Ball Players Bolt from Field After Lightning

Texas Thunder: Lightning strike sends Rangers and Twins scurrying for safety

Your resident weather man is back with another tale of Mother Nature disrupting our National Pastime.

Although this time, unlike the recent tarp attack in Illinois and tarp-nami in Tennessee, no one person was in immediate danger during the incident, but it was still quite startling as a lightning bolt struck down north of the Ballpark in Arlington, sending players from the Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers running off the field before the rumble of thunder could settle into silence.

The incident happened in the top of the fourth inning with Ryan Doumit at the plate. Just prior to the 2-2 pitch from Roy Oswalt, the lightning bolt strikes, with every player, coach, umpire and fan reacting immediately and with the same idea in mind: Get me out of here.

As you could see in the video, Twins baserunner Josh Willingham immediately went to all fours before sprinting to the visitor's dugout with first base coach Jerry White right behind him. They were the most visible Twins at the moment, but according to a couple weather delay tweets, they might not have been the most frightened.

Tweeted outfielder Denard Span. "That's the loudest noise I've ever heard. I thought Jesus was comin!"

Added teammate Ben Revere. "My heart stopped when I heard the thunder at the stadium. Glad no one heard me scream like a little girl too!! Lol."

We appreciate Revere's honestly, we really do.

And you also may have noticed home plate umpire Chris Conroy is practically attached to Rangers catcher Mike Napoli, who sprinted directly to the home dugout.

As noted in the Associated Press story, there had been some flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder in the area one inning prior. At that time fans were warned of storms in the area, but the weather seemed to have settled down by the time that one bolt crashed and crackled down out of nowhere.

Not long after the winds began to pick up as the Rangers grounds crew covered the diamond. The rains wouldn't begin falling for another 10 minutes, but the total delay wasn't very long as the teams resumed with blue skies peeking through the clouds just 46 minutes after the strike

Source: sports.yahoo.com

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