Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 24, 1993 TAG: 9303240058
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
FOR SOME TEAMS CRY OF "PLAY BALL" IS ONLY A DREAM
Ernie Banks used to holler, "Let's play two!" Baseball coaches in Southwest Virginia these days probably would settle for playing two - two innings, two outs, two pitches, two anything.Two snowstorms in the past three weeks and a rain-filled front now using the Appalachian Mountains as an easy chair have put baseball on ice.
Before leaving last weekend to play in Newport News, Ferrum College coach Abe Naff said he and helpers shoveled the final inches of snow off Adams Field to prepare it for games this week. The work was in vain. It started raining Tuesday and isn't supposed to stop until the weekend.
"We've gone through a blizzard," Naff said. "Now we're going through a flood."
Naff's team has gotten off lightly, losing three games to the snowstorm and, he said, probably two more today. At least two will not be rescheduled. Players and coaches aren't the only ones affected; Naff said one major-league scout lamented recently, "I've got four states, and there isn't a dry field in any of them."
That includes Dedmon Center Field in Radford. Whether Radford University plays baseball is a good question - the Highlanders have a team, but 20 games have been postponed or canceled because of cold weather, rain or snow.
That doesn't count a weather-threatened three-game series this weekend at Towson State near Baltimore.
"That'll make 23," Highlanders coach Scott Gines said.
"We feel like we've got a pretty good ball club," he added. "We just want to have an opportunity to find out if that's true or not."
Just wait until April, when rescheduling means Radford expects to play 25 games in the month's first 26 days. Unless there are some April showers.
Despite that engorging menu, Gines said he hopes the 10-team Big South Conference will revamp its postseason tournament format. The league's top six finishers - based on number of conference victories - qualify for the tournament. Gines worries that schools such as Radford won't get a chance to play, or win, as many games as other conference mates. Big South Commissioner Buddy Sasser said it's too early to talk about tournament revision.
Virginia Tech trails Radford in the postponements race, having lost eight games. Two will be made up, two will not be, and Hokies coach Chuck Hartman is working on the rest. The "Storm of the Century" two weekends ago, and the snow's reluctance to melt, gave new meaning to game preparation: Hartman and others shoveled snow off English Field for three hours last Sunday so Tech and UNC Greensboro could play.
It appears the Hokies are bent on beating natural forces. Thumbing their noses at a steady rain Tuesday in Blacksburg, Tech and Howard played five innings.
In Lynchburg, Liberty coach Johnny Hunton's bench got thinner when backup infielder Billy Clark injured his shoulder while sledding during the "Big Snow." He's out for four weeks.
Eight Flames games were snuffed by the March 12-13 snowfall.
"That was my whole spring break," Hunton said. "We didn't get to play one game. We just had to feed the guys."
The weather has rid coaches of one problem: resting pitching staffs. "Pitchers are going seven to 10 days between starts," Naff said.
At Radford, creativity has flourished. Gines' team could have practiced indoors in the days after more than 2 feet of snow fell in the New River Valley - except indoors meant the Dedmon Center, and the Dedmon Center's roof had collapsed during the snowstorm. So the Highlanders have taken infield practice on a parking lot - or, as Gines writes on the practice schedule, "Aspha-turf."
Radford assistant sports information director Mike Ashley said the Highlanders tried to clear their field by rolling the snow into giant snowballs. Nice idea, but . . .
"Some got so big, they couldn't get them out of play," Ashley said. "I was scared we were going to have to have ground rules: `Anything off the snowball in left is a ground-rule double.' "