Baseball question

[ffutures]

What would happen if a baseball game was interrupted by e.g. Superman landing an airliner in the stadium and couldn't be resumed immediately? Do they abandon the game completely and play it again from scratch, or play out the remaining time etc. starting with the scores at the time the game was stopped?

Comments

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

To the best of my knowlege, if the game had gone for more than 4 1/2 innings (i.e., half the game), the team ahead would be declared the winner. Otherwise it would be played over (as I think it was when the World Series was interrupted by an earthquake).

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Okay... I don't think we saw anything in Superman Returns to say where in the game they were.

About the only clue is the time of day. Let's say that Superman and Jimmy Olsen go to lunch about 1.30 PM, and the news report that the plane is in trouble is at two, that's eleven AM in California (the scene was filmed at Dodgers' Stadium). I didn't think games even began until the afternoon! So if I say it's early in the game and they have to replay the whole thing I should be OK.

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

Yep, they'd be replaying the whole thing, given that scenario. Next day as part of a double-header, or if that was the last game of a series with that team (they're usually abt. 3 games, sometimes 4), it would be played the next time the teams were together. (I don't know if they'd make it during the team's next matchup, or the same matchup at Dodger Stadium, if there were others during the season.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's good enough, I'm just writing someone moaning (to Clark) about how it screwed up the whole season for the Dodgers...

[timill]

The game hadn't started in 1989 when the quake hit, IIRC.

If the game has gone 5 innings or more and one team is ahead at the end of the last complete inning, then that team is the winner. Otherwise if it's gone 4.5 innings and the home team is ahead in the second half of an inning, they win (because they would have won as above even if they didn't score more).

If the teams are tied at the end of the 5th inning or later then the game would be continued rather than replayed.

If it hasn't gone 5 innings, it's a complete restart.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm going to go with restart - given the time zones etc. it pretty much has to be early in the game.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

I bow to your superior knowlege. :-)

[dsample.livejournal.com]

Official MLB rules for starting and stopping games can be found at:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/official_info/official_rules/start_end_4.jsp

[learnedhand-dj.livejournal.com]

I have a couple of suggestions as to why the missed game might have ruined the season for the Dodgers. The regular season usually ends around October 1, and if the Dodgers ended up missing the playoffs by one game, there are lots of different ways a postponement might have screwed up the season. For example, if the game was rescheduled, there could have been player injuries in the meantime that depleted the Dodgers, or the rescheduled game might have taken away an off day between a long string of games, causing extra fatigue and impacting player performance.

But, if it were my story, I'd probably go with the plane landing doing some damage to the outfield that wasn't discovered and repaired prior to playing the next game. If the star outfielder for the Dodgers wrecked his knee and was out for the season because he stepped in an unseen divot caused by the plane, that would seem the most likely thing that would have ruined the team's season. That would probably fit best with the timeline, too, because you could have the plane landing around 11 AM, have everyone cleared out by 4 PM or so, which would still allow that night's game to go off at the standard 7:10 PM time. Only having an hour or so to do any field repairs would explain why the damage wasn't found.

Probably far too much thought for what is obviously a minor point in your story, but I figured if I was going to bother to puzzle through it, I might as well share it.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

Or the Dodgers had been on a winning streak, and it ended after the airplane incident. Fans blamed Superman for ending the streak. (Baseball fans aren't always the most rational of people.)