Monday was a wild night at AT&T Park.
Due to two separate delays caused by an unexpected rain and lightning storm that lasted nearly three hours, the Giants and Dodgers resumed the top of the first inning at 10:50 p.m. on Monday night, not finishing until San Francisco secured the 8-6 win at 2:10 a.m.
If that wasn’t disorienting enough, Giants fans who turned on KNBR 680 during the top of the second inning were likely even more confused, when they heard team CEO Larry Baer doing play-by-play during Yasmani Grandal’s at-bat against Ty Blach.
“I’m a little rusty after 40 years. I did do play-by-play 40 years ago Jon,” Baer said to Giants broadcaster Jon Miller, who had the CEO on to explain the circumstances that led to the Giants and Dodgers decision to play the game, instead of scheduling it for a later date. As Baer answered Miller’s questions, he became distracted by the action, and elected to call the at-bat, something he hadn’t done since his college days at UC Berkley, when Baer served as the Oakland A’s play-by-play announcer for KALX.
“Here’s the thing there were not a lot of good options,” Baer began, responding to Miller’s question about going ahead with the game. “The one thing we knew was that starting at about 10:30, there was going to be a good 12 hours or so of clear weather, of no rain. As you get into…I’ll do the play-by-play. That was ball one to Yasmani Grandal and that is a pitch just low, 2-0. I haven’t done play by play in 35 years Jon. And there’s a pitch just outside. Aw boy that looked pretty good to me. 3-0 to Grandal here, as Ty Blach is on the mound. I am not here to do play-by-play, but I’ll do one batter and that’s in my contract.”
Here’s audio of the call:
After the fun moment, Baer did eventually explain to difficulties a re-schedule would’ve caused.
“I was in the mood for a double header, starting around 11 o’clock, can’t get enough baseball,” Baer joked.
“I think the big thing was everybody wanted to get the game in if possible this week. Thursday is a mutual off day but the Dodgers have to fly to Washington, and they have the ability to waive the violation because it’s a west to east flight. The Dodgers would have been scheduled 24 days in a row, so the Dodgers said they didn’t want to play Thursday so we would’ve had to play a split double-header either Tuesday or Wednesday.”