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Epic baseball game called on account of sun, darkness

By Walter G. Meyer

August 7, 2006

Pt. Loma--I love the beautiful field at Point Loma Nazarene University overlooking the Pacific Ocean and will watch any game I can there. Recently I saw a game there of which my companion said, “I’ve been watching baseball for 50 years and I’ve never seen a game like that.”

Sun sets over Carroll Land field

A game called on account of sun? Then called on account of darkness? Or called on account of sprinklers? All of those almost happened when the US Military All-Stars faced the San Diego Blackjacks, a local club team. After a rough first inning, both pitchers settled in and there were several one-run innings. By the eighth inning, the score was six-all and the sun had set to where it was directly in the eyes of the catcher and ump.

How many days a year is the sun positioned so that it perfectly aligns with home plate?

The catcher for the military team, Jon Johnston allowed two passed balls, the first one of which advanced the runners to second and third. On the next one, the pitcher again hurried to cover the plate, but the runners didn’t go. They should have. Johnston was clearly blinded and disoriented by the sun and had no idea where the ball was.

Coach Terry Allvord yelled at Johnston, “You gotta stop those! You’re going to cost us the game!”

When the catcher came off the field at the end of the inning, Allvord laid into him some more. And then something I have never seen occurred—the home plate umpire hurried to defend the catcher. I have never seen an ump go to bat for a player in an argument with his coach, but the man in blue explained to the coach that they were looking directly into the sun and couldn’t see the ball.

The coach didn’t want hear what he took to be a poor excuse and continued to loudly berate his player.

When Blackjacks catcher Tomio Mack almost got hit with the first warm up throw of the next inning, he bailed out of the catcher’s box and was reluctant to take another throw. He bravely went back into his crouch and on the next pitch was lucky to get his mitt up to deflect a ball he saw only at the last instant. The guys in the announcers began to play the song Danger Zone over the PA system.

Mack tried on sunglasses, but his mask wouldn’t fit over them. The Military All-stars let him try one of their masks under which his glasses would fit. He took one pitch, but still was lucky to avoid getting hit. Sunglasses are designed to reduce glare, not make things visible when one is looking straight into the sun.

The umpires began speaking to the coach of the Blackjacks discussing options—clearly it wasn’t safe for anyone near the plate when a fastball was coming directly out of the sun. They then went to Coach Allvord of the Military All-Stars and informed him of their decision. They did it so quietly that it wasn’t possible to hear, but Coach Allvord clearly didn’t like their decision and began screaming and yelling in a tantrum worthy of a five-year old T-ball player.

His own players who had clearly seen this sort of embarrassing fit before began doing something else I had never heard before on a baseball field—loudly cheering for the ump to eject their coach, with calls of “Run him, blue!” “Toss him, he deserves it!” or openly laughing at his histrionics.

The announcers were once again ready to musically comment on the action and played You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling.

The coach was screaming loud enough to be heard over the music with such comments as “This is our home field. I know it isn’t going to get any better.” And he told the umps that he was taking his team and leaving. (I couldn’t hear, but he may have also said something about taking his ball and going home. So there!)

The ump clearly and loudly informed him that if he walked off the field it was a forfeit. The coach turned and screamed, “It’s not a forfeit! You cancelled the game!”

The umpire said that they hadn’t called the game; they agreed to a delay for a few minutes to see if the sun going behind the green windscreen would make it safe for anyone to be near the plate when a ball was coming.

The coach yelled that the game was over. The ump was clearly straining to keep his temper under control as he said, “Terry, you’re not in charge of this game. We are. If you leave this field, it's a forfeit.”

At that moment the sprinklers came on and all anyone in the stands or on the field could do was laugh, except for Coach Allvord, who was still too hot to let the sprinklers cool him off.

“Sitting in the morning sun…” the opening line of Sitting on the Dock of Bay came wafting over the PA system to the laughter of the crowd.

By the time it took for someone to figure out how to turn off the sprinklers, the 15-minute sun delay had worked. The sun had dropped behind the batters-eye windscreen in centerfield. There was now a new problem to face—impending darkness. The umpires exhorted the players to hurry and take abbreviated warm ups to try to finish the game before dark. The plate ump requested the cleanest, whitest balls they had.

The first batter stepped in, and struck out. The sun had gone down far enough to keep the catcher and home plate ump from being blinded, but they were crouching. For the batter standing tall, he still couldn’t see a damn thing. Why he didn’t go into a crouch, I don’t know.

By the time the second batter got to the plate, the sun was low enough to allow the batter to see. And he did, well enough to get a hit. That sparked a three-run inning to give the All Stars a 9-6 lead going into the ninth. Over the loudspeakers came the tolling of a funeral bell. The Blackjacks pitcher struck out a man with the bases loaded to end what could have been an even bigger threat.

On a wild pitch, the All Stars catcher slipped running after it on the sprinkler- soaked grass and almost slid into a Blackjack in the on-deck circle who cautioned him to watch his step.

The Blackjacks managed to score two runs to make it 9-8, before nightfall made it very hard for the batters to see much of anything. One player who faced the pitches in near darkness said to his teammates in the on deck circle, “Fastball, straight as an arrow,” telling them what kind of pitch he popped up.

The next batter came back from the plate shaking his head and complaining it was too dark to see anything, adding, “This is a backyard game. I feel like I’m playing outside with my friends.”

Kyle McCormick, who had hit a nice shot up the middle earlier in the game to bring in one of the Blackjacks runs, struck out to end the game in the dark.

As the umps walked off the field, one said of the military coach, “What an asshole,” to which the other added, “No wonder his players hate him.”

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