Southern University forfeiting their game to Southeastern Louisiana last night after Southern coach Roger Cador refused to let his team return to play after a lighting delay.
Cador stated to The Daily Advocate the following
“In the seventh inning, we encountered lightning, we made the umpires aware that there was lighting. They acknowledged that they saw it and at that time did nothing about it. Then in the eighth inning, they saw it again and pulled the teams off the field for 30 minutes.
When we came back out, there was still constant lightning. They wanted us back on the field in 10 minutes and I told them I didn’t want to put my players in harm’s way.”
I saw at the College World Series in 2010 a situation where a game was nearing the end with lighting all around the stadium but the umpires refused to bring the teams off the field. It was extremely dangerous and everyone in the press box couldn’t understand why the team’s were not pulled off the field.
4 comments
Coach Cador did the right thing. WTG Coach!
Lightning is something that has to be respected. If the manager was genuinely concerned, he did the right thing. But I wonder if being down 9-0 late had anything to do with it?
the game was 2-1 when it was called…the final score was 9-0 after the forfeit
I was at the game. The storm cell causing the lightning delay had moved off ~25 miles to the north of the baseball park. Weather radar (on my iphone) confirmed that the storm cell wasn’t near the park, too. The lightning was quite a show, but was so far away that absolutely no thunder could be heard. As I understand it, the ump called his superiors and local TV weather people, and ultimately decided that the lightning threat had passed (though lightning was still visible on the horizon because of the dark night skies). I, nor anyone else in the stands, considered the weather to be a threat, and we were all confused as to the delay in starting the game again. Coach Cador obviously thought there was a threat, Coach Artigues didn’t, and the umpires ruled (the only opinion that counts) that there wasn’t a lightning threat. The local media is stirring this up, but it is my hope that these two fine schools reconcile this issue and move on.
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