Commentary: Raindrops Keep Falling On Baseball's Miami Marlins

Marlins Park, where the Miami Marlins play baseball, has a roof.

That’s because it rains in Florida, and rain postpones or interrupts baseball games. That happened often enough in the old stadium so that it was determined that the half-billion dollar replacement building should have a roof. And the roof should be retractable, because sometimes it doesn’t rain.

"I thought we had a roof."

Jeffrey Loria, Miami Marlins' owner

On Opening Day, the Marlins officials charged with predicting the weather via their phone apps opted for baseball under the sky. Then the game began, and it rained. Hard.

Play was delayed for the 16 minutes it took for the technical crew to close the roof.

In another ballpark, those people might be called the grounds crew. They would be in charge of the tarp. The Marlins don’t have a tarp. They have a roof…or, at least they do 16 minutes after someone pushes the button that starts that roof humming across the opening through which rain is falling.

Sixteen minutes was too long for the fans.

The fans booed loudly, perhaps thinking of how much the ballpark — and their tickets — had cost. Then many of them ran up into the concourse, where it wasn’t raining.

Sixteen minutes of rain was too long for the Marlins, too. Shortly after the game began again, Miami infielder Dee Gordon bunted and slipped on the wet dirt on his way to first and fell down, which probably wouldn’t have happened if the Marlins had a tarp. But they don’t, because they have a roof. Perhaps if Gordon hadn’t fallen down, the Marlins wouldn’t have lost the game, 2-1.

When first informed that the game would be delayed by rain, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria said, “I thought we had a roof.”