CLEVELAND — For just under four minutes, Opening Day in Cleveland will become Opening Night. And, eventually, some baseball will be played — if the Ohio weather holds up, that is.
The Guardians' 2024 home opener is set for April 8 against the Chicago White Sox. It's a day they'll share with some cosmic rareness as the sun, the moon and the diamond at Progressive Field align.
At 3:13 p.m. April 8, Cleveland and much of Northeast Ohio will experience a total solar eclipse, in which the moon will entirely block out the sun for roughly three minutes and 50 seconds. This will be nothing like the solar event in 2017, which was a much smaller event. A total solar eclipse like this hasn't occurred in view of the Cleveland area since 1806.
It's an astronomical event that is astronomically rare. And it's left the Guardians with some decisions about when to schedule the first pitch at Progressive Field this upcoming season.
The exact game time for the Guardians home opener remains to be determined. The issues don't just rest with the sun and the moon and the stars above. It's also with the traffic down here at Earth's surface.
The Great Lakes Science Center, where NASA will be broadcasting the day's events, is expecting 50,000 people to view the cosmic phenomenon. Avon Lake just so happens to be the site of what is called the line of totality, meaning the perfect spot to view the total solar eclipse. The city has been marketing it for several months, and they're expecting tens of thousands of people, if not more, to cram into the area.
That's not all. Fans in Cleveland for the NCAA Women's Final Four from April 5-7 could still be in town. Now throw in around 35,000 Guardians fans for Opening Day, and the area around Cleveland and its suburbs should be packed to the gills.
Safety with the eclipse, traffic and parking have led to the Guardians debating the situation for months.
While the main event of the eclipse takes place between 3:13 p.m. and 3:17 p.m., it's the before and after that actually is the biggest issue. People will need special glasses to view the eclipse taking place from 2 p.m. to 3:13 p.m., and then again from 3:17 p.m. until 4:29 p.m. Effectively, that means 2 p.m. to 4:29 p.m. is a no go for baseball.
The Guardians are hoping to have a time set within a week or so, but there are a number of factors at play as they continue to work with state and city officials, which could alter that timeline. Tickets are scheduled to go on sale Feb. 16, so they're certainly wanting to cross the finish line by that date.
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Things could change within the next week or so, but the Guardians are looking at 5:10 p.m. or 7:10 p.m. as the most likely game times. In recent memory, nearly every Guardians home game that involved fans has taken place at 4:10 p.m.
The possibility of playing the game earlier than the eclipse that day isn't really feasible, as the Guardians will be returning from an 11-game road trip, which was put into place to allow them extra time to complete the Progressive Field renovations, to start the season.
And that's all before getting to the wild card nature of, well, Mother Nature in Northeast Ohio. The Guardians have had home openers snowed out before, and while the long-term forecast for April 8 looks reasonable, locals know it's still at best a 50-50 situation the weather will hold up.
Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Guardians at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/cleveland-guardians. Follow him on Twitter at @ByRyanLewis .
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cleveland Guardians' scheduled home opener impacted by solar eclipse
