D-backs crowd abuzz as beekeeper clears swarm

PHOENIX — A swarm of bees created quite a baseball buzzkill in the desert — and gave Arizona Diamondbacks fans a new hero.

The start of Tuesday night’s game between the Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers was delayed nearly two hours after a bee colony swarmed the top of the protective netting behind home plate.

Matt Hilton turned into the star of the night for removing the bees, earning a brief slice of stardom and the nod to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Chase Field.

“Minor leagues to the big leagues now,” said Hilton, branch manager for Blue Sky Pest Control’s Phoenix office. “It’s pretty cool.”

The buzz started about five minutes before first pitch.

Mike Rock, the Diamondbacks’ vice president of baseball operations, got a call from the senior manager of events telling him a growing colony of bees was collecting atop the netting.

“She doesn’t usually call me about that time. I knew something was odd,” Rock said. “She said we have bees landing on the net right behind home plate. I said, ‘How many?’ And she said, ‘Hundreds — no way, thousands.’ And I knew we had a problem.”

Bee swarms are common during the spring in Arizona and have caused numerous spring training delays through the years. (A bee swarm also caused a lengthy delay in a tennis match between Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, last month.)

Chase Field has a retractable roof that was open for Tuesday’s game, so the bees had free rein.

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts met with the umpires shortly after the delay began, and the public address announcer told the crowd about the goings-on.

Rock and his team already had put the bee-removal wheels in motion.

Hilton was at his son Levi’s final T-ball game of the season when he got the call. Hilton lives in Surprise, a nearly 45-minute drive from downtown Phoenix, so he quickly grabbed his beekeeping gear and hit the road.

“There was zero traffic, thankfully,” Hilton said.

At the stadium, the fans started getting antsy while waiting for a beekeeper to arrive, cheering as a grounds crew member wheeled a scissor lift onto the field and positioned it just below the bees. The sections behind home plate were cleared for safety reasons, and Rock consulted with Major League Baseball on whether to wait or postpone the game.

Hilton arrived about 70 minutes after the scheduled first pitch and pumped up the already-cheering crowd as he rode in on a cart from right field. He suited up then rose toward the swarm, causing more cheers.

With another quick wave to pump up the crowd, he stunned the bees with a spray and started sucking them up with a shop vacuum as Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” blared through the loudspeakers. Hilton hit the last few stragglers with more spray before lowering back onto the field, pumping his fist as the crowd cheered again.

The bees weren’t killed. They were treated with a non-pesticidal solution and taken off-site, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Gonna tell our kids this is Jason Statham. pic.twitter.com/C2WmAnvTzz

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) May 1, 2024

The delay lasted nearly 90 minutes and was extended another 30 to make sure all the bees were gone and so the players could loosen back up.

The Diamondbacks switched starting pitchers after the delay, from Jordan Montgomery to Brandon Hughes.

Hilton had to switch gears while making a stadium call, getting a tap from the bullpen to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

“I thought I was just going to do my thing and cruise out, but it was fun because of the thousands of people cheering for you,” he said. “It was a little nerve-racking, I’m not going to lie — a lot of pressure to get this game going.”

Of course, he wore his beekeeper suit for the toss.

Players tried to keep busy in the indoor batting cage and clubhouse to kill time while they waited for the bees to be removed.

Diamondbacks fans were rewarded for their patience, as Arizona won 4-3 in 10 innings on a walk-off two-run shot by Christian Walker, his second homer of the night.

“It was weird, but props to the guys for shutting it down and then getting it back on and being ready to play,” Walker said.

Walker at first was going to go up looking to try to move the automatic runner from second to third, but Lovullo told him to end the game instead. Walker wasted no more time buzzing around, launching Dodgers reliever Nabil Crismatt‘s third pitch of the 10th into the left-field seats to set off a wild celebration in the stands.

“One of my buddies texted me a Google screenshot of honeybees and how they’re a sign of good luck from ancient times,” Hughes said after making his first career start in his Arizona debut. “And it was actually like a little bit deeper, how they use teamwork and cooperation. I mean, that was a full team win right there.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.