Saturday's game between the Iowa Cubs and the Nashville Sounds at Principal Park in
Des Moines was interesting.
They played a baseball game won by Iowa 5-4, in front of an official crowd of zero - on purpose - due to the city of Des Moines' voluntary evacuation of downtown.
"Unprecedented," Cubs left fielder Matt Murton said. "Even when I was 5 years old, my dad used to watch me and my brother play catch in the backyard."
They needed permission.
"We got permission from the city to play, only if we wouldn't let anyone in," Iowa Cubs general manager Sam Bernabe said. "They didn't want any more people downtown than needed to be."
So why play at all?
"The reason for playing is to maintain my obligation to the league - to play the 144-game schedule," Bernabe said. "With sand running out of the hourglass relative to where we're at in the schedule, I don't have a whole lot of flexibility.
The I-Cubs were expecting a crowd of 12,000, but they were serious about making sure that they didn't attract a crowd?
The game started at 4 p.m., so stadium lights wouldn't attract a crowd of people to downtown.
"We were very conscious of public safety," Bernabe said. "We didn't even put the game on radio."
That serious.
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