It's 17 Degrees Outside, Must Be Time for Baseball

As the temperature continues to drop, the arrival of our season gets closer every day. While we are generally very lucky with regards to weather this year looks like it is going to be a lot colder than normal. We are generally very lucky with regards to weather and generally only have to suffer through a couple of cold days a year. Which reminds me of one of my favorite stories.

In 2006 we were hosting Cameron in a conference doubleheader and the weather was pretty miserable. I think the high for the day was 23 degrees. During batting practice it was sleeting and it was very cold. Now a quick point. Yes, I know that it is cold and we all consider baseball a warm weather sport, but you just have to watch MLB in April and during the playoffs to see that unfortunately we have to play in some pretty adverse weather sometimes. Football is played outside in bad weather along with soccer and softball, so as much as I wish it was sunny and 72 degrees everyday, we aren't going to get that weather all the time.

Well the coach of Cameron, Todd Holland, who is one of my favorite people in all of coaching and an outstanding coach, complained the whole day about the temperatures. As I had told him before he came down if the field was dry we would play no matter what the temperatures. He was not happy with this decision and called his Athletic Director, who I guess made some calls and midway through the first game of the doubleheader I was informed that we would only play this one game. Needless to say I was not thrilled with the decision because this set several things into motion. The game we were playing was scheduled for seven innings, since it was suppossed to be a doubleheader. Now according to NCAA rules a game does not count if it is a single game scheduled for less than nine innings. So at the time we had the lead and it was about the 4th inning. This totally changed the strategy of the game as this seven-inning game turned into a nine-inning game halfway through. We luckily held on to win.

As I left the field still upset about only playing one game, I got into my car and headed home. As I was on my way home I drove by Central High School's softball fields and saw a high school softball game going on and both teams were playing in SHORTS!! So anyway for those of you ever wondering if we will cancel a game due to cold the answer is "no" if I have any say in the matter. I am still the same person I was was when I was in Little League and it would just kill me if we got a game rained out. Just a quick fact that is the only home game in the history of Angelo State that has not been eventually played in the history of our program.

Now a couple of helpful hints for watching a game in the cold, beleive me I am an expert in this, I swore a long time ago after I was done playing I would never be cold at a game again.

1. Layer up. I am one that definitely goes overboard in this area, but I am not cold during games. If you have ever seen the movie The Christmas Story where the younger brother in the movie is so layered up he can't move his arms is a pretty good description of how I look on a cold day. On a day in the 50's I generally will have at least 4-5 layers on the upper half of my body and 3-4 on my legs. As the temperature drops the layers increase. My record (I am not exaggerating) is 47 layers when I was coaching at Texas A&M in a game at Missouri which we won in extra innings.

2. Wear plenty of layers on your hand and feet too.

3. Before you put gloves on your hands, put on surgical gloves first this really helps warm your hands and they will be sweating.

4. Get a portable heater if you can. For us we are lucky enough to have one of our local companies in town that lets us borrow their portable gas powered heaters when its cold. We take it on the road with us and it really warms the dugout.

5. Cover your ears and head. This is a little challenging in baseball when you have to wear a hat, but you can put the wool hat over your baseball hat and it does the job.

I hope we don't have to deal with any cold weather issues this spring but if we do hopefully it won't keep you from getting out to the ballpark. We start practice on Sunday and luckily that is the first day it is scheduled to warm back up. We are really excited to get going. Less than a month 'til opening day!!!