A line on the field interrupted a game between the San Antonio Missions and the Frisco RoughRiders in the Texas League on Friday. The reptile suddenly meandered through the outfield at Wolff Stadium.
Animals don’t seem to be a rarity in San Antonio/Texas. Already on Thursday a Double-A game had to be interrupted in Wolff Stadium, so that a cat could be taken off the field. The snake, in turn, turned out to be a greater challenge.
“I heard someone in the audience shouting,’There’s a line in Center Field.'” But I thought they were just trying to piss us off,” reported San Antonio Center Fielder Michael Gettys: “I think only after a few more pitches did I look over my right shoulder and look, there was the slap.”
Chief groundsman Nic Kovacs later stated that the snake was probably five feet (1.53 m) long. “We’ve seen snakes near our shops here, but never on the field.”
Curiously, both the cat and the snake appeared on the pitch at about the same time – during the eighth inning. “I think this is the time the wildlife wakes up out here,” Kovacs joked.
Gettys, who saw the snake only from a distance and therefore could not tell the size of the reptile, prepared himself mentally for the next visitor: “I don’t know, probably a lion will appear here tomorrow”.
After a few evasive manoeuvres, Kovacs and his team finally managed to catch the snake and take it off the field.
The San Antonio Missions are the Double-A team of the San Diego Padres, the Frisco RoughRiders have a partnership with the Texas Rangers.
This article was published without previous view by the Major League Baseball.