You can practice many sports in rain and mud, but baseball is not one of them.
A game for the Cal Ripken League in Montgomery County, Maryland, had to be canceled on Thursday due to a dispute between a firefighter and the Takoma Thunderbolts.
A baseball coach told News4 that, when practicing the batting, a long flight ball shot on a fence and hit a truck in the parking lot in the nearby Silver Spring Fire Station. Then, the coach said that a county firefighter deliberately flooded the field.
The video shows a water transmission.
The players with the Thunderbolts, a university male team, said some time after the ball hit the truck. Then they saw a firefighter truck outside the station at the Boulevard University.
Moments later, a large current of water began cascading in the field where the team was about to play.
A player ran to the station in an effort to turn off the water, but found a current of angry words.
Max Eckert and Brock Hunter, players in the Thunderbolts, shared what happened next.
“I see some players running from the field because the water is being shot at our garden, which, then we spend a lot of time fixing the field while it is raining every day,” Eckert said. “And then I ran thinking that it was a mistake and just say ‘Hey! Hey! You probably want to turn it off or redirect it’, and then things warmed a little from that moment.”
“I come from Virginia, you know, the team we were playing is from Virginia, so many families led an hour and a half in traffic to play after all this rain, and they could not play,” said Hunter.
Hunter said that many of the players were unhappy and everything was “a crazy experience.”
The Montgomery County Fire Department took the incident seriously, issuing an apology on Friday.
“We want to express our sincere apologies to players, teams, Cal Ripken League and all fans and families affected by this interruption,” the statement reads partly. “We understand how important this place is for the community, and especially for young athletes waiting for these events.”
The Montgomery County Park Police are investigating. It is not yet known if the responsible firefighter was licensed.
