Giants, A's play through haze of West Coast fires

Tom Gatto

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Giants, A's play through haze of West Coast fires image

The Giants and A's played Wednesday in what may have appeared to the naked eye to be unhealthy conditions. 

Wildfires along the West Coast, from Oregon to California, turned the sky orange over San Francisco and Oakland, sites of Oracle Park and the Alameda County Coliseum, respectively. A nighttime feel smothered the Bay Area during daytime hours.

Suffice it to say, these are not images of ballparks at sunset, but rather at sun blockage.

Both games were played to a conclusion; the Giants routed the Mariners 10-1 and the A's defeated the Astros 3-2 on a walk-off hit by Ramon Laureano.

Giants manager Gabe Kapler told reporters (per NBC Sports Bay Area) about three hours before the scheduled first pitch that the air quality at Oracle Park was fine. A's manager Bob Melvin told Shayna Rubin of the (San Jose) Mercury News and other reporters that he believed the air quality at the Coliseum before Wednesday's game was worse for games during the team's previous homestand.

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Rubin reported the air quality index (AQI) around the Coliseum as of 3 p.m. PT Wednesday was 129 but that the A's played games with AQIs above 160 in August.

This was the scene in Oakland about 20 minutes before first pitch.

MLB had not commented on the situation.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.