All Hail the Rockies! Pea-sized hail makes Coors Field a winter wonderland ahead of Dodgers game
Colorado Rockies catcher Elias Diaz, front, dives onto a hail-covered tarpaulin after a summer storm packing heavy rain, high winds and large hail swept over Coors Field, Thursday, June 29, 2023, in Denver. Injured Rockies pitcher German Marquez, back, walks away. The Rockies were set to host the Los Angeles Dodgers, Thursday. Credit: AP/David Zalubowski
DENVER — Elias Diaz of the Colorado Rockies stretched and dove, head first, making quite a splash.
The Rockies catcher wasn't stealing a base or avoiding a tag. Instead, Diaz was sliding on the hail-covered tarp of Coors Field hours before Colorado hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night.
The Denver area was hit with heavy rain, high winds and pea-sized hail, transforming the green outfield grass into ice-covered turf and giving the “Boys of Summer” a taste of winter.
The conditions prompted Diaz to do a swan dive and others to make snow angels, and left maintenance crews at Coors Field hoisting shovels full of hail and working to restore order to the field. The start of the game was delayed for 1 hour, 50 minutes.
Walkways were covered with the icy mix and crews were left bailing buckets of the frozen and fast-melting slop from the entry to doors to the clubhouse in the home dugout. Across the way underneath the stadium near the visitors' clubhouse, others with squeegees worked to push the water-hail mixture into drains.
Grounds workers using shovels cleared much of the hail pellets from the field, but pockets of the icy precipitation remained visible in the outfield.
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