We often had heavy winds that came with rain storms. It appears they have about 30 people pulling tarp. We were sometimes lucky to assemble 15 to do it.

One such time we had sustained wind gusts over 40 MPH. And just our luck, we had about 10 people to pull tarp and a handful of them had never pulled before.

The key in these wind storms is keeping the lips of the tarp as low to the ground as possible so as to minimize the amount of wind that may get underneath. But that, of course, makes it more difficult for people who aren’t used to pulling in the first place.

The first attempt was a disaster. We pull from RF to 3B line. As we ran across the field, two people pulling along the 1B line let go during a gust (for fear they would be pulled into the air and flung). Next thing ya know, the far part of the tarp is in LF and those of us still holding on are being pulled in that direction.

Then the lightening got closer, and the rain started pouring. It took two more attempts before everyone finally understood how to hold on. The infield was already soaked, and the downpour was so heavy that it was puddled before we ever got the tarp secured.

Ballgame over . . . before it began.

US Cellular’s field is one of the fastest, most efficient draining fields in all of baseball, but you can’t make the clay portion of the infield drain like you can grass so the Sox grounds crew had to use a few more bags of field dry on it, but once the tarp was lifted off the game got underway so quickly (after almost a 2 hour delay), that WGN America TV got caught with their pants down around their ankles and had to resume coverage via tape delay a batter or two behind what was actually occurring down on the field.