Attack of the Midges

With a busy week finally over (meaning all the kids were in bed Friday night), my wife and I snuggled on the couch for an evening of brainless TV. We checked in on the playoff baseball game going at the time between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians.

At first, I thought that maybe it was snowing in Cleveland already but that didn't seem right. After watching a little more, we realized that there were bugs flying all around the field and getting all over the players! It was crazy! I don't know that much about Ohio but I wondered why the umps didn't call for a brief delay to figure out what to do. I found out this morning that the bugs are called midges and they swarm occasionally in the area. It worked out for the Indians since the Yankee pitcher was so distracted that he let a run score and the Indians won the game in extra innings.

In an article by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports, he wrote the following classic few paragraphs:

Perhaps, after all these years and all these Cleveland losses, God decided to become an Indians fan. He certainly couldn't have picked a better time or the better Old Testament vengeance for fouling up the Yankees.

Drought, mildew and famine would have lacked the immediate impact. Pestilence would have been too mean; fire mixed with blood too messy; grasshoppers, probably too obvious.

The midges were just enough.