CHICAGO – Rain poured down on Rate Field with one out in the bottom of the seventh during Sunday’s game, causing a delay of two hours and 48 minutes as the White Sox and Angels were tied 2-2.

Head groundskeeper Roger Bossard has been with the White Sox for 59 years, but on Sunday he encountered a few firsts.

“It just came on so fast and the high winds and then hail. I’ve actually in my career here, I’ve never seen hail during a game,” Bossard said postgame.

The grounds crew ran into some issues at the beginning of the delay, as they were unable to fully cover the infield with the tarp. They eventually fixed it, but at first they patched the open spots of the infield with smaller tarps.

White Sox grounds crew couldn’t get the big tarp over the whole field, so they’re using smaller tarps to cover the open spots. pic.twitter.com/DWRlJK0iAK

— Jack Ankony (@ankony_jack) March 30, 2025

“I had a lot of our guys who were on the other end and I don’t know for some reason, the wind got underneath and they pulled the wrong part of the tarp and it just. It got us. That’s all. Yeah,” Bossard said. “And when you get these high winds and rain like this and that quarter of an inch of rain now, then if there’s any mistakes at all, you just don’t get it covered. So, it caught us. But we were ready for it. The winds, the hail caught us.”

That caused the right side of the infield to take on a significant amount of water, which was concerning for Bossard.

“I went in and said to the crew chief, Alan, I said I’m not sure this time,” Bossard said. “But what we have to do and I called MLB and told them ‘I need a shot. Give me my chance.’ Then after about an hour of work, I got everybody out there from both clubs and there were three or four sports a little iffy and fixed them and we got it in.”

“I’ve never run into where I had 3 inches of water on the infield and then got it ready. I’m proud of my crew and the job they did. But the hail was really surprising. You get hail and 35 mph winds and we got the game in. … I’m proud of everybody with my crew. They did a good job. But this was one time where I literally wasn’t sure we would be able to get it.”

In addition to encountering hail for the first time, Bossard, nicknamed “The Sodfather,” set a personal record for how much drying compound he used to fix the field.

“I’m usually quite positive on that stuff. Used 4 ½ tons of drying compound, which is 175 bags. So, never done that before,” Bossard said. “But what I told the guys is Perry, their GM was there and everybody and Ron Washington, I explained to them at the end of the day before we started the game, the field was exactly the way it would have been in a regular rain delay.”

Bossard, along with the umpires, managers, front office personnel and others, walked the field several times to make sure it was OK to continue the game.

“You know how the umpires will wait so long,” Bossard said. “That’s the way the field mimicked during a normal rain delay. They were happy with it and the outcome isn’t certainly what we wanted. The field turned out to be good. I’m very happy. I’m going to go home tonight and I’m going to sleep real well.”

Bossard may have another challenge on Monday as the forecast calls for 35-degree temperatures at 9 a.m. CT in Chicago and potential rain as the White Sox host the Minnesota Twins at 1:10 p.m.

“I’m not looking forward to a frozen field,” Bossard said.