Summer has just begun and forecasters are already sounding the alarm bells about a deadly round of severe weather working its way across much of the USA.
As a storm system brought high winds and tornados across the Midwest and Northeast on Saturday, exceedingly high temperatures elsewhere took a toll on outdoor activities – including Major League Baseball games.
In St. Louis and Chicago, the mercury topped the 90 degree mark, coupled with high humidity, driving the heat index above 100. Those conditions led to incidents in each game – both of which lasted over three hours – in which players and umpires had to seek treatment.
Reds’ Elly De La Cruz vomits on field
With two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning in St. Louis, Reds star Elly De La Cruz vomited on the infield dirt near his position at shortstop. An athletic trainer came out to check on him as the grounds crew cleaned up the field.
‘I actually watched him,’ Reds manager Terry Francona said. “He drank a bunch of water. I mean, a bunch, and then he went right out and got rid of it.”
De La Cruz stayed in the game.
Just an inning earlier, De La Cruz hit a two-out triple and tried to score as the throw came in from the outfield, but he was thrown out. Then later in the seventh, he was able to stroll all the way around the bases after hitting a 435-foot home run in a game the Reds eventually lost 6-5 in 11 innings..
Umpire, Mariners’ Trent Thornton succumb to heat at Wrigley
Following the fifth inning of the Mariners-Cubs game in Chicago, home plate umpire Chad Whitson left the field and received treatment from athletic trainers in the Seattle dugout. After a 10-minute delay, he was replaced and the game continued with just three umpires.
Later in the game, veteran Mariners pitcher Trent Thornton – after going back out for a third inning of work – had to be helped off the field after nearly collapsing behind the mound.
‘It was a scary moment, for sure,’ Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. ‘He battled hard. But just really glad that he’s feeling a little bit better now and should be OK.’
At the end of the game, a member of the Cubs field staff also collapsed, but the team said he was okay. Likewise for umpire Whitson; an MLB spokesperson said he was feeling better Saturday night and had been cleared to work third base for Sunday’s series finale.
Climate change a real issue for MLB
Those two games weren’t the only ones played in stifling conditions on the first full day of summer.
A high-pressure system over the Southeast that meteorologists sometimes refer to as a ‘ring of fire’ resulted in more than 150 million Americans under some kind of advisory or warning for dangerous heat over the weekend.
The Brewers-Twins game in Minneapolis was played under an excessive heat warning. And in Denver, the first-pitch temperature of 98 degrees for Rockies-Diamondbacks was highest for a major league game this season.
And we’re just getting started.
Writing for North Side Baseball, Matthew Trueblood points out some of the elevated heat-related dangers umpires face when conditions get excessive.
Home plate umps have to wear extra safety equipment for protection from foul balls. They must stay on the field at all times and aren’t able to retreat to the dugout or clubhouse between innings. And they’re considerably older than the players, making them even more susceptible to heat-related issues.
In addition, the problem figures to get worse as the planet continues to warm. Trueblood cites data from the Environmental Protection Agency that shows heat waves (in which temperatures reach dangerous levels for several days) are occurring almost three times as often as they did in the 1960s and roughly twice as often as they did in the 1980s.
‘For the next several years,’ Trueblood writes, ‘baseball will need to be played only when safe, which will mean building in more off days on the long calendar of the season and/or canceling more contests.’
We already have one MLB stadium damaged to the point of unplayability for 2025 due to an extreme weather event. And along with the Rays in Tampa, the Athletics in West Sacramento, California, are now playing their home games in ballparks that will be among MLB’s most extreme for heat and humidity over the summer.