Watergate Update

As the Nats are battling the Dodgers in LA, here's a quick update:

Baseball denies Mets' rain protest

May 4, 2005

NEW YORK (AP) -- Major League Baseball denied Wednesday a protest by the New York Mets, who felt the grounds crew at RFK Stadium performed poorly during a rain-shortened loss to the Washington Nationals.

Mets manager Willie Randolph protested Saturday's 5-3 loss based on Rule 4.16, which reads: "A game shall be forfeited to the visiting team if, after it has been suspended, the orders of the umpire to groundskeepers respecting preparation of the field for resumption of play are not complied with."

Rain fell steadily from the fifth inning on, and there were two rain delays before the game was called in the eighth inning. In the eighth, the grounds crew took about half an hour to fully cover the infield because the tarp had been folded improperly. The team brought in people working in the stadium's parking lots to help.

"We never said that they did anything intentionally. We felt that the grounds crew was trying its best," Mets general manager Omar Minaya said. "You never know when you file a protest."

Watergate and the Big Stage

Aside from the Nationals surprising start and the general hoopla surrounding the return of baseball to the District of Columbia the biggest story in this Washington baseball season is the conditions of the playing field at RFK Stadium.

The Nats loss to the Braves a couple of Thursdays ago on Christian Guzman's error was blamed by many on the rain and the abysmal field conditions with water collecting on the infield dirt. Mets manager Willie Randolph protested Saturday night's game on based on Rule 4.16 stating: "A game shall be forfeited to the visiting team if, after it has been suspended, the orders of the umpire to groundskeepers respecting preparation of the field for resumption of play are not complied with." Randolph concedes that he doesn't expect to win the protest but wanted to take the chance and, apparently, make a point about poor field conditions. Now Nats president Tony Tavares is defending the playing surface while Frank Robinson, who played at RFK before managing there, questions RFK's suitability for baseball.

Robinson: "Water doesn't drain out of here as well as it should," because the stadium sits lower than the Anicostia River.

Tavares: "The field's fine. Any field at any ballpark that would take as much rain as that field took both times would have been just as flooded. In fact, this field drains extremely well compared to a lot of other fields I've seen."

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile it was great to see RFK and enthusiastic fans on ESPN's Sunday night baseball. John Miller and Joe Morgan seemed absolutely giddy in the broadcast booth with Miller saying several times that this was the first broadcast from Washington in the 16 years that he and Morgan have been doing the Sunday night telecast. Miller, a former Orioles radio broadcaster, has ties to the area. Unfortunately, the stadium wasn't as full as it could have been. The Nats drew less than 30,000 for the prime time game after drawing more than 40,000 on Saturday. The Post reports today that the Nats rank 13th in the league in attendance to this point.