The Tacoma Rainiers took on the Albuquerque Isotopes on Monday in an otherwise unremarkable Triple-A baseball contest. The remarkable part took place before the game.
Relief pitcher Mark Lowe, infielder D.J. Peterson, first baseman Dan Vogelbach, and pitcher Pat Light didn’t want to have to get up at 3 a.m. in order to take the team flight from Phoenix alongside the rest of the Seattle Mariners-affiliated squad. So instead, they booked a later flight that still got them to Albuquerque, New Mexico with enough time before first pitch. Then they ran into a problem…the flight was canceled. Mulling their options, the four baseball players did the only thing they could. They hailed an Uber.
Seven hours and $683.52 later, they made it.
Thanks at @AmericanAir for making @DanielVogelbach and I do this last night. #bebetter #havebettercustomerservice #Unbelievable pic.twitter.com/QlWoPgL5pw
— D.J. Peterson (@DJPeterson) July 17, 2017
Perhaps they would have been better just waiting until the next game. Tacoma lost 6-5 while Vogelbach went 1-for-4 and Peterson was 0-for-3. As for Lowe and Light, they didn’t play. Hopefully, they slept in the car because Tuesday was a doubleheader between the two squads.
While that trip was excessive and expensive, it still doesn’t top the one recently taken by Buffalo Bills cornerback Shareece Wright. Stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport the night before Bills OTAs started, Wright took a nine-hour Uber ride to Buffalo that cost him $932.08 (after tip).
