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Lights literally go out on Mets and Nationals
The lights went out, and the Mets and Nationals called it a night.
New York's spring training game against Washington was stopped in the top of the seventh inning Monday night because the stadium lights partially cut off.
Three pitches into the inning, with the Mets ahead 10-4 and no outs, about half of the spotlights on the eight towers around the park's perimeter stopped working, making it tough to see.
In an unusual scene, managers Willie Randolph of the Mets and Frank Robinson of the Nationals, along with Mets GM Omar Minaya, gathered behind home plate to talk with the umpires. After about a 15-minute delay, the meeting broke up, the players cleared out of the dugouts, and the PA announcer told the crowd the game would not resume because "power could not be restored in any reasonable amount of time."
While not unprecedented, it's extremely rare that a baseball game ends abruptly because of a power outage. One example: A transformer exploded at Qualcomm Stadium on July 18, 2001, suspending a game between Arizona and San Diego.
"I can't remember a game called because of lights," Robinson said. "It just wouldn't have been right to have those guys sitting around for 40 minutes, 50 minutes, an hour."
As second-base umpire Casey Moser put it: "They said it would be a while."
So it goes into the books as a victory for the Mets, whose starter, Tom Glavine, was knocked around a bit by the team he's slated to face in his first start of the regular season.
Glavine gave up four runs on six hits in four innings - including consecutive homers by Marlon Byrd and Brendan Harris in the second - but didn't sound disappointed. He said he felt better than his first spring outing, when he gave up four hits but worked out of trouble in all three innings against the Indians.
"I'm actually pretty happy with it, other than the results. The results weren't very good," the left-hander said. "I worked on most of the stuff I wanted to work on, and physically I was better than the last time. As far as keeping the ball down, I was a lot better than the last time."
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