Weather brings baseball blues

A friend of mine who coaches a summer baseball program had this to say about our youth:
"Any kid whose parents are raising him in the north ought to sue."
Now, before that gets taken totally out context, consider the circumstances: we were sitting in a dugout watching a summer thunderstorm not so gently wash away any chances of a ball game being played.
His point was this: any youngster who dreams of being a major league baseball player, or even playing big-time college baseball, needs to, well, head South, young man. Or West.
Of course, that's not entirely true, because there are Division I programs all over the country whose rosters have players from above the Mason-Dixon line.
But after the week we've just endured, patience isn't just a virtue for baseball players in the snow belt. It's a necessity.
One week down, zero games
In case you didn't know, the high school baseball season started last week. Mother Nature sure wasn't aware of it, judging by the countless days of rain she poured on us, a streak broken up quite nicely by an afternoon of snow.
And the forecast for this week: rain, with a chance of showers.
Nice.
Of course, this isn't anything new. I distinctly remember showing up at a high school game last spring wearing enough layers of clothes that I could hardly move. (And I didn't dare drink any coffee for fear that, well, you get the idea.)
We even came up with new lyrics to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," which included the lines, "Buy me some Gore-Tex and woolen socks/My frozen hands feel just like a couple of rocks ..."
And normally, the fall season is the perfect time for baseball -- the weather is usually at its most moderate. Except for 2003, when Northeast Ohio did its imitation of the Amazon River Basin in the rainy season.
And now this.
Nothing quite gets one excited about baseball like watching the kids sweating out practice in the gymnasium.
Then again, it's a far sight better than going to PNC Park on Monday, or Jacobs Field next week, paying $15 or so to park 2 or 3 miles from the stadium, sit on cold and damp seats that cost $25 or $30, shelling out $5 for a few precious ounces of (semi-) hot chocolate or coffee, just so you can watch a multi-millionaire jog out a ground ball, make a right turn before he reaches first base and sprint to the heated dugout.
Passing on the passion
I remember, many years ago, playing in one of those early-bird softball tournaments. OK, "playing" might not be the most appropriate word.
It was in March or early April, if I recall, and mostly what we did was stand around a barrel that someone had filled with scrap wood and set afire.
Thankfully, it was a one-pitch format, meaning the batter started with a full-count. We could play a game in about 40 minutes, then scramble to our cars to wait for the next one.
Not surprisingly, there wasn't much sympathy for me when I got home.
Any complaint on my part was greeted with a response from my wife with something like, "Well, you're the moron who went out there."
Even if my teeth weren't chattering, it was hard to argue with that kind of logic.
And I'm proud to say my, um, love for the game has been passed on to the next generation.
My son, I think, would be the last one off the field if a hurricane was approaching. "It's just a little wind!" he would say.
So you can imagine his disappointment every day last week, as the weather turned from bad to worse and the ball fields turned from soggy to muddy to too wet for a mud bog race.
Still, there is a silver lining.
"Look at it this way," I told him. "When the weather does clear up, you'll have so many makeups you'll have a game just about every day."
A smile came across his face.
And I hoped, just maybe, he wouldn't call a lawyer.
XRob Todor is sports editor of The Vindicator. Write to him at todor@vindy.com.