By Jennifer Eisenbart
Sports Editor
I’ve lost track of the number of jokes about the weather I’ve heard in the last two weeks.
Because of the joy and the fun that is spring in Wisconsin, not only have two weeks of sports been wiped off the books, not even all the snow is off the ground.
There’s the requisite “Spring…50 percent installed…installation failed” meme making its way around Facebook, baseball, softball and soccer are all working out indoors – and snow is still covering fields pretty much all over the area (or was as of early this week).
It seems every year that some portion of the spring schedule finds itself either postponed or cancelled because of the weather. Sometimes it’s at the beginning of the season, other times, it’s in the middle. And of course, there’s never any predicting thunderstorms in May and June with the playoffs.
I’ve seen baseball sectionals run until midnight, track sectionals run in pouring rain – and then postponed when the lightning rolled in. I’ve hidden under bleachers, under tents, and on one memorable occasion, under a three-foot high staircase.
But for all the trouble it is covering spring sports in Mother Nature’s fits of temper, I cannot imagine having to play a full game under those conditions. Imagine warming up to run a race with a trip to the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association state meet on the line – and then having to wait an hour as a thunderstorm moves through.
Then, as an added bonus, when you get back on the track, it’s wet, slippery and instead of the 85-degree weather you had to start the meet, the temperatures have dropped into the 50s.
Yeah, I don’t think that’d be fun for anyone.
If that scenario isn’t enough for you, imagine playing a WIAA regional championship softball game in steady rain. The temperatures aren’t horrible – 60s the entire time, edging close to 70 – but the rain never stops. Even worse, you’re playing on a full-dirt softball field, and there are puddles everywhere, and there are no roofs on the dugouts.
Even better, there’s the joy and fun of WIAA sectional baseball. As if two semifinals back to back on the same field don’t create enough of a possibility for delays, there’s always the threat of severe weather. WIAA rules state you have to wait 30 minutes from the last spotted sight of lightning. So, you wait, and at 29 and a half minutes, lightning hits again. Then, 20 minutes after that, another bolt is seen. And just as you get ready to get back on the field after that, yup, you guessed it, more lightning.
Suddenly, an afternoon of baseball turns into an evening of baseball, and there just aren’t enough places to cool off or food to eat or stuff to do to keep your mind off the all-important trip to state.
Yup, Mother Nature has certainly declared spring sports her playground – NOT ours. It seems only fitting after five months of basketball, gymnastics, swimming and wrestling that people are itching to get outside and play in the elements.
It also seems only fitting that those elements are equal parts beauty and frustration. You get to be outside, but you never know what outside is going to be.
It’s time to roll with the punches and see what happens. But to quote Douglas Adams – make sure you
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