THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: In the heat of the action … for three straight days

We’re in the midst of what they call “The 100 deadliest days.”

The phrase refers to the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day, when the number of fatal crashes involving teen drivers goes up dramatically.

If you’re a fan of milder temperatures, it could also be used to describe the punishing heat we are sometimes subjected to.

True, we haven’t reached the heights of a year ago at this time, when temps passed the 110-degree mark in some places around here.

But with temperatures climbing into the 90s this weekend, it’s still plenty hot around here.

Naturally, I spent parts of the last three afternoons out in said heat, taking sports photos for the paper.

Because, well, that’s when the games were, and they weren’t going to move the events inside, or play them in the cool of the evening.

Other than realizing that it was hot out there, here’s what else I noticed:

PICKLEBALL.

You can’t say the word without someone noting that pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America over the last four years.

You weren’t going to get any arguments about that at Cherry Hill Park in Coeur d’Alene, on Thursday’s first day of the Coeur d’Alene Classic pickleball tournament.

Some 440 people from around the area registered for the four-day event.

And no, they weren’t all out there playing at the same time on Thursday.

It only seemed like it.

Most of the players on this day were — how should we say? — older.

Some of it was because the tourney began on a workday.

But also, you can see the attraction to the sport, for young and old — there’s still a fair amount of moving around, but you don’t nearly have to cover as much ground as you would on a tennis court.

As it turned out, one of the ladies I took pictures of on this day, I had met her some four decades ago in Sandpoint.

Several of her children, particularly the older ones, I had covered when they played high school sports in Sandpoint when I was working at the Daily Bee.

All those years later, there was mom, out there competing, and there I was, taking pictures of her. She joked that the only reason she was playing in the age division she was in was because there wasn’t one that matched her age.

Whatever that was — I knew better than to ask.

In any event, there she was, scrambling around, helping her team win the match I witnessed. Once again, proving that age is just a number.

Bravo, Marian Rust.

INTERMEDIATE BASEBALL has been around since 2013 — a creation that serves as a go-between from fields with Little League dimensions (pitcher’s mound 46 feet from home plate, bases 60 feet apart) to fields that high schools, colleges and the pros play on (the pitcher’s mound is 60 feet, 6 inches from the plate, bases are 90 feet apart).

I’d known of it, but hadn’t seen a game played with those dimensions until Friday, when Post Falls played South Boise in the opener of a best-of-3 series for the state title in the Intermediate division (ages 11-13) at Croffoot Park in Hayden.

Having played on Little League-size fields growing up, I couldn’t imagine how kids made the adjustment from playing on a smaller field one year, then playing on a major-league size field the next year.

Obviously it happens, though.

But for other kids going from age 12 (Little League) to aging out of Little League, the Intermediate game seems like the next logical step. One year, you’re pitching from 46 feet; the next year, in Intermediate, you’re pitching from 50.

And the bases in Intermediate baseball are 70 feet apart — just 10 feet farther than in Little League.

In trying to describe the game I watched the other day, I was going to say the intermediate level of baseball looks like a Little League baseball game on steroids — just a bit bigger.

Of course, steroids in baseball brings up some negative feelings, but you get the drift.

CROFFOOT PARK in Hayden features several interesting things.

One, since it’s near the Coeur d’Alene Airport (which is in Hayden, of course), planes zoom overhead nearby.

If you sit on the third-base side at, say, the Intermediate field at Croffoot, sometimes it looks like the planes are going to land in the park, before they bank a bit and veer toward the landing strip.

If not …

“Look out, doggies,” you might find yourself yelling at the four-legged friends using the nearby dog park. Can you train dogs to watch out for planes on their own?

Two, one of the Little League fields offers something called “Big Red,” a fence that stretches from the left field line to left center, at roughly double the height of the rest of the outfield fence — as the story goes, original Hayden Little League founders were inspired by the Green Monster at Fenway Park in Boston, even though it’s not a shorter poke to left than it would be to the rest of the ballpark. There’s a big red windscreen on that portion of the fence, and “BIG RED” displayed on the screen.

Kids don’t just homer to left on that field, they “hit it over Big Red,” and generally get a special shout-out on social media.

Three, truckers like to sound their horns as they roll by on Lancaster, just past the outfield fence on the Intermediate field. If you’ve ever been to a game at Volcanoes Stadium in Keizer, Ore., you’ve likely heard truckers do the same thing as they sail southbound on I-5.

And lastly, and this only means something to people who are trying to take photos, like me.

But the “Big Red” field also has a screen for a backstop, instead of chain link that most high school baseball and softball fields in the area have.

My friends Jason and Max in Sandpoint told me that shooting through a screen, like they do at War Memorial Field, is much easier than shooting through a chain link fence.

And they were right.

So if any schools around here are considering swapping out their chain link backstops for screens made of nylon netting, please hit me up for a contribution.

The company won’t mind if I write off the donation, right?

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.