MLB dropped the ball in wake of Lidle tragedy

If the weather had co-operated, they were prepared to play the opening game of the National League Championship Series in New York last Wednesday evening.

Personally, I think they should have postponed the game - as a matter of course, not just because it happened to be raining.

Earlier in the day, a small plane containing New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into a high-rise condo on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Both Lidle and his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger, were killed on impact. It was not clear at the time who was at the controls, or if there had been additional fatalities in the building or on the ground.

The collision occurred at approximately 2:45 p.m. EST, about 20 minutes after the plane had taken off from an airport in New Jersey and a little over six hours prior to the scheduled start of the baseball game.

My understanding was no plans were made to postpone the game. In fact, the release from Major League Baseball postponing the game due to “persistent rains� states the decision to postpone was “not related� to Lidle's death.

Logistically, it would have been difficult to postpone on that short a notice, and there is a “show must go on� mentality in professional sport, and among professional athletes. At the same time, where do you draw the line?

The collision wasn't caused by an act of terrorism, like the eerily similar incident on Sept. 11, 2001 to which many parallels were drawn in the aftermath of the crash. On the other hand, if it had been “another 9/11,� would the game have been postponed, or even cancelled? Very likely.

I look at the fact the tragedy took place in the same city where the game was to be played, and that it did result in loss of life. One of the lives lost was that of an active professional baseball player, a member of the New York team in the other league. It seems only right some show of respect was in order.

I didn't know Cory Lidle, a nine-year veteran who once pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays, but I have to think his life and memory had to be worth something - to his family, friends and sports fans in general.

Sure, go ahead and play that night in Oakland or Detroit or St. Louis and observe a moment of silence. But don’t play in New York. Not that soon.

As it turned out, it didn't matter, but I can't help but wonder, if it hadn't been raining, would Major League Baseball have done what I feel would have been the right thing?

I'd like to hope so.

There is a precedent in sport for the postponement of games in times of personal or national tragedy.

One thinks back to the 1989 World Series, postponed for more than a week following an earthquake in San Francisco just prior to the start of the third game. At the time, no one seemed to mind the delay; everyone understood the reasons for it. The postponement took a bit of the lustre off the series as a whole but, like anything else, it's all a matter of getting one's priorities in order.

Of course, several games in a variety of sports were postponed in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, which brought pretty much the entire country to a standstill.

Should the reaction be any different when just two lives are lost, or a handful, rather than hundreds or even thousands? I'd like to think not.

I'm reminded of a speech I heard a couple of years ago on the subject of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It was around the time of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, and the speaker was talking about the tragedy and all the people that had been killed: more people die of HIV/ AIDS in Africa in a week than were killed by the tsunami. The only difference: they die one at a time.

Maybe MLB officials checked and it was okay with Cory Lidle's family Wednesday's game would have been played if the weather had permitted, but I doubt it. There are probably arguments for and against either course but, to me, Major League Baseball dropped the ball on this one.