The Front Row with JASON ELLIOTT March 13, 2013
You might not be able to tell by looking outside yet, but spring sports are right around the corner.
Last week, while on a day off, the first sign was the sun shining through the living room window as the Seattle Mariners played a baseball game on the television.
The other sign? Well, wait until Thursday when you pick up your newspaper.
NO MATTER the kind of weather that comes to North Idaho, whether it be snow, rain or whatever - those March 16 starting dates almost seem comical at first.
This Saturday, when the North-South All-Star basketball games unfold at North Idaho College, a few teams are scheduled to try and get out on a baseball field in Kootenai County.
Timberlake will travel to Lakeland in the Hawks' season opener. Timberlake played three games over the weekend, but they were at Orofino, where the weather has been a little bit better.
"Today (last Saturday) was a great day for us," Lakeland baseball coach Jason Bradbury said. "When I drove into the school early in the day for a basketball tournament, there was three inches of snow on the field. But when I left the infield was completely bare."
But due to the location of the field - which is by a mountain - there's still a little bit of work to be done to get the field ready.
"Where the baseball field sits, it's down in a hole and in the trees," Bradbury said. "The sun has a really hard time getting to it. It's been frustrating the last couple of years getting the season going. We haven't been able to get that consistency on the field and pitchers can't get settled in."
Bradbury added that he likes the way Lakeland's schedule shapes up - that is if the Hawks get to play it that way.
"We'll play pretty much every Tuesday and Thursday and then every other Saturday," Bradbury said. "That is, if everything doesn't get moved."
IN AN effort to make the best of a rainy day, more often than not, teams practice indoors.
Bradbury recalled when he started as coach in 2007, often times he hardly had to worry about weather preventing the team from outside practices.
“We never used to have a batting cage inside,” Bradbury said. “Now, we can pretty much run a good practice inside. We’ve got indoor baseballs and a mound. We’re hitting the ball pretty well in the cage right now. But we’ll see outside.”
On the drive into Coeur d’Alene on Tuesday from the Silver Valley, it didn’t appear that baseball games were any closer from starting this week.
Wet fields, some still with a few inches of snow on them also could push back the home openers for Lake City (Friday) and Coeur d’Alene (Saturday), with other area schools waiting until next week to start their home schedules.
Others traveled to the Lewiston area for golf and track and field openers, with Lake City and Post Falls headed to the Lewiston Invitational this weekend, one weekend after Coeur d’Alene opened at the Sweeney Invitational last Saturday.
Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected].