Just got back from a baseball game tonight and the more I think about what happened, the more I shake my head. As you know, thunder and lightning were bouncing all over South Charlotte around 7:45 tonight.
The field I was at seemed to be right in the middle of it. After a 5 minute rain, the thunder continued with lightning off in the distance. The lightning seemed to draw closer and kids and parents started to question what was going on. The plate umpire, an older man seemed to be relying on the method of how many seconds were there between the thunder and lightning to tell us how close the lightning was. Now I remember doing something like that on my Grandmother's porch when I was little, but I don't think there is a lot of truth to it.
Someone called out "Hey Blue! This stuff is getting close, lets be careful here!" He hollered back "It's 20 miles away!" About that time, a huge blast of thunder and bolt of lightning blasted from the sky just 100's of yards from the field. He called the game off at that point.
Point being, that old method of calculation doesn't work and one of his supervisors may need to let him know.
If that blast of electricity had hit the playing field, it would have been a bad situation.
I also think we as parents, coaches and fans may need to be more proactive in the future as well, sometimes you don't get a second chance. My wife lost a classmate at Latin to lightning on the baseball field.
Be careful out there!
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