Major League Baseball

Rain delay came after Marlins president misread weather app

Published Apr. 7, 2015 11:31 a.m. ET

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By Steve DelVecchio

The first newsworthy thing the Miami Marlins did during the 2015 MLB season was forget to close their retractable roof to avoid a rain delay. Marlins Park, which cost $515 million to build and was opened just three years ago, is one of six MLB stadiums with a retractable roof. Despite that, the second inning was delayed for 16 minutes on Monday due to rain.

How did this happen? Because they can close their stadium whenever they please, the Marlins don’t employee a meteorologist consultant. Instead, team executives — one of them being president David Samson — monitor the weather using their smartphones. Samson admitted he dropped the ball.

“I tried to predict that a cloud would go north, and it went south on top of our ballpark,” he told reporters during the sixth inning, via Matt Porter of The Palm Beach Post. “All the fans got to enjoy a rain delay. I did not. I can only say that we made a memory, and we always promise we’re going to make memories.

As we pointed out on Monday, at least one meteorologist could see trouble on its way several minutes before the rain started coming down. The roof takes about 12 minutes to close, so Samson didn’t do the team any favors by trying to play weather man.

“This was one for the books, that’s for sure,” Samson joked. “And we have a no-umbrella policy, so that wasn’t great. This is how our season started. But other than that, it was as smooth as razors.”

Leave it to the Marlins.

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