A game that has progressed far enough so that, if the game needs to be stopped because of weather or darkness, becomes a completed game and the score that exists at that moment is final. In Major League Baseball, a game has progressed far enough to be an official game if it has gone at least five innings, or if the top of the 5th has been completed and the home team is ahead. A game that is stopped because of weather before reaching this point is a no game.
In MLB, there are two circumstances under which such a game instead becomes a suspended game:
- The game has a tie score.
- The game is stopped in the bottom of an inning, in which the visiting team has taken the lead in the top of the inning, and the home team has not retaken the lead.
(Historical note: The latter provision was instituted to correct an earlier rule that existed prior to the 1960s, which stated that if the visiting team took the lead during an inning, and the inning was not completed, the final score of the game reverted to the last completed inning. This frequently led to shenanigans by home teams, in which if weather or darkness was approaching, they would try to delay the game until the umpires were forced to stop play. Twice in the 20th century, home teams committed such offenses egregiously enough such that the league ordered the game forfeited to the visiting team.)