There a lot of reasons why I would rather cover sports than anything else. One of the best reasons is because sports is undoubtedly unpredictable. Whether its a summer T-ball league game or the Super Bowl, you just never know what you are going to see when you get to the field or the gym. We had one of those things happen last night in Chicago. Of the 35,000-plus that bought a ticket to watch the Cubs host the Giants, who would have dreamed that the game would get rained out in the fifth inning? Sure, that can happen, but the way it happened is what made it goofy. It only rained for 10 minutes. I repeat, it only rained for 10 minutes. When it started to rain in the top of the fourth, with the Cubs up 2-0, the umpires kept the game going because they were under the impression that it would rain for a short time and then stop. But it rained SO hard that before the Cubs batted in the fifth inning the grounds crew started to put the tarp on the infield. Note the phrase "started to.” Because it was raining so hard and the grounds crew got a slow start, the infield dirt got a little wetter than normal. But then, the night got weird. The rain came down so fast last night that the water made the tarp too heavy to stretch across the infield dirt. With every second that passed, the water started pooling up. And it rained, and it rained and it rained some more. When it was all over, some 10 minutes later, the grounds crew was staring at a monumental problem – standing water on a major league baseball diamond. So they brought out bags of drying agent and dumped it on the soggy crushed brick. They got their blowers out. They got rakes and shovels and pushed and dragged the water to the outfield. None of it mattered. The field was a mess. They worked on it for more than FOUR HOURS! A game that started at 7pm Chicago time went well past 2 a.m., and then ... the umpires called the game. Because the game reached the top of the fifth with the Cubs in the lead, it was declared an official game and it ended as a 2-0 Cubs win. Even goofier – eight miles away the White Sox were also playing at home and it didn't even sprinkle there. Go figure.
