The weather — not the — may be the ‘ biggest foe at the 2018 home opener at Friday afternoon.
Snowflakes started falling long before Rockies’ hurler German Marquez is scheduled to take the mound for the game scheduled to start 2:10 p.m.
Groundskeepers at Coors Field were chasing flakes from the outfield grass with leaf blowers and the vast white cover had been dragged out to cover the infield.
Fans should headed to 2001 Blake St. for the game should pack their heavy gloves, along with their baseball mitts and bundle up because it’s going to be brrrrr in the stands. Temperatures out at Denver International Airport, where official weather stats are collected, had dropped almost 9 degrees in an hour to 25 degrees at 11 a.m., with a “feels-like” temperature of about 10 because of the wind.
Headed toward noon, temperatures downtown were in the upper 20s. “But that’s countered by the warm ground temperatures and comparatively high sun angle this time of year,”
This means fans need all their winter gear — boots, coats, hats and maybe some foot- and hand warmers.
This is professional baseball on the mile-high eastern slopes of the actual Colorado Rockies.
The stakes are high. The game can’t go on if there is standing water on the field, and the grounds crews can’t pull the infield tarp until the precipitation stops. But the ball club has incentive to go on with the game because tickets to opening day cost nearly double the price of an ordinary outing.
The National Weather Service in Boulder said by 3 p.m., temperatures won’t be figuratively freezing, they’ll actually be below freezing at around 30 degrees.
Occasional winds out of the northeast might make you sorta giggle at first — because, after all, isn’t it baseball season already? But when the forecast 30 mph gusts hit, wet snow melting on your face will freeze instantly.
Just be glad you aren’t swinging a bat at a 95 mph fastball in this mess.
