cleveland This will forever be known as the Bug Game.
A swarm of insects descended on Jacobs Field in the eighth inning of the Cleveland Indians’ 2-1 playoff victory over the New York Yankees on Friday night, leading to a bizarre scene featuring players waving their arms and gloves in an attempt to keep the pesky bugs away.
The teams kept playing into extra innings as millions of bugs nagged players on the field and in the dugouts.
“Every time you tried to focus on something, they’re flying in your nose and your hair and your face,” said Yankees first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was batting in the top of the eighth when the swarm invaded.
Ron Harrison, an entomologist who works for Orkin Inc., an Atlanta-based pest control company, said the annoying bugs were a type of midge, an insect related to mosquitoes. While some speculated they were Canadian Soldiers, they were much smaller than that type of bug.
During warm fall weather, midges often breed on the outskirts of lakes.
“They aren’t really biters – more of a nuisance,” Harrison said.
Just ask the Yankees.
They were on the verge of tying the series when the insects arrived in a scenario only Alfred Hitchcock could imagine.
Asked to play amateur entomologist after the game, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m not an expert on what kind of bugs they are. They were small,” he said.
The bugs subsided somewhat after the game went into extra innings. Travis Hafner ended it with an RBI single in the 11th inning, leading to a wild celebration by the Indians in the infield.
With the Yankees ahead 1-0, the bugs clearly affected reliever Joba Chamberlain and helped the Indians tie it. Bug spray did little good – Chamberlain’s neck, face and hat were covered with the tiny bugs, and he tried to spit them out of his mouth.
Chamberlain and the rest of the Yankees refused to use the bugs as an excuse.
“There’s not much you can do about it,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “He was having trouble seeing out there. I’ll tell you one thing about the kid, he never lost his composure. Unfortunately it was at a bad time.”
Almost everyone was affected by the cloud of bugs, with players and the umpires trying in vain to brush them away.
“They’re flying around in your face, it’s going to mess with your vision a little bit,” Jeter said. “But it was like that for both teams.”
“Bugs are bugs,” Chamberlain said. “It’s something you’ve got to deal with.”
