A game was delayed when no one could figure out a chunk of dirt
During the game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, play was stopped in the bottom of the fifth inning when a large piece of dirt mysteriously appeared on the mound. Well, it wasn’t actually all that mysterious. The mound is made of dirt, as is the rest of the baseball field. But for a few minutes, everyone acted like it was a totally foreign object.
It was a bizarre scene. The umpire had poked it with his foot a few times to make sure it was dead (it was a chunk of dirt, so it probably was), but the players wouldn’t get very close to it. They were standing away from the harmless chunk of dirt like they were afraid it would suddenly transform into a radioactive, athlete-munching monster.
It was Jean Segura who finally had the courage to meet that mysterious chunk of dirt head on. While the umpire called for the grounds crew, he stepped up to it, looked down, and then stomped it with his foot. He stomped on it again, kicked it with the side of his shoe, and then showed off his devil-may-care attitude by picking it up and slamming it back into the ground.
Yes, Segura had solved the “mystery.” It was just a divot. But that was only half the battle. The divot had to be replaced, which was a complicated production. First, two members of the Rockies grounds crew came out to the mound, and they took the chunk of dirt away on a shovel.
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Next, the umpire had Diamondbacks pitching coach Mike Butcher come out and take a look. Butcher wasn’t happy with the condition of the mound, and then the umpire had to call for Rockies manager Walt Weiss so everything that had happened could be communicated to him.
Finally, those two grounds crew guys came back out again, this time to fill the hole in the mound. They worked quickly and got the mound back in working order so the game could resume. The whole delay took more than five minutes, though nearly 90 seconds of it was baseball players standing around in a circle staring at a piece of dirt. If the next time this happens it turns out to be an alien being or a radioactive rock, at least we know that most baseball players won’t go poking at it right away.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at [email protected] or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
