Slippery when wet…Graham’s Dylan LaFollette barely hangs on to this popup in the rain during the first inning of Friday’s Div. V semi-final at Canal Park. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
When it rains, it pours, and no one feels it more than the Graham Falcons, who were stuck between a rock and a wet place in Friday’s Division V semi-final.
Akron, OH – Baseball is a glorious game…until it rains.
And rain has intervened in Akron to make managing seven divisions of tournament baseball between two venues, and two administrative bodies, a nightmare.
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Friday night’s Division V semi-final between Graham and Lynchburg-Clay was schedule to start at 7 pm. But in the midst of a fine drizzle the ground crew of the Akron Ducks put the tarp on and decided to wait out the rain.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA sports and the Buckeyes for Press Pros Magazine.
Except, the rain didn’t quit. It just drizzled! And finally, at about 9 pm, they took the tarps off and said, “Go ahead and play.”
The Rubber Ducks, of course, play on a million-dollar professional turf field that they don’t want torn up by too much baseball in a three-day period…and especially in the rain. But in the meantime they put 500 fans in limbo, standing around waiting, along with 30 baseball players, all dressed out and nowhere to go.
“It really was the Rubber Ducks decision as to when we could play,” said OHSAA director of media, Tim Stried.
But when they finally did play it started raining harder, and after two innings the grounds crew came out and put the tarp back on…and told everyone to wait. No word on how long to wait, mind you. Just wait!
Graham had scored two runs in the first, on a pair of walks and a single and had lefthanded ace Hayden Van Hoose on the mound to protect that advantage.
But it rained harder, and harder, and it was obvious from toddlers to Ray Charles that it was going to be impossible to play – to ask the respective pitchers to warm up again and go back to the mound.
They waited past 1o pm, then 11 pm, and then, at ten minutes after 12 pm they finally announced that the game would be suspended and finished later today (7 pm), with the championship game in Division V (against Waynedale) to be played sometime on Sunday…or even Monday, one would assume, if it keeps raining.
Minster’s title game today, originally scheduled for 10 am, has been pushed back to noon (against Newark Catholic). But even that is tenuous, because at the time of this post…it’s pouring, and there’s more rain in the forecast for Sunday.
At question, of course, is the issue of competitive disadvantage because pitchers like Lynchburg-Clay’s Cole Wells went beyond the one-day pitch count Friday night. And there would be some concern about bringing Grahams’ Hayden Van Hoose back on short rest to pitch again twenty four hours later.
And the other six divisions are on the bubble, not knowing if they’ll play Sunday, or Monday, or just do rock, paper, scissors to determine who goes home with which trophy.
In another sport, the OHSAA announced Thursday that the football playoff format would be scaled back to 12 teams per region for the 2025 playoffs, down from the controversial 16-team expansion of the last two seasons.
“We listened to the feedback from our member schools,” said OHSAA Exec. Director Doug Ute. “And like we do with all of our sports, we want to make sure the student-athletes are our No. 1 priority.”
As it should be, but you wouldn’t have found anyone who believed that Friday night…when they asked those same student-athletes to wait through the indecision between the OHSAA and the Rubber Ducks for five hours…to play a baseball game.
Like I said, it’s a glorious game…until it rains!
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