New York is in a lather because heavy rain is in the forecast Thursday night for what is supposed to be Derek Jeter's final game at Yankee Stadium.
On a personal level, we love the idea of some rain in the Big Apple falling on Jeter, as it would be a welcome moisture change from the tongue bath he has been getting even as a very good career ends with an awful season (unless a .611 OPS and league-worst range for a shortstop inspire a different definition from you).
On a grander level, though, the thought of a rainout at Yankee Stadium brings to mind a different kind of schadenfreude: a lovely comeuppance for those haughty East Coasters who act like it's a felony that Minnesota doesn't have a roof on Target Field (you heard from them during the All-Star festivities, when it dared to rain here and delay the HR Derby by an hour) while never once mentioning that Yankee Stadium is a much better candidate for one.
But it's true: A fellow by the name of James Santelli ran the numbers a couple of years ago, compiling stats on the average amount of rain in every MLB city between April and September.
The impetus, it seems, was to prove that Seattle didn't really need a roof — and he was right: that city actually gets the seventh-least amount of rain during the baseball season, more than only Arizona and the five California teams.
But the real delicious number in there, to us, is this: 26.41. That's the average rainfall in New York from April to September. Only three other cities have more — Miami, Tampa and Kansas City, two of which have roofs. Minnesota is around the middle at 13th, with nearly five fewer inches of rain per baseball season (21.66) — slightly less than Baltimore and Philadelphia, slightly more than Washington DC and Boston, none of which, along with NYC, are ever lamented for their lack of a baseball enclosure.
If your chief argument is that Minnesota should have a roof because it's too cold to play in April and September, or should the mood ever strike again, October … well, that's just not true. The average high here, even as late as Oct. 23, is 55 — same as it is on April 9, around the time the Twins typically have their home opener.
If a place is going to have a roof, it's usually about extreme heat (like Arizona) or rain. Maybe New York should have thought about that — or at least thought harder about it — before building a roof-free Yankee Stadium or at least before criticizing others for failing to do so.
