Leading off today: In case you needed a reminder of why the spring sports season is the worst of the three during the school year, Monday's weather provided a reminder.
David Filkins of The Times Union explained it in greater detail in his blog, but us New Yorkers sometimes don't do a very good job of learning from our mistakes.
Sectional and state schedules are absolutely jammed into the final three weeks of the spring schedule as everyone races to be done by the second weekend in June and attention turns -- rightfully so -- to final exams.
I know there's an emphasis on participation and giving as many teams as possible the chance to play in sectionals, but it's time once again to consider paring sectionals back to eight teams per class if that's what it takes to insure that state tournament games get played in a timely fashion even if rain leaves field unplayable for a day or two.
Monday's postponed games, including Ogdensburg vs. Cohoes in Class B and Fort Ann vs. Hueverton in Class D really need to get played today because Northeastern Clinton and Crown Point await in the quarterfinal round on Wednesday.
As it is, the Wednesday's contingency plan (playing games indoors at Adirondack Sports Complex) is plain awful. That's what happened last year, and balls reportedly were hitting the roof and games had to be halted to repair rips in the rug around the pitching circle.
"You practice hard and play all season to have it potentially end on a toy field?" Filkins writes. "The fences are plastic like those ones that come with a Fisher Price toy farm. It reminds me of the set from Romper Room."
Great play alert: I don't spend a lot of time watching high school baseball these days -- OK, I've never spent a lot of time on that sport ever -- but I'll start showing up more often if you promise me that there will be more defensive gems like the one by Josh Brooks on Monday.
Brooks' back-to-the-infield, diving catch in deep center early in the game was the highlight of Kingston's 4-3 triumph over Vestal in the state tournament. If someone supplies the tape to ESPN, it's a lock to make SportsCenter's plays of the week.
