Game of the Day | Lightning, rain force Cubs fans to run for cover

CHICAGO — The clock on top of the venerable Wrigley Field scoreboard read 8:06 p.m. Monday when tornado sirens began to wail in the darkness. Action between the Cubs and Astros had been suspended already for nearly a half-hour.

Then, minutes after the sirens howled, the wind started blowing out. Like, really out. Like carry-a-ball-to-the-Michigan-shoreline out.

Rain literally pulled a U-turn within the stadium and blasted the stands and press box. Within 20 minutes, debris floated along a river of standing water on the warning track behind the plate.

All of it gave a new, vastly unsettling meaning to the whole "It's Gonna Happen" mantra of Cubs fans.

And all of it turned the game between Chicago and Houston into something of a mundane opening act.

"Let me say this: I've never been more nervous on the field in my life," said Houston's Lance Berkman after the Astros withstood a wild night of weather featuring two powerful storms and two delays to beat Chicago 2-0 in a game called in the eighth inning.

"Growing up in Texas, you see those kinds of storms all the time. You learn that lightning is nothing to fool around with," Berkman said. "I'll stand out there in the rainstorm all day long. But thunder and lightning, in that kind of proximity, it's definitely a hazard. You have to get the fans out of there. We have to be out there, but if you give those fans a reason to hang around they will."

The National Weather Service did not immediately confirm any tornado touchdowns. But it said trained spotters reported high-rotation winds in DeKalb and Kane counties in northeastern Illinois.

For the record, before the real show began, Houston built a 2-0 lead by touching up Cubs starter Ryan Dempster (12-5) for single runs in the first and fourth innings.

When Dempster threw the game's first pitch, the sun had been out, gametime temperature was an eminently tolerable 78 degrees and the wind was blowing in at a docile 8 mph.

Then Mother Nature decided to up her slugging percentage.

Berkman said he didn't blame the umpires for not halting action sooner, because they are under pressure to get the games in.

It was the lightning that finally got the best of crew chief Wally Bell.

"When the last one hit, it was too close, even for us, and I pulled them off. I would never put any team or player or umpire in harm's way," Bell said.

"I've never seen anything like it. This is unprecedented," said Bob Sejnoha of Algonquin, Ill., a fan who was at the game. "I don't think it's ever happened at Wrigley."