High School Baseball SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS

[imjustagirl]

I'll take baseball and softball over getting a phoner from a track meet. Even the people who know what they're doing will take 10 minutes reporting a track meet. Anyone have success getting schools to e-mail scores and boxes?

As for taking a game on the phone, covering some baseball/softball games can be brutal. Cold, wet, windy, pitcher can't get the ball over the plate, lips chapped to heck because you ate sunflower seeds, your scorebook an indecipherable mess due to the weather and the two or three innings where the teams batted around....ah the good ole days.

You take track results over the phone?

You don't?

 

[HandsomeHarley]

Covered a softball doubleheader today between two of the better teams in the state at their division.

First game, combined 16 errors. I shirt you not. This wasn't a pair of St. Podunk One-legged Academy teams -- these teams are damn good.

The home team committed five errors in an eight-run inning with two out.

Covered them Monday and they run-ruled some jabroni in both games. I was out of there in less than two hours. Not today.

And WTF is this with assclown school districts scheduling baseball AND softball at home on the same day? Why the heck can't the baseball team play on the road and vice-versa? To top it off, the local juco softball, a national power, was home today, and the high school held it's only home tennis meet today.

 

[jr/shotglass]

I'll take baseball and softball over getting a phoner from a track meet. Even the people who know what they're doing will take 10 minutes reporting a track meet. Anyone have success getting schools to e-mail scores and boxes?

As for taking a game on the phone, covering some baseball/softball games can be brutal. Cold, wet, windy, pitcher can't get the ball over the plate, lips chapped to heck because you ate sunflower seeds, your scorebook an indecipherable mess due to the weather and the two or three innings where the teams batted around....ah the good ole days.

You take track results over the phone?

You don't?

Not for a while here. Best thing that E-mail ever produced.

 

[imjustagirl]

God, so glad for you guys. When I was in Richmond, we got NO e-mails. Maybe one fax. The rest were call-ins. It was ... awesome. I actually preferred track meets over wrestling, though.

 

[ShiptoShore]

God, so glad for you guys. When I was in Richmond, we got NO e-mails. Maybe one fax. The rest were call-ins. It was ... awesome. I actually preferred track meets over wrestling, though.

Faxes... Not sure they're much better than phone, unfortunately. And how could swimming get left out if we're talking track meets? Two peas in a pod.

Takes 14 times longer to do track agate than write up a baseball game, and the ratio of reads on the baseball story vs. the track story is 14/1.

I hope I catch a bad flu the weekend of track sectionals this spring. Only thing worse than taking agate info over the phone is watching what the agate means as it unfolds.

 

[HanSenSE]

I'm a baseball junkie anyway, but being out at even the most dreadful high school baseball or softball game beats the heck out of being in the office. Fortunately, there are some strong programs in both sports here.

Track: Wish I heard from more than one school! Usually don't get out to meets until the league meet, and everyone seems to hate duals/triangular meets, but have one coach who always calls or e-mails in invitational results. The others? They get my preseason letter and my card, but strange how they find them only when they have an offseason camp or clinic to promote ...

Swimming (spring sport here) is another matter. All the schools in the league have similar software that compiles the agate and break it down into varsity and JV by gender. One coach not only emails me a copy, but sends them to all team members and their parents, so when I don't go further than one deep in my agate and don't print JV results, they know where to find them. I can "cover" a swim meet in about 15 minutes.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

I love springs sports. I hate spring sports.
Monday it was 78 and sunny. Tuesday it was 48 and drizzling.

 

[JackReacher]

At one of my old papers, we had a local track coach who would bring the book by after the game. Right to my desk. Thankfully, she had very neat and readable handwriting.

I judge awful call-ins based on how long they last. So track was always the worst. Tennis, while annoying, could be done in 2 minutes if the coach had his or her shirt together and ready. Same with wrestling and cross country.

 

[Stitch]

The good thing about high school baseball in North Dakota was only using wood bats.

 

[Brian]

Thankfully in Ohio we have a centralized website to which most of the track meet results get published. We don't even need to take a call, an email or a fax from the coach. Just log on and get the results directly and nicely formatted by one of the comuterized systems from the site.

Otherwise, all of our coaches are considerate enough to email results that aren't on the website.

As for baseball, I love covering preps. Kids are easier to converse with after losses, because there isn't the crushing emotion that exists after a football or basketball loss. Coaches are actually willing to talk about the game, unlike football and basketball coaches -- who are looking to end the interview saying as few words as possible.

There just seem to be more angles to pursue in my mind when it comes to baseball and softball. More trends, more stats to dig into, more levity from everyone involved.

I kind of wish all high school sports were in the same mindset as baseball and softball, instead of the 'we're-all-gonna-die' if we lose this football game mentality that exists in Ohio.

 

[Cosmo]

I once covered a high school baseball game between one of our city schools and one of the schools from the Navajo reservation.

City school won 43-1 in five innings. It was brutal.

Said city school finished fifth in a six-team region, just ahead of the Navajo school.

 

[jackfinarelli]

I umpired High School Baseball for years; Got sick to damn death of the 4 hour marathons that featured 39 runs, with a combined 13 hits, 14 errors, and 42 walks. I don't care how big you make the strikezone out here, high school baseball here is putrid.

Now switched to girls fast pitch softball. I'll gladly take a couple of 2-1, 1-0 games any old damn time.

Second this! Plus if the game is in June, the temperature might be 90 degrees so those 4 hours of calling a game where the pitcher could not find home plate with radar, sonar AND a GPS, will be mightily uncomfortable. High school baseball can be "horrrrrrruble" [/Bill Walton]