DENVER (AP) — Play ball! And watch out for snowballs.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies were greeted by that surprisingly blanketed Coors Field as their four-game series got off to a frigid start Friday.
Dodgers pitcher Emmett Sheehan took advantage of the frosty mid-April day when he came out on the field in shorts to make a snowman about four hours before the game’s scheduled first pitch.
The snow stopped about three hours before the game began and Colorado’s grounds crew, which placed a tarp over the infield to shield it from the snowfall, used a plow to clear snow from the outfield. By the first pitch, it was 36 degrees and sunny — with the only remnants of snow on the pine trees behind the wall in center field.
The bats were back out and the white stuff gave way to green grass after the shovels slugged at the snow, which came one day after the high temperature in Denver was 75 degrees.
The start of the game didn’t mark the end of the teams’ weather-related woes. The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning for the Denver area that will be in effect from 8 p.m. locally Friday until 8 a.m. Saturday, with sub-freezing temperatures dropping down into the 18-to-24 degree range overnight.
The projected high is 57 on Saturday, according to the weather service, and 74 on Sunday before reaching 79 on Monday for the series finale.
The Dodgers come in from wrapping up a six-game homestand on Wednesday in Los Angeles, where the high was 73 on Friday.
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