Weather thwarts plans for baseball

Ray Cooney’s words echoed in my head as I went out the door.

“You do this every year,” he said.

An exaggeration? Sure.

But there was an element of truth in what he said.

My wife and I tend to get a little premature when it comes to spring and baseball.

In part, that’s because her birthday falls close on the calendar to opening day.

The first 10 days of April roll around, and we’re ready to hear the crack of the bat.

Unfortunately, when the first 10 days of April roll around, our snow shovels are as likely to be as active as any team’s bats.

Yes, we’ve attended early season baseball in the snow.

More than once.

At one memorable Indianapolis Indians game, the two of us along with daughter Sally and now son-in-law Ben were featured on the Jumbotron. Why? Because there were so few people crazy enough to be in the stands.

On at least two occasions — once when we were playing host to a visiting Russian friend and once when our grandsons were visiting from Boston — the weather was so crappy and so wintry that nobody took to the field.

And then there was an opening-week Cincinnati Reds game to celebrate Connie’s birthday when the weather was not only miserable but I became the target for a pigeon. I still remember the “splat” sound when it hit my shoulder and the chorus of “ooooh” from the folks seated behind us.

But this year, I told myself, would be different.

COVID-19 was a factor in that. While we had made a couple Portland Rockets games last summer, there was no season for the Fort Wayne TinCaps or the Indy Indians. And Major League Baseball was essentially played in the Twilight Zone.

With every hint that spring might finally arrive, I started thinking baseball.

When I checked the TinCaps website and saw there was no information on the 2021 season, I grew frustrated and contacted Brent Haring. Brent’s the group sales ticket guru for the TinCaps, and he’s been a familiar face in Jay County over the years.

He got back to me almost immediately and brought me down to earth.

The problem, as Brent explained it, was that under the ever-changing COVID restrictions, the “bowl” of Parkview Stadium would be limited to 25% occupancy.

And more than 25% of those seats had already been sold to season ticket holders — season ticket holders who didn’t get a chance to see a single game last year.

Figuring out how to free up some seats for sale to the general public and more casual fans — we traditionally have gone to four or five TinCaps games each year — was incredibly complicated.

It was a matter of both diplomacy and negotiation.

Still, Brent assured me, they would figure it out.

In other words, I was told to cool my jets and be patient. So I did just that.

When I finally gave in and checked back on the website, I got lucky, securing four good seats on the first-base line with great sight lines.

A couple of emails later and we’d made a date with friends in Fort Wayne.

The tickets were for a Sunday afternoon game. They were, in fact, for a game on Sunday, May 9.

You might remember that day.

It rained. It rained a lot. The temperature never made it above 41 degrees.

The day before had been perfect. The day after was nice.

But the day we had tickets for was a disaster.

The good news is that the day was so bad that the game was canceled and our rain checks were valid.

Now, if all goes well, we’ll join our friends for a Sunday afternoon in July.

Snow is unlikely to be in the forecast.