PHOENIX — It could have been the first standing ovation for a beekeeper in history.
Surely, there never has been a beekeeper bask in the limelight as he waved to the crowd as the public address speakers blared, “I need a hero.’’
And, after a one-hour, 55-minute delay on Tuesday night because of a bee colony that formed on top of the protective netting above home plate, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks played a baseball game .
Naturally, the person who threw out the ceremonial first pitch was Matt Hilton, the branch manager of the Blue Sky Pest Control office in Phoenix.
The entire pregame scene was surreal with the national anthem already played, the players getting ready to play, and a bee colony forming quicker than Diamondbacks starter Jordan Montgomery’s warmup pitches.
“I got a call about five minutes before game time from our senior manager of events,” said Mike Rock, D-backs vice president of baseball operations. “She usually doesn’t call me at that time, I knew something was odd. She said, ‘We have bees landing on the net, right above home plate.'”