Three strikes and you’re out. The Washington Nationals game Friday night was suspended after lights flickered out three times. Dave Johnson reports.
The Washington Nationals said the power failure at Nationals Park Friday night was due to a faulty circuit breaker.
A team spokesman said the breaker was replaced around midnight, and the lights were tested throughout the night with no additional outages. Additional tests are continuing under the supervision of the manufacturer of the field lighting system.
The Nationals organization once again apologized to the fans for the inconvenience. The suspended game with the Los Angeles Dodgers will resume Saturday at 2:05 p.m.
The second game, the regularly scheduled game, will begin at 4:05 p.m. or 20 minutes after the conclusion of the first game, whichever is later.
Fans with tickets for the 4:05 p.m. game are welcome to attend the resumed game at 2:05 p.m. on Saturday. Gates will open at 11:30 a.m.
Officials stopped the game Friday night in the middle of the fourth inning after a section of lights above the third-base line went dark. Starting at 8:19 p.m., play was stalled for 1 hour 22 minutes and then resumed, but the lights flickered out again after only minutes of play, attendees said. The lights were restored about 10:30 p.m. and the game continued. But the lights went out for a third time.
The umpires finally suspended the game about 10:50 p.m.
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Tickets for the suspended game Friday will not be honored on Saturday, officials said. However, fans with tickets to the Friday game will be able to exchange them for a future game in 2015, subject to availability.
More information is available on the postpone page of the Nationals website.
Fairfax resident Brittany Johnson said the cancellation of the game wrecked her evening.
"I'm pretty upset about it because I spent a lot of money on tickets for my boyfriend for date night," she said.
"I think they should give us our money back," fan Ronald Dickerson said.
"The teams have been pulled off the field as a bank of lights in Nationals Park has gone out," the team's official Twitter account said after the first outage. "We are actively working to fix the situation."
Many fans pleaded online for the game to resume, and booed during the second outage.
"Yeah, it's so dark now at Nats Park because 12 lights went out. Ridiculous, let's play! @nationals," Twitter user wisemana wrote.
During the downtime, the Nationals' mascot Screech picked a mock-fight with Dodgers players, and Nats workers threw T-shirts into the crowd, attendees said.
The New York Mets vs. St. Louis Cardinals' game was being shown on stadium screens during the lag.
