ST. PETERSBURG - The Devil Rays suffered a power outage Friday night, and we're not talking about their normally quiet bats.
The power inside Tropicana Field literally went dead.
Lightning struck the domed stadium at 8:06, causing the outage and delaying the Rays-Pirates game for 18 minutes.
Just as the Rays' Jason Tyner was walking to home plate to lead off the fourth, lightning could be seen flashing outside Tropicana Field. The lights inside went out, but the Trop's emergency generator kicked in almost immediately, restoring lights everywhere but over the field.
The game was delayed because the lights for the field must go through a 14-minute cooling down process before they can be turned back on. Fans were entertained by the cartoon Baseball Bugs, featuring Bugs Bunny, on the RaysVision scoreboard during the delay.
Progress Energy confirmed it was a lightning strike that caused the outage.
Rays officials couldn't put a number on how many times power has been lost inside Tropicana Field, but it has happened.
[Last modified June 14, 2003, 01:48:11]
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