The Tampa Bay Rays’ 81-game home schedule recently came to a close, and despite the outdoor venue, the squad managed to make it through the entire season without a single game being rained out. Even better for Rays fans, the team is headed to the playoffs.
Rain delays are one thing during baseball’s long season. Snow, though, is a different beast. Fans have seen topsy-turvy spring baseball weather before: Opening Day at Yankee Stadium in 1996 was played through flurries, and when winter weather delayed Cleveland’s 1997 home opener, fans took to building mini-snowmen with jerseys and caps. That’s spring baseball, when the weather is part of the charm.
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But snow in October? That’s another story entirely. The Fall Classic is supposed to conjure crisp nights, breath hanging in the air and maybe a light jacket or two. Flakes falling during playoff baseball is rarer, but every so often, in the middle of MLB’s biggest stage, the game has been dusted white.
2008 – Philadelphia Phillies vs. Tampa Bay Rays
Game 5 of the 2008 World Series became the first Fall Classic game ever suspended. The Oct. 27 contest started in a cold rain, with play grinding to a halt by the sixth inning as conditions worsened. A nor’easter kept the City of Brotherly Love drenched the next day, with snow piling up in nearby Bucks County.
Grounds crews pull a tarp over the infield after Game 5 of the baseball World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Philadelphia Phillies was suspended because of rain in Philadelphia, Monday, Oct. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Two nights later, with temperatures in the mid-40s and a sharp northwest wind, the game finally resumed. The Phillies finished the job, clinching their second championship despite some of the most miserable postseason weather on record.
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1997 – Cleveland Indians vs. Florida Marlins
Game 4 of the 1997 World Series in Cleveland may have been the coldest Fall Classic game ever. Just days earlier, the series opened in Miami with first-pitch temperatures in the high 80s. By the time the series shifted north, however, fans and players faced a 35-degree start, AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures in the teens and snow flurries drifting across the field.
Cleveland Indians manager Mike Hargrove (21) looking up as snow falls on field during batting practice before Game 4 vs Florida Marlins at Jacobs Field. Cleveland, Ohio, Oct. 22, 1997. (Photo by John Iacono /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
Ice even formed on parts of the infield as Cleveland battled through the conditions to win. In complete weather whiplash, two games later, the Marlins clinched the championship back in tropical Miami.
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1979 – Baltimore Orioles vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Game 1 of the 1979 World Series in Baltimore was delayed a day thanks to a wintry mix of rain and snow- rare weather for early October. When play finally began on Oct. 10, first-pitch temps hovered around 40 degrees with a cold drizzle.
Ground crews at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium use towels and buckets to sop up water in the outfield, in an attempt to prepare the field for the start of the World Series, Oct. 10, 1979. (AP Photo)
Players struggled in the conditions, combining for six errors as the Orioles took the opener. Ultimately, the Pirates stormed back from a 3-1 series deficit to win in seven, but the Fall Classic began with more of a winter feel.