Pro Baseball Rain Delays Average 47 Minutes, Rain Accounts for 76% of Stoppages

Over the past five years, professional baseball games suspended due to rain have averaged 47 minutes per stoppage, data showed.

According to data submitted by the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to Representative Jin Sun-mi of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee, on October 15, game suspensions occurred a total of 150 times from 2022 to August of this year. Rain accounted for 114 of those instances, or 76%.

Other reasons for suspension included 32 miscellaneous cases, 2 cases concerning spectator safety, and 1 case each for ground maintenance and facility issues.

Rain-related suspensions totaled 5,357 minutes, accounting for 95.8% of the 5,590 total minutes of game stoppages.

Dividing the total rain suspension time by the number of occurrences averages out to about 47 minutes per stoppage.

Rain suspensions by year were recorded at 16 times in 2022, 27 times in 2023, 28 times in 2024, 21 times last year, and 22 times through August of this year.

Games that were suspended one or more times totaled 135.

There were 13 games suspended two or more times, and among them, all suspension reasons were due to rain in 9 games.

During the same period, a total of 34 games were canceled due to heatwaves.

Four games were canceled in 2024, and notably, 30 games were canceled from August 1 to 9 this year.

The suspension of the league was triggered by an incident on August 4 at SSG Landers Field in Incheon during the match between the LG Twins and SSG Landers, where 25 spectators complained of suspected heat-related illness symptoms, with 2 of them being transported to the hospital.

In response, the KBO canceled all 25 games scheduled from August 5 to 9 before resuming the league on August 11.

This marked the first time the league was completely halted due to weather phenomena.

Pointers have been raised that in preparation for changing precipitation patterns and heatwaves driven by climate change, each stadium's rain response capabilities and game operation standards should be thoroughly inspected.

"In line with the era of the climate crisis, we must comprehensively inspect rain response capabilities and game operation standards for each stadium," Representative Jin said. "The KBO should establish concrete criteria to apply when adjusting game times and deciding cancellations, putting the safety of players and spectators first."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.