might not be a night for baseball when even his dogs wanted to skip the morning
walk.
Major League Baseball agreed with Tracy's beagles.
Game 3 of the Phillies-Rockies playoff series Saturday
night was postponed because of weather better suited for cross-country skiing.
The game will be played Sunday night, with Game 4 pushed
back to Monday. Game 5, if necessary, will be played as scheduled Tuesday in
Philadelphia, without a day off for travel.
"I think it's a very wise decision," Tracy told The
Associated Press by phone. "You could have something happen in weather like this
where you could lose a player for half a year in 2010. I don't think that would
be good for anybody.
"There's no question about the type of play that you
would see in this kind of weather vs. if you have better conditions that they're
calling for Sunday. To be cold and wet and rainy and sleety or snowy is
completely different than cold and dry and clear."
Surely any dog would know that. Well, at least Tracy's.
"We got up to take the dogs for a walk and when two
beagles don't want to go outside, I don't see how baseball players would see
this as a real good day to be playing," he said. "It was snowing and 18 degrees,
not very conducive for baseball."
The NL division series is tied at one game each. The
Rockies will stick with right-handed starter Jason Hammel for Game 3 but they
could move up ace Ubaldo Jimenez for Game 4, when the Phillies would likely
counter with Game 1 winner Cliff Lee. The Phillies are still planning on sending
right-hander Pedro Martinez to the mound Sunday.
While the Phillies holed up in their hotel with no plans
of working out at the ballpark Saturday, the Rockies summoned their players for
a 90-minute workout inside Coors Field.
"We're going over at noon to do what we can indoors,"
Tracy said. "We just want to keep ourselves on somewhat of a schedule."
A cold front moved into Denver overnight, dropping
temperatures into the teens with record lows for the date. Coors Field was
covered with a thin layer of snow and ice Saturday morning and flurries were
expected to continue through the night.
National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Thaler said
the cold front packed more punch than expected and easily broke the record low
for the date of 25 degrees set in 1905.
"It's not going to get as warm as we thought. It got
much colder than we anticipated," Thaler said. "We crushed the record: 17 today,
7:22 this morning. Up in the foothills it's even colder."
The front will move out Saturday night and temperatures
are expected to approach 50 on Sunday.
"It's still not going to be a delightful time tomorrow
night," Thaler said. "Baseball is 70s and 80s and 90s weather. It's not going to
be that. By the end of the game, it might be sneaking into the mid- to upper
30s. You're still going to want to bundle up, but it will be warmer than today."
AP Sports Writer Pat Graham contributed to this story.