Monday, July 20, 2015

Angels rained out for 1st time since '95, forcing doubleheader

The torrential storm which dumped buckets of rain on Southern California Sunday, forced the postponement of what was to have been an ESPN-televised game between the Sox and Los Angeles Angels.

The teams waited for nearly 2½ hours before the game was finally called.


The rainout was the 11th in the 49-year history of Angel Stadium and the first since June 16, 1995, when the Angels were washed out of a game against the Chicago White Sox. The Angels had played 1,609 consecutive home games without being rained out.

The team's Twitter account attempted to put that fact into a fun context:



And while the ground crew got a chance to stretch their tarp-pulling muscles for the first time in a while, the stadium itself didn't seem up to the task.

"Unfortunately, you never really know how your drainage system works until you get enough water, and there's so much standing water in that outfield that just has nowhere to go," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "It's going to be like that all night tonight, probably tomorrow morning. The rain is predicted to stop shortly, but the field was unplayable, with no way to remedy that.

"Was there a clog? I'm not a landscaper, but I don't think it's ever been tested like this. It's a lot of rain. Don't think anything is clogged. It's just saturated."

The grounds crew and other field personnel tried to squeegee the outfield during the rain delay, but the effort proved futile.


But upbeat Los Angeleans saw a silver lining in the postponement. Besides bringing water to the drought-stricken area, they get to see two games on the same day.

The teams are scheduled to play a day-night doubleheader Monday, the first doubleheader to be played at Angel Stadium due to a rainout since Aug. 5, 1988.

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