BALTIMORE – The Baltimore Orioles and Colorado Rockies played through rain for about two innings Friday night even after fans were told to evacuate open areas of the seating bowl because of potential lightning in the area.
It made for an unusual stretch of baseball at Camden Yards, with fans taking shelter for their own safety but players still on the field. The reason was that those two decisions are made by different people. The Orioles decided to clear fans from their seats, but the umpiring crew determines whether the game should continue.
“They did clear the stands unbeknownst to me,” crew chief Bill Miller said after Colorado’s 6-5 win. “We are concerned about lightning, but the crew did not see any lightning in the area. We saw it from afar, but we didn’t think at any time anybody on the field was in danger.”
Fans were told to move around the start of the sixth inning, and it did indeed rain. Many spectators were still able to watch the game from sheltered seats with a view of the field. They were told they could go back to their original seats around the end of the seventh. The game was never delayed.
“I trust the fact that the umpires have our health and safety in their best judgment, and I applaud the Orioles for kind of clearing out the lower bowl and kind of mitigating any risk whatsoever, making sure that the fans were in a safe spot,” Baltimore interim manager Tony Mansolino said.
Miller said he was receiving weather reports.
“I was getting updates every half-inning from the grounds crew gentleman. He said that we were going to get hit by a big storm in a half an hour. He said at 8:45 it was going to come. It was going to be windy, it was going to be rainy and there was going to be thunder and lightning,” Miller said. “I asked him to give me a half-inning update, and it progressively diminished. The storm was decidedly moving south. He thought the top of it was going to catch us.”
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