Yankees' 'Solar Eclipse Day' game pushed back to Monday evening
Fans at Yankee Stadium no longer will witness a solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, during the Yankees' game against the visiting Miami Marlins, which has been pushed back to 6:05 p.m. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke; AP
They must have seen the light.
The Yankees have moved what they called Monday’s “Solar Eclipse Day” game against the Marlins at Yankee Stadium from 2:05 p.m. to 6:05 p.m.
The Yankees announced the change with a statement on Thursday night: "After reconsidering the challenges of playing through Monday's solar eclipse, including potential in-game delays, Major League Baseball and the Yankees have rescheduled the start time of the Yankees-Marlins game."
The original start time would have had the game starting five minutes before the partial solar eclipse is expected to begin in New York City. The moon is expected to obscure about 90% of the sun at the eclipse’s peak. The eclipse will end around 4:36 p.m.
The Yankees-Marlins game was the only MLB game scheduled to begin during the eclipse.
Experts have been warning for weeks about the potential dangers of looking directly at the sun during an eclipse without specially-made protective glasses, so to have upwards of 40,000 people in a baseball stadium for two to three hours during the eclipse could have been seen as problematic.
The Yankees had not said they were planning to hand out protective glasses. They are giving the first 15,000 fans a Yankees Solar Eclipse T-shirt and were treating it as a fun baseball/eclipse event.
Before the start time was moved, Fred Walter, a professor of physics and astronomy at Stony Brook University, said on Thursday of the 2:05 p.m. first-pitch plan: “This is a dangerous thing to do.”
A few hours later, informed that the game time had been moved, Walter said: “Moving it to 6, you separate the two events. People who want to look at the eclipse can find some glasses, make a pinhole camera, do whatever you want to do it safely, and then go to the game and enjoy the game without continuously looking up and risking danger to their eyes. It’s as simple as that.”
Looking directly at the sun during an eclipse without protection can lead to retinal damage.
“"The solar eclipse is a really exciting event but in order to enjoy it you have to do so safely,” said Dr. Matthew Gorski, assistant professor at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and a Northwell Health ophthalmologist. “The most important thing is to never look at the sun unless you have the proper eye protection . . . You shouldn’t look at the sun without special eclipse glasses whether there is an eclipse or not and you shouldn’t look at the sun whether you are in your backyard or at a Major League Baseball game. In general, doing anything that would potentially increase the chances of looking at the sun without proper eye protection would raise some concerns for me."
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
