Nats undercover?

See all that blue sky? The Nats brass want to block it out, like Mr. Burns
once tried to block the sun from Springfield.

So, the Nationals want to build a dome over Nationals Park, you know, because it rains so much there. If they do so, I don't think I can be a fan any longer. Call me old school or non-progressive or whatever, but I just don't like indoor baseball. If the Nats' plans come to fruition, the dome will be retractable. But still, why ruin a neat ballpark with a roof, right? 

And, really, do the Nationals need a roof? Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post provides the below figures, which don't seem to justify the need for a huge umbrella over Nationals Park:

2008: Nats had six delays and two postponements (Throughout MLB, 155 games were affected by weather — postponements, delays, called games).

2009: Nats have seven delays and three postponements (MLB-wide: 210 games)

2010: Nats had six delays (MLB-wide: 130 games)

2011: Nats had 10 delays and four postponements (MLB-wide:180 games)

2012: Nats had seven delays and three postponements (MLB-wide: 127 games)

2013: the Nats had four postponements because of weather (The 2013 numbers provided by MLB are incomplete.)

-- rain --

Mae West is topless while rain falls in the "Bottom of the Sixth"

How steaming mad would your wife be if each year, a super hot movie star, let's say Scarlett Johansson in this instance, offered up to you her best holiday wishes via a Christmas card that included a photo of her, you know, totally buck naked?

My wife would pop me with the sweet spot of a Louisville Slugger.

But you know whose wife, or so she claimed, did not get ticked off?

Beans Reardon's wife, Eugenia, that's who.

I've been researching through a bit of baseball history recently and came across Beans, a National League umpire from 1926 to 1949. He was known for his beer drinking (not on the diamond, I hope) and strong language (you bet that happened on the diamond). He was behind the plate when Babe Ruth hit his 714th and final home run.

Scarlett Johansson, not Mae West

From what I gather from a little research, the Boston native – yeah, tha's how he got the nickname Beans – lived a spectacular life.

You may not know the name Beans Reardon, but you've seen him.

You remember the Norman Rockwell 1949 Saturday Evening Post cover and paiting "Bottom of the Sixth" featuring three umpires standing together under a slight rain? Beans, with his face all scrunched up, is the umpire in the middle.

In addition to appearing in Rockwell paintings, Beans owned an Anheuser-Busch beer distribution business – he later sold it to Frank Sinatra – and he appeared in several movies.

That brings us back to Mae West.

Beans and West were friends, and according to rumors or whatever, West was said to have sent nude photos of herself to Beans each year at Christmas.

Reading about Bean's life, all of his accomplishments and what not, this is the item that piqued my curiosity, as you can imagine.  

So I dug a little deeper and found an interesting Los Angeles Times story from way back in 1988 about Bean's wife, Eugenia, who in the interview confirms Mae West annually sent nude photos of herself, or as Eugenia suggest in the article, the same photo each year, to her husband.

Mae West

And apparently, Beans enlarged the photo and hung it on his den wall.

The last paragraph of the aforementioned L.A. Times story places Eugenia in the den, describing the room's contents"

"And Beans, who also was an actor, can be seen with Gary Cooper and other movie stars on a wall dominated by a large nude picture of Mae West. 'She always sent him a copy of that picture every Christmas,' Eugenia said. 'No, I was never jealous.'"

McCann’s first Yankees rain out… in November?

Yankee fans are waiting (in the rain) for McCann.

If you’re a Yankees fan, you’re excited and thankful to have a new catcher. But, if you’re looking to see Brian McCann in pinstripes at an introductory news conference before Thanksgiving, it’s 

likely you’ve grabbed the short end of the wishbone.

Our boy Wallace Matthews reports on ESPN New York that McCann’s trip to the Bronx for a physical and press conference is likely to be postponed by severe weather. Matthews writes:

“According to a Yankee source, the club would like to fly McCann in from his Atlanta-area home either today or tomorrow, but forecasts of a severe rain-and-wind storm later this afternoon may well push everything back to next week. The concern is that once McCann arrives here, he will not be able to return home in time to spend the holiday with his family.”

Matthews also quotes the Yankees source as saying, "The odds are we won't see him (in New York) until next week.

-- rain --

Freese-ing rain in St. Louis

To help me along on those days when I feel motivated to update The Rainout Blog, I subscribe to Google Alerts to get a heads-up on stories containing key words and phrases. One of those word combinations is “baseball” + “rain.”

In November, as you might expect, I rarely receive many links to stories about baseball, but today I did.

Hmm. What could this be?

Naturally, like the curious cat, I followed the link and found this gem in a story from KMOV-TV in St. Louis about Cardinals’ General Manager John Mozeliak:

“The trade of David Freese for Los Angeles Angels outfielder Peter Bourgos extracts maximum value for a soon-to-be 31-year-old third baseman who made it rain in 2011 with a pyrotechnic burst of glory that could never be repeated.”

Sure, curiosity killed the cat, but as Grandpa Munster once said, “Satisfaction brought him back.”

(Yes. Yes, I did write this post for the sole reason of making a Grandpa Munster reference, a first for The Rainout Blog, I believe.)

-- rain --

Forget Peyton, the Buckeyes can perform in cold weather

AP Photo/Jay LaPrete

Weather and sports mixed in conversation often last week, but most of it concerned Peyton Manning’s ability – well, inability – to win in cold weather. 

Time out: What’s it called when you begin and end a sentence with the same word? There has to be a word for that.

Anyway, if you’re a Broncos fan, or worse, a Patriots-hating Jets fan, Peyton didn’t do much to dispel beliefs that he can't get it done when the temperature drops.

Speaking of dropping, lets' drop the Peyton/cold weather talk because that'll resurface soon enough in January.

The day before Manning’s team blew a huge lead – it was 24-0 at halftime – and the game to those pesky New Englanders, Ohio State routed Indiana 42-14 in something we all love, a snow game.

I have to be honest, I didn’t know about the snow falling on The Horseshoe until Monday.

Thankfully, Bill Livingston of the Cleveland Plain Dealer penned (nobody pens $#@! anymore) banged out an excellent column about the playing conditions while also speculating that an SEC team would have difficulty competing on such a cold, snowy, windy November afternoon in Columbus.

I have to disagree with Bill. Toss in a Category 3 hurricane named Brutus and “Bama is still beating the Buckeyes by a couple of touchdowns!

This week Ohio State plays at Michigan, where the extended forecast is showing a high of 36 and sunny.

Boring!

Oh, wait.

Apparently, there’s still snow in Columbus where Ohio State fans expressed their distaste toward Michigan and ESPN’s Mark May Tuesday morning.  

Hold on. I feel a song coming on: “So we can write about things that blow, let it snow, let snow, let it snow!”

That's just stupid. I apologize.

Minimalist Safeco

S. Preston

Have you seen the minimalist MLB ballpark prints produced by artist S. Preston? 

Great stuff! 

If you haven’t yet checked out Preston’s work – where’ve you been? – you can visit his website. Also, Deadspin has featured Preston’s talents this week. 

All of his ballpark works are fascinating, but the one that caught my rainout-blogging eye was the print of Seattle’s Safeco Field, which in Preston’s brilliant minimalist way, simply shows a steady rain falling on the ballpark’s retractable roof. 

Perfect! 

I’m asking for that particular print for Christmas. 

Looking at you, Tina. 

You can purchase the Seattle print here.

Time to kick the grass?

“Wow, look at those dirty uniforms.”

My 8-year-old son, Ty, said those words to me Sunday as we watched his Bears claw their way through the mud to a 23-20 overtime win over the Baltimore Ravens.

Associated Press

It didn’t occur to me until a little later that Ty, who at the moment is the most casual of casual sports fan, has not seen much dirt and grass stain on football uniforms. He’s accustomed to looking at the TV screen and seeing nice, clean unis on teams playing on unnatural playing surfaces.

If you saw the game, you know the field was a mess after a torrential rainstorm bombarded Soldier Field, causing a nearly two-hour delay. And afterward, as always happens when we have a game played on a less-than perfect field, the Bears organization fielded questions about the possibility of installing artificial turf at Soldier Field.

However, Bears’ team president Ted Phillips wasn’t having it, saying this week on ESPN 1000:  

“I've been with the Bears for 30 years and this was the first and only time I ever remember having a storm like that blow in during a game where you had to relocate fans. To me, that's not a reason to go to field turf. You can't make a knee-jerk decision. You can't do that. It's a health and safety concern. We're still not at the point where we feel that artificial surfaces play as well, or even as close to grass. 

“It's hard enough. Look at the kind of injuries we've had this year. I'm not blaming it on any kinds of surfaces, necessarily, but why go to the extra risk of injuries when you see the results of medical surveys that indicate that the risk of lower-leg injuries is significantly higher than artificial surfaces. 

“Until that time comes when it gets to be a little closer to how grass plays, I wouldn't see us changing.” 

I’m all for keeping natural grass at Soldier Field, Fed Ex Field and all the other stadiums that refuse to give in and play on the fake stuff. However, if safety is or becomes an issue, holdouts like the Bears, Redskins, Steelers and Titans may want to re-think their positions on keeping their playing surfaces old school.

ESPN Chicago reports that all four lower-leg injuries suffered by Bears players in 2013 have come on natural grass. Now, did the natural grass play a role in those injuries or is it a coincidence? I don’t know.

However, I do know that teams make an incredible investment in players these days – look at the injury Robert Griffith III suffered on a sloppy track in January. So maybe, just maybe, it’s time to retire the dirty uniforms to our memories and old NFL Films footage.

Ty and I think that stinks, but we’ll suck it up and be men about it. 

Rain Shields

I love this shot. You could probably say this Reuters photo is sports/weather blogger’s dream come true. Ok, let’s not get carried away, but this is a great shot of what looks like a single rain drop splattering off the bill of Kansas City Royals pitcher James Shields as the starting pitcher faced the New York Yankees in the Bronx. James and the Royals won 3-1 in a game on July 9 – yeah, I just found the pic nearly a month later – that was played in occasional rain and hail.

Rain on A-Rod's parade?

So today is the day we find out – I hope – MLB’s decision on the Alex Rodriguez suspension. 

It’s an odd circumstance in play: We’re hearing now that the decision for a long suspension will be announced around 3 p.m. Eastern today. Meanwhile, all indicators suggest A-Rod will appeal the suspension, thus allowing him to rejoin the Yankees in Chicago for tonight’s game with the White Sox.

We’ve waited so long to see how this finally plays out. We know there will be a suspension, most likely through the 2014 season, but will Rodriguez indeed be allowed back on the field tonight after surgery in February and a long rehab stint?

We’ll find out tonight, right? I mean, what could possibly hold up that decision now?

Oh, yeah: Rain!

Ok, probably not but there is a 40 percent chance of rain and there have been media reports of drizzle at the ballpark in Chicago today.

But if rain does postpone the game, what will the Yankees do? Will they take this opportunity to 

develop another excuse to keep Rodriguez off the club? Perhaps invent a new nagging injury?

Editor’s note: After reading the above post, you said to yourself, “wow, that was a half-arsed attempt at a blog post,” you’d be right. I’ve been writing The Rainout Blog on-again, off-again (mostly off-again) for the past seven or eight years. (Has it been that long?) When I started, I had real passion for what I still think is a unique –that’s my way of saying “uninteresting to most other people” – sports blog. Occasionally, I’ll say, “hey, I really should write more on The Rainout Blog.” And then I’ll open the blog and think “Ugh, I really don’t want to get into this again.” So, what am I saying here? Nothing really, other than I’d really like to get back to writing this blog, but I’m not promising anything… other than it probably won’t happen.

Get the tuck out

The NFL rule that made Al Davis scream at the top of his lungs, "Mother tucker… MOTHER TUCKER!!!" is no more.

Ok, it's doubtful Davis ever yelled those words, but there is no doubt the "Tuck Rule," as it came to be known, played a significant role in NFL history, most notably on a snow-covered field in Foxboro, Mass., during the 2002 AFC Divisional Round playoff game between the Oakland Raiders and New England Patriots.

You know what happened, so there's no need to go over the details.

If Davis were still with us, he'd be elated, but probably still cursing, to know NFL owners, at their annual meeting in Phoenix, voted 29-1 Wednesday to eliminate the controversial and, if you ask me, stupid rule. Apparently 29 NFL owners also deemed the rule stupid, for lack of (read: laziness of trying to find) a better word.

The Redskins, for this reason, and the Patriots, understandably, abstained from voting. The Pittsburgh Steelers voted to keep the "Tuck Rule." Why, Steelers? Why?

Meanwhile, the Raiders official Twitter feed needed only 17 characters, well shy of the 140 limit, to express the team's sentiments:

Adios, Tuck Rule.
— OAKLAND RAIDERS (@RAIDERS) March 20, 2013

It was only five days ago, when speculation was the "Tuck Rule" was in danger of extinction, that the tweeting Raiders had this to say:

Tuck Rule? It’s been 11 years, 1 month and 23 days…but who’s counting? twitter.com/RAIDERS/status…
— OAKLAND RAIDERS (@RAIDERS) March 14, 2013

Raining Champions

The Dominican Republic battled through a persistent rain Tuesday night to take a 3-0 win over Puerto Rico and capture the World Baseball Classic title in soggy conditions at San Francisco's AT&T Park.

True to the weather forecast, rain began falling as the two Caribbean neighbors played in the fourth inning, just about the time I finished tucking my kids into bed and tuned into the game. How lucky can a sports/weather blogger get, right?

(I had to toss in that last bit of information because this post was beginning to sound a bit too newsy.)

Anyway, the rain proved to be only a minor inconvenience, probably more so to the 35,703 fans than to the ballplayers. However, as the wet stuff continued to fall, Dominican Republic pitcher Samuel Deduno did ask for the grounds crew to work on the front of the mound. He also had a pitch slip out of his hand during the frame.

Deduno, who struck out five in five scoreless innings, got some help from center fielder Alejandro De Aza who made a nice catch on a long drive during perhaps the heaviest part of the rain. The catch enabled Deduno to get out of the inning in which he had issued two walks.

MLB.com has a photo gallery containing a handful of rainy night shots.

Earthquakes and laziness make for a suboptimal blog post

Where does a short video of a 4.7 earthquake striking during a live Tennis Channel broadcast fit into a sports weather blog? Hmmmm. I'm not sure it does, but I'm posting the video anyway. Why? Because it's mildly interesting to say the most.

And in case you missed it, a sinkhole swallowed a guy on a golf course, but the golfer is ok. I think this happened in Illinois, but I'm not sure and I haven't done the research. Man, I'm lazy today.

And I'm sure there were a handful of rained out or snowed out college baseball games today.

That's your sports weather blog update for the moment. Enjoy the new pope.

Corner flood

The header atop this video claims this is the "worst conditions for a corner kick ever."

Really?

Could there not be worse conditions for this Kazakhstan first division league match between Ekibastuz and Alamaty? What if the field suddenly caught fire? They'd postpone the match, you say? Well, they certainly didn't deem a corner flooded to Biblical proportions postponement worthy here.

How about if a group of tigers suddenly ran onto the pitch and sat right on the corner, waiting for a brave footballer to dare set the ball down in their newly proclaimed domain?

Get my point? This probably isn’t the worst conditions for a corner kick, but tell me: What the heck is going on here?

After some cool soccer-style ingenuity, two players – I don't know which team – managed to kick the ball out of the more-than-ankle-deep water and into play. But wouldn't you know it, some goofball sends the ball sailing right back into the lake.

Beautiful!

That's the kind of stuff that used to happen in the backyards of my neighborhood in the 80s.  

No one is making it rain in Manchester

If you're stuck in the office today, like me, keeping track of the Manchester United vs. Real Madrid Champions League match today on your computer and wondering to yourself, "Hmmmm, is weather playing factor at Old Trafford today? Will Renaldo slip and fall on his arse?"

These are good questions to ask because for about month, it seemed like every time I tuned the TV to a Premier League match, snow or rain, or both, were falling from the sky and soaking the pitch. So it's reasonable to think there's a good chance of precipitation for today's match.

In reality, however, there's only a six percent chance of rain according to the Manchester weather forecast, with temperatures dipping to about 44.

#gounited

You are looking live...

I love live street cameras, particularly this one outside Wrigley Field.

As Chicago braces for a storm that is expected to drop 4-8 inches of snow by Tuesday night, just a few short weeks before the opening day of the 2013 Major League Baseball season, today would be a good day to pull up the street cam on your laptop or tablet or whatever and watch the snow pile up on the street in front of the legendary field.

That is unless you're at work. We don't won't to slow your roll at work today by encouraging you to sit at your desk, drink loads of coffee and watch snow fall.

By the way, the above screen grab was taken at about 9:24 Central time this morning.

One more thing: Could someone clean the rain/ice off the Arch Cam in St. Louis? Thanks!

Update: The weather guy on HLN just said Chicago could get up to 10 inches of snow from this storm. Wow. Keep you eyes on that Wrigley Field cam, unless you live in Chicago. In that case, get to work. As my wife says: the snow is not going to shovel itself! 

Just use yellow balls, fellas

Snow in Arizona? At a PGA event?

You bet!

This Associated Press photo shows snow falling on the ninth green – I'll take their word for it because I can't see a flippin' thing – Wednesday at the Match Play Championship tournament in Marana, Ariz.

If you're wondering if the golfers played through… you're crazy. Of course they didn't play through. What kind of question is that?

Play was suspended for the day.

Baseball is about to drop

Stop me if you've read this before: When I began writing this blog about seven years ago – has it been that long? – I intended it to be about baseball only. If you think the current format of me writing about sports and weather is dull and boring, a blog about baseball rainouts would have been a snooze, bro.

What would I have done in the baseball offseason? Oh, I guess the same thing I do now: let the blog sit for months at a time without an update.

Anyway, had I stuck with the baseball-only format, today would have been – actually, it still is – a perfect day to simply say, "Hey, spring training is here and baseball and its inevitable rainouts are right around the hot corner.

So today, with my first blog update in more than a month, I give you this cool Associated Press photo from St. Louis Cardinals spring training in Jupiter, Fla.

What's this photo have to do with weather, you ask. Check out the glove on the fence. Tiny rain spots. Duh!  

According to the photo caption, rain fell at Cardinals camp… team goes into the clubhouse… rain stops, team goes outside to stretch… rain picks up again… blah, blah, blah.

PGA's Groundhog Day

Associated Press

Where I live in Southwest Virginia, and I imagine this is true for most of the population in the United States, people, particularly in the winter, talk a lot of traveling to Hawaii to escape the dark, cold days ahead.

"I'd love to be in Hawaii right now," someone here will say on a January day when its 11 degrees outside and snow is blowing up their nostrils.

But as we all know, the weather isn't perfect in Hawaii, either. Although it is more perfect than it is here.

Golfers attempting to tee off on the 2013 PGA season are experiencing Hawaii's brief and rare – I guess; I've never been to the islands – imperfections.

From the Associated Press:

APALUA, Hawaii -- On the third attempt at starting the PGA Tour season, Matt Kuchar stepped to the 10th tee at Kapalua and could barely hear his name through the wind. When he finally steadied himself, a gust blew his golf ball off the tee. And then it happened again.

…

Just more than one hour after the Hyundai Tournament of Champions finally got under way, it was scrapped again with all the scores erased.

Most golf tournaments end on Sunday. This one couldn't even get started Sunday.

The wind came roaring down the Plantation Course at Kapalua again, and it left officials no choice but to stop play and try to start again. With more manageable wind in the forecast, the plan was to play 36 holes Monday and finish with 18 holes Tuesday.

…

Ian Poulter posed over his 4-iron shot to the 13th green and was so stunned to see it come up short that he looked at his small gallery for the longest time, repeating loud enough for them to hear that he was only 138 yards from the front of the green. Off to his right, Charlie Beljan had a search party stomping through high grass to the right of the 10th fairway looking for both his tee shots. He had a 15-foot putt for triple bogey when play was stopped.

Moments later, a call came over the radio for a ruling on the 12th green. Scott Stallings was trying to tap in a 2-foot putt when a gust blew his ball 8 feet away.

Miami (Not the Counting Crows song)

Hey there, all you readers of The Rainout Blog.

Have you missed me?

You know, I've closed this blog more times than I can count.

Don't get me wrong, I love coming to this space and writing short, little posts about the rainy, muddy, snow, foggy, whatever action in a given particular sport – especially baseball – but with a family, a long-flippin' commute and that place that employs me – I'm very grateful; thank you employer – I miss out on a lot of sports weather items.

It seems I'm really busiest with personal commitments when big events – you know, like hurricane and blizzards – occur.

And days like today, when I have a few minutes of free time to write, what do we have? The BCS title game… in Miami.

Nothing weathery – is that a word? – to report from Miami, although I did hear some radio personality this morning say there was a slight drizzle. And a quick check on Weather.com shows a 20 percent chance of rain for tonight. Dandy!

A big part of the appeal, if there is one, of The Rainout Blog is not my words, of course, but the spectacular sports weather-related photos I swipe gather from the Internet. I'm guessing if any rain falls on the turf in Miami tonight, it will not be enough to make for outstanding, must-see sports weather photography.

It'l be nothing that'll make you say, "I gotta check The Rainout Blog."

But, if we're lucky, there will be enough of a rain to produce a lovely beaded coating on those blinding, golden dome Notre Dame helmets.

By the way, I know you've been begging for my pick of tonight's game, so here goes: Notre Dame will play like a champion today tonight and roll over the Tide (corny), 22-9.

100 Percent Chance of Rain!

That's the weather forecast – heavy rain – for Friday night's Pac-12 championship contest between Stanford and UCLA in Palo Alto, Calif.

Whenever rain is forecasted for a football game it always brings the question of which team is better equipped to handle the wet conditions. Ordinarily, we agree the team with the best running attack has the edge in rain, and passing can dominate in the snow.

UCLA coach Jim Mora has this take on the rain factor:

"You could look at it two ways. They're kind of a physical, pound-it, grind-it-out team. On the one hand, you can say that might be an advantage.

"But I've also been in games where a team that spreads it out a little more, gets playmakers in the open field and creates those one-on-one matchups sometimes has the advantage. If you make a guy miss on a slippery field, you've got some ground you can gain."

In the regular season finale Saturday, Stanford handed UCLA a 35-17 defeat.

T.J. Simers is questioning whether clouds that night held back any potential rainfall that may or may not have provided an advantage to one team over the other.