GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. (WCCO) – It didn’t matter if you played baseball professionally or in high school on Thursday. Almost all games were postponed due to wintry weather which brought snow, strong winds and freezing cold.
He kept the fields quiet and the gymnasiums bustling with America’s pastime.
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“We were looking for wind chills below 20 for game time and with snow flights. It was 10 a.m. and it was snowing hard,” said Brian Wright, head coach of the Breck School varsity baseball team.
With their match postponed, training at their home ground was the next best option.
But other challenges await when mother nature does not cooperate.
“Ideally, with my 40 guys, I could use all this complex. But sometimes we have lacrosse here, we share space with softball,” he said.
Three games have been postponed for Breck so far this year. Not a crazy number, but one that could easily increase as storms approach in the coming weeks. That would mean more late-season catch-up games, putting pressure on the coaching staff to navigate the pitch count limits for players heading into the postseason.
From bats to clubs, none would be swung away on Thursday.
“We thought hopefully the 30 mph wind forecast was off by 30 miles per hour,” Michael Kraft joked.
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He is the head women’s golf coach at Edina High School, which had to cancel its second day of practice due to weather.
“Every year is different and you are at the mercy of not only the weather but also the golf courses opening when they deem it appropriate,” he said.
These obstacles, which partly explain why there is a online petition to push the sport from spring to fall.
Kraft fully agrees with this idea and thinks the other coaches agree.
“Courses are absolutely packed in the spring. Everyone is dying to go out. Around Labor Day, everyone played a lot of golf. There is not as much pressure on the courses. So that would take a lot of the pressure off the prices in the spring,” he said.
Changing seasons would take more than a petition. Kraft says a fall sport should probably move to the spring, among many other things the Minnesota State High School League should approve.
Until that happens, the indoor grind continues for both sports, as players yearn for sunny skies and a true “springtime” in their step.
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“Take every opportunity here on the inside so that when you’re on the outside, you’re ready to go,” Wright said.