Come-down from H.S. winter sports seems too much

Super place for softball also: Big Cat at UMM!

I see where the Thursday Tiger baseball game has already been rescheduled. For a long time I have been struck by the drastic transition from winter to spring school sports. 

The winter season is intense. It culminates in this thing we call March Madness. As a newspaper person I was sometimes troubled by the intensity of the atmosphere, the emotions invested. In a small community we follow the allure, get taken in. The local media reports on the doings like there is such great gravity attached. You might well consider it excessive, if you cool your jets and seek a reasonable stance. 

Has the Morris newspaper published a review of the exciting MAHS band/choir trip to Texas? If it has, I apologize for bringing it up. But I haven't seen it. If the music department doesn't volunteer something, go get it. Show some enterprise, which many of my critics would have said to me in a hectoring way. But that was politics. I never overcame some of the baggage I assumed after I got all fed up with the Morris public school teachers union in the late 1980s. Some things you just cannot tolerate. 

 

Season to season

Once March Madness is done, we catch our collective breath and then ponder the resumption of high school sports. But it is not the same at all! Weather can be an enormous obstacle. More press people are coming forward and suggesting that something be done about this. But it seems nothing gets done. 

We have this huge and emotional market for sports entertainment in winter. Then what? Announcements of "postponed" for the start of spring. 

The best-laid plans: We somehow think the kids can play baseball and softball according to a planned schedule. Certainly everything is well-structured for winter. Not only are spring sports events so tentative so much of the time, when the games do start getting played it's a struggle to feel a sense of vitality. Weather is barely good enough some days. Oh, the wind and the cold. Springtime winds can almost bowl you over. 

We don't permit any adversity like this for our winter sports. Why do we punish ourselves in spring? Look at the weather today which is Wednesday. Ridiculous. I cannot even walk across the grounds at the "softball complex" now, such is the mud. 

I have written recently about the use of Big Cat Stadium for the diamond sports. I personally watched Cougar softball there Saturday. I have begun communicating with certain well-placed people on whether the Tigers as well as the Cougars have access to Big Cat in the spring. In theory they ought to, because the stadium was set up on a 50-50 basis. I'd welcome any edification.

 

Tedious, maybe?

MACA baseball played a game at Benson Monday and wiped out the opponent, in a game that must have been a chore to watch. I mean, our opponent maybe not real prepared? A case of just not being in the swing for spring sports? Maybe a hangover from March Madness? I use the word figuratively of course. 

But spring sports, especially early-on, can seem like a downer if I may be candid. I observed this all through the years when I was at the paper. We came off the "high" of March Madness and then the games resumed with an atmosphere not even remotely similar. Can the powers-that-be with high school sports do something about this? Do they notice the same things I am writing about? 

Can the softball Tigers utilize our Big Cat Stadium for practices and games? I don't know about baseball. I'm not in the know on everything like I used to be. Much of what I write now is speculation, preferably informed speculation. 

 

Friday of this week

Oh my, no games on the schedule for this Friday! This in spite of the fact that schools I'm sure are getting desperate to re-schedule games. 

Friday is "Good Friday," I guess, but that's a religious holiday. Why are we forced to roll over for that? Many people may not accept the crucifixion story of Christ. And these days we are told the story in such a gory way: the literal torture of this man named Jesus Christ. Many people think that's all he was: a man. You have a right to your opinion otherwise, of course. But our public institutions like schools should not make judgment based on the Christian faith. That's what it is, a faith, and there are people who do not embrace it. 

These institutions should not even acknowledge Christmas. We don't know the date of Christ's birth anyway. To confide, let me say that the current attachment of about half of all U.S. Christians to the interests of Donald Trump has almost put Christianity off-limits for me. My disillusionment may be permanent. Is our educational system responsible for this?

 

Trying to get games in

Whither the rest of our high school sports season, as the weather continues to howl on so many days? I sent another email Tuesday to a friend, regarding the Big Cat angle on spring sports. I share my email here, and thanks for reading:

 

Well (name withheld), look outside at the weather. If the softball complex has been too muddy to walk through, what is it going to be like after the rain and snow we're getting now? Our tax dollars are at work with interscholastic spring sports. Maybe there should just be an indoor spring season.

Yesterday I saw Cougar softball team practicing at Big Cat. At present I'm wondering: does the MACA softball or baseball program have the same right of access to Big Cat? I imagine there was a written pact on all this at the start. The place was seen at the start as a football stadium, fully, and I shared that understanding. Now I see that the place accommodates softball wonderfully. I haven't witnessed baseball there yet - I don't know everything of course. Would need a mobile pitching mound, but I'm sure they could swing that. They've done everything else. 

With a "shared" facility, there is always potential for conflicts and disagreements, wouldn't you say? The thing about Big Cat is that it has the "feel" of being part of the UMM campus, so maybe UMM has a proprietary sense. Had it been right next to the public school, the opposite would be the case. I will repeat that the fans are served 100 percent better at Big Cat than at the new softball place. I have to wonder if local authorities will permit parking at the new place like what happened last spring: a madhouse. Dangerous too.

As far as these proposed "scholarships" to get students out to the outstate U campuses, I'm wondering if they are merit-based, or just a way to get bodies out here. Scholarships are supposed to be merit-based. Otherwise it's just government throwing money at a problem. That's where I get frustrated with the Democrats sometimes. But the Republicans are just going apeshit crazy all over the U.S.

Now inflation is 8.5 percent as of this morning. One of my favorite economic commentators says many restaurants are starting to add an actual "service fee." Separate from the tip? That is a good question and there is debate underway about this. I consider tipping to be a strange and antiquated practice, kind of condescending actually. This commentator also says some restaurants are starting to serve glorified TV dinners as their entrees. I need to eat out occasionally to get out of the house and get around people some.

So, impeachment day today for the South Dakota attorney general.

- Brian W.

This photo from the UMM softball website shows the beautiful green turf at Big Cat. Softball is a super experience there, would be super too for the MACA Tigers. But, I don't know if that is in the cards. I cannot be certain of player's name in photo, sorry. The Cougars swept a doubleheader from Northland Saturday at Big Cat Stadium. The fans were accommodated wonderfully in the bleachers, elevated and protected from the northwest wind. The existing lines on the field did the job for softball.