BRISTOL, Tenn. — It was a red flag for Major League Baseball at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night.
The MLB Speedway Classic between the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds was suspended in the first inning because of rain, soaking what was a record-breaking crowd for an MLB regular-season game, and the first one in Tennessee. The plan is to resume the game Sunday afternoon.
It was an unwelcome detour for the long-planned event mixing baseball and NASCAR.
“We’re going to suspend tonight’s game. … We are optimistic for a better weather forecast for tomorrow,” Michael Hill, MLB’s senior vice president of on-field operations, told Fox, which televised the game.
The rain made life difficult on the players before the suspension. A bat flew out of TJ Friedl’s hands as he led off the bottom of the first inning for the Reds. A pitcher seemed to catch his footing going to cover first base.
It was a long day with plenty of excitement before the weather failed to cooperate.
Reds manager Terry Francona noticed the sheer size of Bristol Motor Speedway rising up from the mountains as the team’s buses rolled toward the race track Saturday.
The best way to describe the venue? Huge.
Big enough, in fact, to place not one but two baseball diamonds. Francona’s Reds needed only one for the game on the infield at Bristol Motor Speedway, which hosts two NASCAR Cup Series races a year and is nicknamed “The Last Great Colosseum.”
Francona approved of all the hard work.
“When you get outside of the field, it’s actually pretty cool,” he said. “The way the stands kind of all face in, the ones they’re using, it looks pretty cool.”
The record-setting crowd had to be patient, sitting out a 2-hour, 17-minute rain delay that started just after the ceremonial first pitch from a pair of National Baseball Hall of Famers — former Atlanta third baseman Chipper Jones and former Cincinnati catcher Johnny Bench — with help from NASCAR drivers Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott.
On the Fox telecast, Michael Waltrip, who raced plenty at Bristol, restarted the festivities by quoting his brother Darrell, a NASCAR Hall of Fame driver who later worked as a commentator: “Boogity, boogity, boogity! Let’s play baseball, boys!”
The delay also led to the Braves switching starting pitchers. Spencer Strider, who grew up in nearby Knoxville, got a bigger ovation than Reds starter Chase Burns, who is from Hendersonville and played at the University of Tennessee. The Reds stuck with Burns despite the delay.
Strider warmed up, but the Braves chose not to risk his third start in this situation coming off a second elbow surgery.
“I can tell you how excited he was, and I know how he’s crushed,” Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos said of Strider during the Fox broadcast.
On a day fans were encouraged to start showing up at noon, stands that were packed before the game were spotty when the game finally started at 9:41 p.m. after being scheduled for a 7:15 p.m. first pitch.
The game went into a second delay in the bottom of the first with the Reds leading 1-0 with runners on first and second and one out. Atlanta left-hander Austin Cox was on the mound. At 10:30, that delay became a suspension, with the teams set to return Sunday for a 1 p.m. start.
The MLB Speedway Classic was first announced nearly a year ago as part of commissioner Rob Manfred’s push to take the major leagues to places where baseball isn’t played every day. MLB played a game at the “Field of Dreams” movie site in Iowa in both 2021 and 2022. Games have been held in Alabama, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, too.
And on Saturday it was baseball time in Tennessee, which has teams in Major League Soccer (Nashville SC) and the NBA (Memphis Grizzlies), NFL (Tennessee Titans) and NHL (Nashville Predators), but no MLB team — although a group is chasing an expansion franchise for Nashville.
Organizers threw a party both outside Bristol Motor Speedway before the gates opened and inside once fans were allowed into the stands.
A party zone outside the historic track featured a 110-foot Ferris wheel, race cars painted in MLB team colors, food trucks, Clydesdale horses, live music, pitching tunnels and batting cages, and the Commissioner’s Trophy for photo opportunities.
Inside, star Tim McGraw performed and was joined by Pitbull.
Players stood in the back of pickup trucks with their numbers emblazoned on the side and rode around the track. Some used their phones to document the moment. For introductions, players walked between a pair of cars decked out in Atlanta and Cincinnati colors.
Then the tarp came out as rain that had been falling around Bristol much of Saturday turned heavy and delayed the start. Anthopoulos said the players loved the pregame experience.
“Honestly, my first thought: ‘I can’t believe they did all this for one game,'” Braves first baseman Matt Olson, an Atlanta native, said of his first visit to Bristol. “To be able to set all this up, get a playing surface ready, set the stands up in order to have the proper viewing, it’s pretty incredible.”
The Reds, chasing a National League wild-card berth for the playoffs, split the first two games in this series with Atlanta at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park. Atlanta won 12-11 in 10 innings Thursday night, while Cincinnati won 3-2 on Friday afternoon.
The rubber match between this pair of NL clubs was set to make history as the first game between teams in the current major leagues — the NL and the American League — played in the state of Tennessee.
Reds pitcher Andrew Abbott showed up Saturday afternoon at Bristol wearing a cut-off version of a fire suit like those worn by race car drivers. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia — firmly in NASCAR’s geographic footprint even before the stock-car racing series spread across the country — Abbott said he wanted something to wear in for a special game.
“I grew up around NASCAR,” Abbott said. “Just went on eBay and found a couple options, and luckily that was the one that arrived in time. I had a couple of backups. I know who Rusty Wallace is, too, so I actually do know the backstory behind it.”
More than 85,000 people might not create the noise the usual race cars do, but Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said there was a big bag of ear plugs available in his team’s clubhouse.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been around this many people,” Snitker said.
MLB didn’t try to sell every ticket inside the speedway that drew 156,990 for the Battle of Bristol college football game between Tennessee and Virginia Tech in 2016. The track with a racing capacity of 146,000 could host 90,000 or more even with sections blocked off.
Officials announced Monday more than 85,000 tickets had been sold — topping the previous paid attendance of 84,587 set Sept. 12, 1954, when Cleveland Stadium hosted the New York Yankees in a game against the Indians.
A batter will have to clear 400 feet to hit anything out of center field, 375 in the power alleys and 330 down each base line. Pulling a ball down the line raises the prospect of a ball bouncing off the track beyond the outfield wall.
Olson wouldn’t mind that being a first for him.
“We want to win the game,” he said, “but it’d be cool to hit one where you’ve never hit one.”