Posted by Amy K. Nelson
5:25 p.m. ETI just spoke to Dan Cunningham, the head groundskeeper here at Yankee Stadium.
He showed me his office adjacent to the visitors' dugout, where he has a computer that calls up local weather reports. Cunningham and his crew will have no call about whether to postpone tonight's game -- that's up to Major League Baseball -- but he is consulted during the process.
Cunningham called one of the Yankees' local weather services while I was in his office around 4:45 p.m. ET. The woman on the other end said light drizzle should begin tonight around 8 p.m. ET.
"Right around first pitch," Cunningham laughed.
And that once it starts raining it will not stop. The forecast she gave to Cunningham shows that the heavy rain will settle in around midnight ET. But Cunningham told me that today alone the weather reports have changed at least five or six times.
"The most important thing to know is when it's going to start raining," Cunningham said, "and when it's going to stop."
Cunningham, in his 21st year with the Yankees, said that his crew will prepare the field the best it can. He then showed me the bags of drying agent they use on the mound and on the basepaths. The bags contain bits of fired clay, which help absorb the water.
But the clay only can do so much. Cunningham's phone rings three different times in a five-minute span. They are all friends, asking him whether they should make the trek -- right now Cunningham can't give away his season tickets.
Cunningham tells them he doesn't know, but he knows that whoever is sitting in the stands will be in for a long, wet night.
