Rain delay provided an opportunity to soak the fans

May 04, 2006|Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Columnist

Despite more brutal weather, they played baseball at Fenway last night. Hallelujah. But had they not played, the Red Sox still would have been winners at the cash register. The $ox always win these days.

The official team theme song at Fenway these days is neither ''Tessie" nor ''Sweet Caroline." The official theme song of the 2006 Boston Red $ox is ''Ca-ching!"

Tuesday at Fenway, ownership blundered by failing to make an early postponement of the scheduled game against the Yankees. It was obvious to every human in New England that no baseball was going to be played that night, but the $ox failed to call it off, then opened the gates, announced a delay, and finally called the game at approximately 7:40 p.m. It was preposterous.

Why? Why did they wait? Why did they allow faithful fans to drive one or two hours to the ballpark (don't forget the jackknifed tractor-trailer on the Southeast Expressway that created a monstrous traffic jam), pay $30 or more to park, then sit in slop for an hour or two when it was obvious there would be no baseball? Was it to sell a few more hot dogs or cups of chowder? NESN pregame show ratings? More customers at RemDawg's?

The $ox had to have known they could not have played that night. If not, they should fire Bill James and bring on Mish Michaels or Don Kent.

Was it really about the money? Did the $ox open the gates just to unload some concession items?

''That's a cheap shot at our integrity," said owner John Henry. ''We're not going to make our fans suffer just to sell hot dogs. In 2002, we canceled a game at 9:30 in the morning and then the sun came out. It's very hard to predict the weather in Boston. If we knew we weren't going to play, we wouldn't have sent [Josh] Beckett down to get warm. We heard it was going to be misty. It really didn't start raining until 10 after 8."

(Henry and Co. should have checked with any local dairy farmer. Take it from one who grew up in Groton, everybody knows it's going to rain when the cows are lying down in the pasture, and the cattle were definitely horizontal Tuesday.)

''It was not clear that no game could be played," added CEO Larry Lucchino. ''We agonized for several hours. We try to play every game. People have made plans and rescheduling games is complicated. There's a competitive disadvantage.