Spring Sports, as in Snow

 You have to love spring in these parts; otherwise, you’d go insane.  Saturday, it snowed so hard at times I could barely see out the window.  Then the sun came out, then it snowed some more, then hail, then sun, then snow….By evening, the sun had melted everything, and you would’ve thought it was in fact April, save for that bone-chilling cold.

At least I got to watch the show from inside; Clare wasn’t as lucky in Valpo.  They had a doubleheader, and a graduate assistant is nothing if not a groundskeeper.  But what do you do when the snow and hail freeze on the tarp?  Wait until Sunday, of course.  Clare sent a picture of the ice she’d shoveled off the tarp into a wheelbarrow; very impressive.  They cleared the tarp and got the sun to cooperate in getting rid of the snow off the rest of the field.  Valpo takes two from Northern Kentucky.

Let me mention here that in beautiful suburban Chicago yesterday the temperature started in the 30s and hit 70 by afternoon.  Today, we’ll be lucky to break 40, and the forecast is for snow flurries on and off for the rest of the week.  College softball and baseball in the Midwest sees more snow than football ever does, I swear.

The bad weather gives a bad rap to Midwestern softball and baseball players; the weather doesn’t let them practice like they can on the West Coast, so they’re not considered to be as advanced as athletes in the Pac 12.  What they don’t say is that perfect weather is all very Darwinian because only the strong—and lucky—survive.  I’d like to know how many careers in California or Arizona are ruined at a tender age because too many pitches were thrown too soon, too many games played under perfect skies.  The kids who make it out of high school are kings and queens of the jungle, I’ll grant you.  But in the Midwest, those injuries never would’ve have happened because of that same lousy weather.  Injuries not sustained at the age of 15 are potential injuries a body can literally outgrow.

On top of that, Midwestern athletes are tough as nails.  I’d like to see anyone from the Sunbelt try to hit or pitch in our Chicago weather.