I will be the first to admit, I have no solution to the ongoing problem of voluminous postponements of high school games in Central New York. It’s one of the many rites of spring I am well accustomed to. The fall out of those postponements is a stacked schedule at the end of the season in which teams are playing five days a week to complete their schedules.
Is that back-loaded scheduling really fair? It isn’t at all, especially to small schools such as an Otselic Valley, G-MU or Afton. Chenango County’s three smallest school districts are among the many schools in New York I could easily cite.
Games need to be played so division and league champions are determined. Games are also played as a precursor for the sectional and state tournaments. The regular season has always seemed too rushed to me – and a mere footnote or formality. Teams of lesser talent and shallow pitching depth become fodder for those 25-2 and 19-1 scores you occasionally see in box scores. Occasionally, when the sub-.500 teams meet toward the end of the year and on the tail end of a seven-games-in-eight-days run, you’ll see scores that resemble football finals: 17-13, 18-14 or maybe a game in which one or both teams score 20 runs are commonplace.
Those scores are not baseball. Those are final numbers you see in your local recreational softball leagues. Baseball is about pitching, defense, timely hitting, and clever strategy. Sure, you will see blowouts when good teams face each other, but more often than not, the 3-2, 4-3 games are the rule rather than the exception.
Most schools in Chenango County are fortunate to have maybe two capable starters and perhaps a third or fourth pitcher who may spot a few innings. Playing five or six games in a week ravages a pitching staff and can ruin a kid’s arm – not to mention his or her confidence.
Softball is not quite the same, although the development and improvement of a team is completely abandoned. You ask, why is their little improvement from beginning to end? Simple answer: Playing five games in a week, there is no time to practice. Every day is a game day, and skill development, continued building of fundamentals, and shoring up weaknesses are lost in the shuffle.
Baseball and softball are the only sports in the high school year where kids are asked to regularly play two or more games in a five-day span. While you expect your varsity athletes to be on the higher end of the learning curve, the fact of the matter is that athletes at the age are still learning and improving. Without practice time, the learning process is completely stunted.
So I ask for any suggestions as to how we can remedy this ongoing problem. Can we move the start of the season forward a week, and if school finals conflict with the end of season, perhaps play the state playoffs in the week following finals, and preceding graduation? Perhaps that is too simple a solution, and maybe there is no solution. One thing is clear, however: Mother Nature regularly tosses the ultimate “out” pitch, and our spring sports season suffers.