Nature’s Exhibition Only Game in Town

Welcome to the Yukon, baseball fans.

Pack that white stuff and give it a heave. It’s a strike if you hit the palm between the second and fifth fronds.

And we all thought Desert Storm was over.

Baseball lost here Wednesday. It was driven from the landscape by a storm so vicious it would have sent Jim Bridger in search of a Motel 6. Never before had a Padre exhibition game here been washed away.

Washed away?

This game, between the Padres and San Francisco Abominable Snowmen, was blown away by a burst of hail so intense it turned this village into Anchorage South. They could have run the Iditarod down Fourth Avenue.

The only snowbirds who ventured out of their RVs were penguins. I expected I might need chains between Alpine and Ocotillo coming down here, but I didn’t think I would need them to get from the ballpark to the hotel.

Sorry, I underpacked. For a four-day stay, I had four sweaters, a sweat shirt and three windbreakers. I need a parka, knit hat, gloves, ski pants (maybe with skis) and galoshes like I used to wear walking through four miles of snow banks to school when I was a kid in Michigan. And I actually packed tanning lotion. Silly me.

It all started rather innocently with rain. You know the stuff. You’ve seen plenty of it in San Diego.

Even rain is verboten here in the desert. Let the Colorado River bring water. This is desert. They sell cars here with windshield wipers as optional items. Sun roofs are standard.

What’s more, this is spring training. This is where spring training is located because it is an excellent place to work long hours under a hot sun. If that was not a prerequisite, they could get ready for the season in the Laramie armory.

Marty Barrett, veteran of so many spring trainings in Florida with the Boston Red Sox, was playing cards Wednesday morning in the Padre clubhouse. At a table nearby was Fred McGriff, veteran of spring trainings in Florida with the Toronto Blue Jays.

“Hey, Freddy,” Barrett called, “it doesn’t rain like this in Florida, does it?”

This was mid-morning, when raining was all it was doing. Card games were flourishing. A couple of players were writing letters. Others worked on crossword puzzles. Bip Roberts was joking. Benito Santiago was optimistically swinging a bat. Manager Greg Riddoch and his coaches were huddled around a computer screen, presumably playing a Pursue the Pennant game.

Whitey Wietelmann, a veteran of 25 Yuma springs as a player and manager with the minor league Padres and coach and man-about-the-clubhouse with the major league Padres, was saying this was the worst weather he could remember.

“They gonna call this one off?” he asked.

“Naw,” said a local. “The entire western sky has a big ol’ blue spot.”

Walking through a steady rain, I encountered a security guard and asked him the same question Wietelmann had asked.

“Look to the west,” he said. “Look at the patches of blue.”

Meteorology hereabouts must be considerably less than a science. You just look to the west. Yuma must have no weather forecasters, which must save natives those three inane minutes we must tolerate on newscasts each night. Look to the west and the skies reveal which level of sun block will be appropriate.

On this day, sun block would stay at the bottom of the suitcase along with the bathing suit, tank top and sandals.

Joe McIlvaine, the new general manager and veteran of many spring trainings in Florida with the New York Mets, came in to the clubhouse and announced that the start of the game would be delayed from 1:05 to 1:30. The rain had eased up and the grounds crew was busy with hair dryers it must have borrowed from Andre the Giant.

The field would be ready . . .

. . . if it rained no more.

The players started getting into their uniforms and gathering their gear. They would have time for a few swings in the batting cages and a few games of catch before making the trek to the main diamond for the game.

“You got a pad and pencil?” Shawn Abner asked.

Never leave home with them, I said.

“Then write this down,” he said. “I’m gonna get more hits today than Tony Gwynn. I want it on the record.”

I stepped out the door, instinctively looking to the west. My jaw dropped. The clouds looked like something out of a Spielberg movie. They were dark and ominous, that big ol’ blue spot gone and shades of gray and purple in its place. It looked like a birthing place for tornadoes.

I walked back inside, where Roberts, Santiago and Garry Templeton were slinging their duffel bags over their shoulders.

“You guys got umbrellas in there?” I asked. “Looks like we’re about 45 minutes away from some kind of storm.”

It hit 37 minutes later.

Smugly, I thought to myself that I almost qualify as a native now. Of course, I will have to run out and get some snow tires.