Yesterday was opening day for baseball in Chicago.
Or, rather, it was supposed to be, but a late-season snow hit Sunday night, dropping anywhere from half an inch to several inches on the metro area, depending on where you were standing and when.
This is not unprecedented. It snows in April in Chicago--not every April, but often enough for wary natives to keep their winter gear--boots, parkas, mittens, etc.--close at hand through, say, mid-May.
Which is why I'm dumbfounded every year that Major League Baseball schedules opening day for the first week of April in cities where winter doesn't end just because the calendar says it's supposed to.
The Cubs started their season last night in Houston--an eminently sensible place to start, since it's not only a warm-weather city, but the Astros play in a stadium that, should the weather be inclement, can retract its roof. The Cubs will them move on to Milwaukee--a cold-weather city, granted, but one that also boasts a stadium with a retractable roof.
The White Sox, however, got stuck with playing their season opener in Chicago, where we don't have a retractable roof on any of our sports facilities.
Hence, when the weather outside was frightful, opening day was so not delightful--it was, in fact, cancelled and rescheduled for today.
Not that today's forecast is a vast improvement--no snow, but temperatures in the high 30s or low 40s. Weather conducive to hockey or football--not so much for baseball.
I realize that, unless the Sox build a dome over U.S. Cellular Field or the Cubs enclose Wrigley, one or the other of them will either have to open in frigid air or sacrifice their first series to a warm-weather city like Oakland, Anaheim or Tampa Bay.
So be it. Better to make such a sacrifice than to perpetually inconvenience loyal fans or, worse, to get a player hurt--possibly even lost for the year--on an icy field on which he should never have set foot.
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3 comments:
A dude who sometimes shares the morning bus ride with me is an avid Sox fan. He went to Florida this year for the pre-season festivities (cool), and today he plans to plant his butt at the Cell for the opener (not so cool, IMHO). This guy dresses in super-layers just for the short commute to work; I cannot imagine what he will wear to meet the chilly wind blowing through the ballpark today where he will be stationary for several hours. While I am certainly not a diehard baseball fan, I really enjoy the sport -- from the comfort of my living room sofa. If I attend a game, the weather must actually be hot, like upper 80s because...know what?...that's gonna feel like upper 70s at the Cell or at Wrigley.
You had to say the B-ball word? Didn't ya? ;)
If it makes you feel any better, SBF, I'm totally not feeling baseball this year.
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