Here's What Southern California's 7.1-Magnitude Earthquake Looked Like Interrupting Four Sports Events - Deadspin

Illustration for article titled Here's What Southern California's 7.1-Magnitude Earthquake Looked Like Interrupting Four Sports Events

Southern California was hit with a 7.1-magnitude earthquake on Friday night, the second quake that part of the country had experienced in two days. The seismic activity was enough to interrupt four sporting events that were going on at the time, including one World Series of Poker tournament that had to be held up for some time as after shocks continued to affect the area.

The quake also interrupted two basketball games. It struck in the fourth quarter of the Knicks-Pelicans match up in Summer League and seemed to surprise the hell out of David Griffin. Play, however, was not stopped until a change of possession happened and the refs could intervene once a ball-handler crossed half court. The game was ultimately suspended with the Pelicans leading 80-74, and the NBA announced it would not resume.

The Washington Mystics and Las Vegas Aces were in the second quarter of their game when the earthquake hit. The WNBA suspended the game at halftime and tweeted out that an announcement about when it would resume would follow once that information was available.

In both games, one of the factors that led to their respective suspensions was the fact that seismic activity had shifted the court in a way that made playing on it potentially dangerous. But in the eyes of the NBA, that danger soon died down as the aftershocks did, and the Spurs and Magic were able to play their game that was scheduled to go on after Knicks-Pelicans.

The teams that came out looking most impressive during all of this were the Dodgers and Padres, who didn’t appear to notice that something was going on until the crowd—particularly those in the upper deck who apparently started to flee the stadium—and umpire informed them. That being said, if I were Kike Hernández, I would still totally blame the swinging strike he took on the seismic activity.

Of course, not everyone in the baseball world acted as calmly as the players on the field did.

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