Getting snowhere: Brutal spring wreaks HS havoc
The crack of the bat. Sunshine and eye black, with a side of sunflower seeds. Baseball and softball practically are spring, which might help explain why both have simultaneously been so late in coming in 2018.
Throughout the country, high school baseball and softball programs have struggled to cope with brutal stretches of weather, both snow and heavy rain, that have wreaked havoc on athletic and academic schedules.
In some states, teams have been unable to get outside virtually all of April, pushing the start of the season to now. In others, extended stretches of backto-back games to accommodate cancellations threaten to stretch or undo pitching staffs. And even in states where games have taken place, some schools are struggling to play home games because of climate issues or lingering snow and rain impact on their playing surface.
While weather-related delays are a way of life in outdoor seasonal sports, the 2018 campaign has reached a new level.
Onaway, Mich., is still waiting to play a baseball game on its home field, which is thawing from a late spring snowstorm.
“Every year, it’s pretty typical that we might get one last snowstorm of 5 or 6 inches,” said Marty Mix, the principal and athletics director at Onaway, located in the state’s Upper Penisula. “This year, on a Friday (April 14), it started snowing at 2 a.m. and didn’t stop until Monday, when we had 39 inches of snow, with a layer of sleety ice.”
Keep in mind that in other areas of the country, high school baseball and softball teams are either in the playoffs or preparing for them. Onaway’s situation isn’t as rare as you might think.
A similar scenario met softball teams in North Dakota, where heavy snow stuck around longer than usual because of consistently low temper- atures. Schools waited for the snow to melt, and then when it did they were suddenly left with water and frost.
Schools in Maine are also just getting going. Ellsworth, a 2017 state baseball semifinalist, is just four games in thanks to postponements. The story is similar for the Bangor Rams, who have played four games, meaning they’re also all but certain to be loaded up with doubleheaders.
In Massachusetts, Braintree coach Bill O’Connell said this was the most frustrating run of weather he has faced in his 10 years.
“It just means that we’re going to have to fit 16 games or so in from May 1 until Memorial Day, when our regular season cuts off,” he said. “And we don’t exactly have MLB pitching to do it.”
O’Connell said that as rough as the season has been, his team is lucky to have access to artificial turf surfaces to practice on and an indoor facility. “It’s great that we can have the two fields here at Braintree and the indoor facility, but I think any coach would tell you they’d trade all the practice work for more games,” he said.
The baseball team at Arrowhead in Hartland, Wis., which made it to the state Division I semifinals last year, has had huge gaps between games. Its outfielders have gone weeks without seeing a fly ball. To stay sharp, the team practices at an indoor facility 30 minutes away. The greater concern is building the team unity that can be best done with competition.
“You really have to have a pulse on the team,” coach Nick Brengosz said. “People can get really restless. At times it felt like we were almost practicing to say we’re practicing. We went out to a Brewers game one night and tailgated and we did a Wiffle Ball game against the softball team. You have to try different things. You might not build baseball skills, but you can build camaraderie.”
To put the lack of action across the upper Midwest and Northeast in perspective, Alaskan baseball power Palmer has played three games. That’s a normal schedule flow for Alaska. For schools from Minnesota to Michigan to Massachusetts to be in a similar place as Alaska as the calendar turns to May is stunning.
At least some coaches express a reluctant acceptance of what they are facing. As Braintree’s O’Connell said, in the Northeast programs have grown accustomed to seasons being hijacked by poor weather, even if the 2018 edition has left all shaking their heads.
“We all use a famous (Patriots coach Bill) Belichick quote around here,” O’Connell said. “‘It is what it is.’ ”