Fireballer meets Rain Day
Mason Miller picked as this year’s Hat Bet celebrity
Mason Miller doesn’t give up many hits.
Regarded as one of the best pitchers in baseball, the Padres closer leads the major leagues in saves this season, striking out two batters an inning to go along with an 0.79 earned-run average.
But if even one drop of rain falls on July 29?
He’s giving up his hat.
Miller, a 2020 Waynesburg University graduate who honed his skills with the Yellow Jackets’ baseball team, is this year’s Hat Bet celebrity for Waynesburg’s annual Rain Day celebration.
“He went to Waynesburg University, and it’s nice to see someone going on from Waynesburg to the major leagues,” said Krysten Tusing, coordinator for the Rain Day festival. “We’re super excited, and hopefully we win a hat this year.”
Preventing a batter from reaching base is one thing; keeping a raindrop from reaching the ground is another. But Miller sounded confident in the outcome.
“Waynesburg is an important chapter in my life and has given me a lot,” he said in a statement. “I figured I’d gladly make this bet and get something else – a hat when I win this bet.”
To enlist Miller, the borough’s Special Events Committee reached out to Perry Cunningham, who coached him at Waynesburg University and has stayed in touch with him over the years. It’s been “really surreal” to watch Miller’s success over the years, said Cunningham, whose wife also taught Miller in a marketing class at the university.
Like many students, Miller had gone home to Bethel Park for the summer during college, and hadn’t experienced Rain Day firsthand. But it didn’t take much convincing, Cunningham said.
“Once I explained what it was, and explained the tradition behind it, and some of the story of Rain Day, he was glad to be a part of it,” he said.
Since sportswriter Al Abrams made the first hat bet in 1939, the tradition has remained the same. A celebrity – whether Muhammad Ali, Bing Crosby or Jay Leno — guesses the day will stay dry. If they win, they get a hat from the borough.
But they generally don’t.
Rain Day grew out of local farmer Caleb Ely’s complaint to pharmacist William Allison that it always seemed to rain on his birthday — July 29.
Allison began keeping records of rainfall on that date. The saga eventually caught the attention of Waynesburg newsman John O’Hara, who started sending Rain Day stories to publications around the country in the 1930s.
A succession of observers have logged a soggy history: 119 rainy July 29s out of the past 152.
Since 1979, the borough has also celebrated the day with a festival.
That year was also the first time the Hat Bet celebrity was a baseball player — Cardinals Hall of Famer Lou Brock.
Miller will become the fourth player from the majors to test his weather-predicting skills, following Pirates legends Andy Van Slyke in 1990 and Kent Tekulve in 2002.
Or fifth, if you count Will Ferrell. The year after winning his 2004 Rain Day bet, the comedian accumulated even more hats by playing for 10 teams in one day during spring training.
Beyond the outcome of the Hat Bet, Tusing said there’s plenty of excitement planned for Rain Day. This year’s festival marks the debut of a foam party, which will take place from 6 to 7 p.m. in both Fountain and Monument parks.
“We have a great entertainment lineup,” Tusing said. “All in all, it’s coming together really nice.”