Game starts as planned, later postponed

KANSAS CITY -- It's late Thursday morning at Kauffman Stadium, the gray skies are spitting rain, the tarp covers the infield, it's 39 degrees and the flags on the right-field poles are pointing stiffly toward the east.

Inside, Royals manager Ned Yost is peering through his reading glasses at his computer screen. A radar reading shows a green mass (rain) and behind that a blue mass (snow). Yost is tracking the pattern. He's become something of an amateur meteorologist, and is rarely wrong about whether or not a game will be played.

Expecting to play?

"Yeah!" Yost said. "We'll do everything we can to play."

The Royals and the Tampa Bay Rays are settling in for what could be a long day. The weather promises to be cold, wet and miserable, but they want to get the series finale in.

"These guys don't come back [to Kansas City] and it creates a whole myriad of problems," Yost said.

Bad weather haunted the Majors throughout April, but this is May when you're supposed to have flowers, not showers or, for pity sakes, snow. So outfielders Alex Gordon and Jeff Francoeur are putting on their cold weather gear in the clubhouse.

Ever seen such nasty weather in May?

"Not that I can remember," Gordon said.

Not even in his University of Nebraska days?

"Not this bad," he said.

Cold, wet and windy is not baseball weather.

"From a hitter's standpoint, you definitely don't feel as comfortable," Francoeur said.

Standing around in the outfield during a long inning is not pleasant either.

"Your glove gets stiff, the ball doesn't go as well. Just a lot of things," Gordon said.

"I don't mind the cold that bad, it's just when it's windy and cold," Francoeur said. "Like today."

Gordon suddenly had a sunny thought.

"Our record's pretty good in cruddy weather right now, so maybe we should play in cold weather," Gordon said.

Which led to some positive thinking about playing this game despite the weather.

"Should be able to get it in today, though," Gordon said.

As it developed, Gordon's optimism was unfulfilled. The game was postponed after 3½ innings because of heavy snow.