Midges are back as Yankees prepare to play in Cleveland
Bugs swarn the mound as manager Joe Torre #6 of the New York Yankees talks with relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain #62 as his teammates try to swat the insects away against the Cleveland during Game Two of the American League Divisional Series on October 5, 2007 in Cleveland, Ohio. Credit: Getty Images
Joba’s midges are back. Just in time to greet the Yankees.
When the Yankees play the Guardians in the ALDS in Cleveland this weekend, they may encounter the same Lake Erie midges that plagued poor Joba Chamberlain in the 2007 playoffs.
Well, not the same ones, but the same species. Midges generally only live a few weeks once they come out of the lake, according to one of Long Island’s foremost entomologists.
“They emerge, they mate and they lay eggs,” said Jeff Petracca, the curator of entomology at the Long Island Aquarium and an entomologist and educator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's DNA Learning Center.
This past Sunday, a swarm of midges made their way from Lake Erie and took over the Cleveland Browns’ stadium during their game against the Chargers.
The midges infamously harassed Chamberlain during Game 2 of the 2007 ALDS. Chamberlain had to pitch with the insects buzzing around and landing on his face and arms.
Bug spray was applied to Chamberlain to no good effect. He ended up throwing a wild pitch that allowed Cleveland to tie the game. Cleveland eventually won the game and the series.
Manager Joe Torre has always lamented that he didn’t pull the Yankees off the field until the swarm was over.
Chamberlain was reminded of the incident this week because of the Browns game and has posted on Twitter about it multiple times. On Tuesday, Chamberlain posted: “OK, I have a serious question, what is the best way to . . . get rid of the midges? #askingformyfriends
The answer: There is no way. It's the midges' world and we're just living in it.
“When they emerge out of the water they search out other midges to become the parents of a new generation of midges,” Petracca said. “They emerge en masse so that there are so many of them that they overwhelm predators . . . millions upon millions, depending on the species . . . They are definitely harmless and are only interested in mating.”
The midges are attracted to sports stadiums not because they want to get in without a ticket or are particularly interested in humans. We just happen to be in their way when they are buzzing around looking for love in all the wrong places [for us, anyway].
“In a sports arena, they are drawn to the giant lights,” said Petracca, whose Instagram handle is “@krazy4bugz”. “They are simply going to emerge when they are going to emerge. There’s really not much that can be done about it. If [people] were going to come into the arena and spray, let’s say, they would still be there. They’d just die and fall all over the place.”
Not that the authorities would be allowed to do that, anyway, because the midges “are really, really important components of the eco-system,” Petracca said. “They serve as food sources for a lot of other organisms. Fish and birds and things like that on land. It’s kind of like one of those things you’ve just got to deal with.”
“In fact, they are actually a good thing,” Petracca wrote in a follow-up email. “Large numbers of them indicate that the aquatic environment(s) in which they grew up (i.e., Lake Erie) must be healthy!”
The Yankees play in Cleveland on Saturday night and Sunday night (if necessary). Since 2007, the teams have also met in 2017 and 2020 in midge-less postseason games. So why worry now?
Because of what happened at FirstEnergy Stadium this past Sunday when the Browns hosted the Chargers. The midges bugged (sorry) players and fans throughout the afternoon, coated surfaces all over the stadium, and caught the attention of Chamberlain on social media.
“Damn those things! Go away!!” Chamberlain posted on Twitter over the photo of midges swarming the press box windows.
“I can certainly imagine why it would be so unfortunate for a sports player to have to focus on the game when you’ve got hundreds of thousands of them swarming around your face,” Petracca said. “The midges really have no interest in going to humans for any reasons other than there’s just a lot of them and they’re just flying around. The bug spray doesn’t really do anything.”
Petracca, who said he is “to some extent” a baseball fan, said he was only vaguely aware of the Chamberlain incident.
“I thought it was like a myth,” he said. “I’m not a huge sports historian or anything. It sounds funny, honestly. Not for him.”
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.
