Dear dimwit on the phone

Dear fans at softball game: Just because the home team has committed six errors and is about to get mercied, doesn't mean I'm not doing a story. So stop asking!

 

go cover soccer instead.

 

Mark: You know how things vary from state to state.

In New York the state public high school championships for boys in the largest two classes are on Sunday afternoon. There are other tournaments where that's done too.

It's basically to allow the entire tournament to be played at a single site (same for the last 30 years).

You have five classes, four teams in each class. Play starts at 9 ot 10 Friday morning and goes straight through.

The three smaller classes play semifinals Friday, then finals Saturday afternoon and evening. Class AA and A play semis Saturday morning and finals Sunday afternoon.

I cannot remember if the Federation tournament (publics, privates, Catholic and New York City) do Sunday finals, too.

 

I might have preferred that ... except soccer is a winter sport here.

 

Our county soccer tournaments are straight through October on Sundays. When the tournaments started, it was the easiest way to avoid conflicts.

Like BillyT said, I think almost every winter state final (except ice hockey) here is on Sunday, just because the late rounds run through the whole weekend.

What I always find intriguing is when Catholic schools play on Sundays, the games frequently start later. Various officials have told me it is "so the families can go to church." Sometimes even the state tournament has made that adjustment. A lot of the fall-sport coaches would prefer to get started earlier so they can go home and watch the NFL.

 

Yeah. Billy. I've covered HS sports in a number of different states and just never ran into that. Most places wouldn't even allow regular-season makeup games on Sunday.

Sounds like NY has too many tournaments at the same site at the same time. Sounds like a nightmare for fans if there are different tickets for different sessions.

One state I worked in took 16 teams to the boys and girls basketball tournaments. That meant four games in four days. If you know much about basketball, you understand that it's impossible to have fresh legs when you're playing your fourth games in four days. As a result, the title games --- when you'd like to see teams playing at their best --- are usually very sloppy games.

 

Michigan doesn't allow Sunday play..hence why my alma mater got screwed out of a state hockey title one year (well, they "won" it, but so did the other team) because officials said that the game, which was heading into its 9th OT, couldn't play into Sunday. That and some BS about the well-being of the players.

 

Shootout, mate.

 

The most fragile, easily butthurt people seem to have the sports department on speed dial for the moment they get offended. In the same day, we'd get a call complaining that we're biased toward one in-state DI college sports program, then get another call complaining we're biased toward the rival in-state DI program.

The soccer fans here are also nuts when it comes to perceived slighting. Whatever coverage they get isn't enough.

One lady called up upset that the WNBA doesn't get the equal coverage as the NFL, MLB, etc. Of course, they're in a whole different category of nuts when one of our esteemed readers wanted to file lawsuits against TV stations for not airing WNBA games.

 

Oh, but you need to encourage those people to sue...makes life much more fun.

 

Oh, I loved those. Just confirmed that we were doing a good job because we were biased for and against everyone.

 

Ugh, I've forgotten how much March Madness brings out the "I don't watch any of these games and don't know any of the teams but need the scores because I'm in a pool" callers.