Out Like A Lamb? Baseball, Snow, and Opening Day...

Soon after getting done posting yesterday's short entry on "The Rant", I walked outside, and says to myself "Sheet, it's colder than heck out"...and here I was with a varsity baseball game scheduled at Convoy, between Crestview and Delphos St. Johns.  The forecast was for breaking clouds...not good baseball weather by any means, but not so bad that the game wouldn't get played.  It appeared however that the Weather Channel gerbils had missed that 40 degree and sunny thing.  About an hour later more proof positive, large snow flakes started to blow by, and looking back at the weather on the Internet, we had a "Special Weather Alert" posted.  That forecast said highs near 32, but the heavy at times snow wouldn't stick much because of the warmer ground...this time they got it right, just a dusting, but with temps in the low 30s, the game was canceled.  Given the fact that I don't tend to warm up as quick as I used to...I wasn't really put out when I got the e-mail saying the game was off.

So I am now 2 games in 1 game off out of the first 3....we will try it again tonight, this time up in Putnam County, where the Ottoville Big Green will host Ayresville.  My old buddy Jim from Rockford will be my umpiring partner tonight...we usually have interesting games, besides our attitude and ages match up pretty well.  Tomorrow the rain may be back, and frankly 7 out of the next 10 days have some kind of precipitation in the forecast....it's always a crap shoot the first couple of weeks of the season.  This looks like one of those we may roll "snake eyes" in both temperatures and rain.  March came in like a lion...45 or so and sunshine today, hardly Lamb like, but maybe a toothless lion instead.

That is the frustrating thing about early Spring in Ohio and the Midwest in general...you want winter to end, but when it does, you sometimes get stuck with 2 months(April and May) of "in between" type weather conditions.  Wind, Snow, Cold, Tornadoes, Heavy Rains, etc.

Major League Baseball opens today, they are calling for 47 and cloudy in Cincinnati.

For many years I attended opening day in Cincy....and over those years, I saw it as warm as 80 degrees for the opener, but I've have also seen the opposite.  I remember 15 years or so ago, Bill Clem and I went down to old Riverfront for the opener.  We had upper seats...I mean upper.  I think we were just 3 rows from the top, so far up that the beer vendors wouldn't even climb that high to sell us their goods.  You could look out across the Ohio River to the Kentucky side and watch the snow flakes drift across the time and temperature sign, which read 35 for most of the afternoon.  I think that was the year I finally gave up the ghost of going to every opening day....just too damn unpredictable was the weather conditions.  Better to sit at home, or in a bar, where you knew it would be 70 and the beer would be cheaper.

Here is an ode to Opening Day____

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70I4xRbsT4Q 

Never liked Fogerty's politics, but always loved his CCR and other music....some great old baseball video on that youtube version. 


So, that wraps it up for this morning....The Reds get underway at 2pm or so, I'll watch a bit of that, then climb into the car and head the 45 miles north with cold weather gear in tow, and get ready for my own game.

back later>>>>


Photos-Sometimes in March, the Lamb never makes it out....I have umpired many times in snowy conditions, trust me, it's never fun....and yes Virginia, the snow season is not done just yet...it actually looks like the East Coast could get a dozy of a storm this weekend...the track it takes may decide whether it's a snow or heavy rain event.