The Fourth of July game between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals experienced a delay in the sixth inning for a fairly understandable reason: No one could see the baseball.
A game that started late due to rain was again paused when a blanket of fog rolled into the stadium, creating unplayable conditions. Despite an effort to play on, the players’ complaints eventually led to a weather delay of roughly 15 minutes.
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At one point, Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt could be seen telling umpires “We can’t see the ball.”
“At first it was kinda cool, and then I was like ‘Bro, I’m kinda scared, because you really could not see the ball,” Wetherholt said after the game. “Just a weird delay, but they did what they coud.”
The effect was quite noticeable on the Fox Sports broadcast.
Conditions were so bad that when the Cardinals attempted to challenge a ball call involving Cubs outfielder Ian Happ, the umpire announced that the call stands because the ABS system was “not operational at the moment.”
That bore out in MLB’s larger pitch tracking operation, as its Gameday platform couldn’t provide a velocity measurement on pitches shortly before and after the delay.
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Cubs fans did make the most of the delay, with the singing of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” in honor of the USMNT and the formation of a mighty beer snake.
The Cardinals went on to win the game 3-0, behind a leadoff homer from Weatherholt and RBI hits from Iván Herrera and Alex Burleson in later innings.
