Earlier this evening, the Herts Falcons received confirmation from the Sheffield Bruins that Sunday’s deciding game in the NBL Playoff race has been postponed due to weather and ground conditions at Thorpe Green Park in Sheffield.
Images coming in from Sheffield showed a waterlogged home plate and around one inch of standing water on the surface. Perhaps an MLB grounds crew would have been able to cope with this relatively easily, but most British clubs don’t have the staff to deal with such situations and, if the standing water on the grass is more widespread, that probably makes it impossible if the field does not drain well naturally after prolonged rain as most British baseball clubs do not have under-soil drainage.
If these two games cannot be rescheduled, mathematically, the Herts Falcons would be eliminated from the Playoff race. Even if the Falcons win their two remaining games away at the London Capitals and the Bruins lose theirs away at the Latin Boys. In that scenario the Bruins would have a Win-Loss % of .263 while the Falcons would end the season with .261 keeping the Bruins ahead of the Falcons by a mere .002.
Herts Baseball Club has enquired with the British Baseball Federation to find out whether the games can be rescheduled before the NBL Playoffs which commence on Sunday, August 20th. The Sheffield Bruins already have four other games which were rained out earlier in the season and are not expected to be played so, fitting these two games into the calendar seems highly unlikely.
As things stand, the Herts Falcons have two more games remaining this season against the London Capitals to be played at 1pm and 4pm on Saturday, 12 August, at Finsbury Park in London.