Spring waits to bat

Springfield High School junior Derek Osborne chucks one to home during indoor practice Wednesday. Teams reluctantly practice indoors while fields thaw out.  (Jesse Baker Photo)


Spring waits to bat

Teams reluctantly practice indoors while fields thaw out

By PHIL PERRY - Twin State Valley Media Network
Friday, March 27, 2009 4:34 PM

I don't care what the calendar says. Technically, spring began last week on March 20. But despite every argument coming from the world of meteorology and regardless of the rationale behind the Vernal Equinox, spring hasn't quite arrived. Not yet. Poor Richard be damned.

You can point to the longer sunsplashed afternoons, melted Connecticut and golf course openings all you want. The season of new life is truly born with one annual rite of passage: baseball. Specifically, the playing of our national pastime outdoors.

As of now, with dirt-smattered snowbanks still chilling roadside, many high school baseball and softball fields are covered in the frozen stuff. Of course, baseball in the snow seems like an anachronism as egregious as snowshoeing in September or apple-picking in an ice storm. It's also about as productive.

"Being inside is preventative," said Springfield baseball coach Larry Partridge. "You just try to get through it without anybody getting hurt. As much as you try to preach safety, a couple kids get bonked in the head. Everything seems faster inside."

So while the pros ham it up down south in the open air and on the perfectly manicured turf of their spring training fields, several high school teams in the Twin State Valley region are confined to local gymnasiums to throw, catch and field before their regular season schedules get off the ground.

Coaches aren't left with much of a choice. They need their teams to try and get in baseball shape. Still, playing indoors just doesn't feel right.

"It's terrible," said Springfield senior captain Tyler Albee. "It's really tough because you can't get the right measurements between bases. It's not the right feel...I hate it inside but you have to do it just to be ready for your first couple games."

Ever see infield practice where home plate is somewhere near the boys' locker room and the distance between bases has to be eyeballed by a kid who just picked up geometry a few months back? It's not pretty.

The ball skips along the hardwood, picking up speed as it moves toward the fielders; the hops may be true on the flat surface, but they sure are weird. Throws are soft and careful for fear of air-mailing one to first base, which is planted right in front of a concrete wall that has produced more than its fair share of head-hunting ricochets. Players cringe, cower and cover their heads every time a wayward toss hits the gym's backboards or bleachers because indoors, the rawhide and stitches that brought them so much joy throughout their youth have all of a sudden become rogue heat-seeking missiles.

Very few ballplayers are like Sunapee softball shortstop Stephanie Larpenter, who has no complaints with playing in a gym because, "I guess I'm used to being in there from basketball." Most think the replacement practice site feels more like a sardine can than the sandlots they prefer.

"I guess you could say I have a problem," said Stevens senior outfielder Matt Day. "I can't throw in the gym. I always short-arm it or bounce it off the floor because I'm afraid I'm going to hurt someone or break something."

Unfortunately there is no great solution to these tepid cries for help, muffled by the gym's padded walls. There is no town meeting that can vote on cranking up the heat outside and there's a fat chance anyone can get Al Gore to ease off his assault on global warming for the sake of a dry baseball field.

"Playing inside for two days really feels like months," said Day. "Everyone is just so anxious to get outside."

Luckily, the sun has shone upon some schools -- or more specifically their fields -- and they've started practicing outside this week. But for the frost-bitten few, spring still waits on the other side of winter's double doors.

JESSE BAKER PHOTO
http://www.eagletimes.com/ET/Story/032609PhilColumnSpring