pea soup! Yummy! The score was tied at 2-2 in the middle of the third inning when everyone was told to go home. This brings up the question: Should ballparks install fog lights? Hmm! There’s a debate for sports radio during the doldrums of summer. Below is a cool photo (AP Photo/Jessica Hill) of some of the players lining up during the singing of the National Anthem.



The Union Leader in Manshester, New Hampshinre reports this:

Conditions were difficult enough at the start with center field barely visible from behind home plate. But with a full house and a cable television audience to satisfy, no one was willing to make the tough call to delay the game.

"If we kept playing," said Jeff Corsaletti, who played center field for the Northern squad, and was one of three Portland Sea Dogs on hand, "somebody was going to get hurt. There was a ball hit over my head that I didn't even see. I just heard it hit the wall. They did the right thing by calling it. It was crazy."

I love this photo. It’s not sports related, but it is fog related.

Speaking of fog, it poses no problem for the Brazilian soccer (football) team during a recent practice near Rio de Janeiro.

I still haven’t gotten around to watching the NFL Network show about the Top 10 Bad Weather Games. However I did TiVo it, so I should get to it soon. Who am I kidding? I’m still living with 90s technology. I taped the show.

I don’t know much about sports in Japan, but if there were any games planned there for this weekend, those events will have to be rescheduled thanks to Typhoon Man-Yi.

One more thing: This is not weather related, but by now you know that soccer star David Beckham and his wife Victoria have arrived in the U.S. And no doubt you’ve read that it’s the biggest craze surrounding Brits coming to America since the Beatles. So, will the Becks make as big a splash on America culture as the Beatles? (I can’t even write that question without laughing outloud.) Not bloody likely! (Lame!)

Good night everybody. Don’t forget you umbrella, ella, ella, ay, ay. (Is somebody smoking something around 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.