Cuba and the Beijing Tigers were supposed to battle for a victory on opening night of the World Baseball Challenge. Instead, rain was declared the lopsided winner.
Thanks to foul weather all day Friday, the game -- which was scheduled for 7 p.m. at Citizen Field -- was postponed until Monday at 7 p.m. All original tickets will be honoured, so fans are advised to hold on to their passes.
"We had planned to do something other than have a pumper truck and a whole bunch of shop vacs out on the field on Friday," said WBC co-chairman Jim Swanson. "It is what it is, and we'll deal with it. We're still going to see some great baseball. We're not real pleased with what the forecast holds. The forecast this week was supposed to be nicer than what we've had so we're hoping they're wrong again."
Rain showers are predicted all the way through next Saturday. Next Sunday, which is supposed to be the day of the championship game, conditions are expected to finally improve.
With some cooperation from Mother Nature, the six-team event will now start today at 3 p.m. with the Bahamas facing Chinese Taipei. Also today (7 p.m.), pre-tournament favourites Cuba and Japan will collide. In the International Baseball Federation rankings, Cuba is No. 1 and Japan is No. 4, higher than any other teams in the WBC.
As of Friday night, Sunday's schedule was unchanged -- Beijing will face Japan at noon, the Bahamas and Canada will play at 3 p.m. and Chinese Taipei and Cuba will square off at 7:30 p.m.
With Friday's Beijing Tigers-Cuba game now planned for Monday night, the times for two other Monday tilts have been adjusted. Canada and Beijing will now meet at noon instead of 3 p.m. and Japan and the Bahamas will now play at 3 p.m. instead of 7 p.m.
"We looked at a bunch of different options and this was the one that was most fair to everybody," Swanson said after a Friday meeting with the coaches of the participating teams. "Also, it leaves us with the option that if we get more rain and have more rainouts that we can move games into different time slots. We didn't want to move this [Beijing-Cuba] game to a Thursday or a Wednesday, which was an option, because what happens if we get rain on a Tuesday? Then we've waited too long to use up a spot."
