THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Fence in your way? Well, it beats the alternative

Sometimes you think a little more about things that you usually take for granted. 

Like taking pictures through a backstop, or a fence, as we often have to do at local high school baseball and softball games. 

It’s both an acquired art, and a pain in the you-know-what. 

You try to aim right through the diamond-shaped hole in the chain-link fence, and sometimes it works. 

But sometimes the action doesn’t cooperate. 

The play moves, and you pan with your camera, aim and fire ... 

And part of the chain-link fence ends up right in the middle of the frame. 

Some games, it can be hard to get good action shots — partially because there are few plays with good “action”, and partially due to pilot error. 

So when you get that play at the plate — the runner, the catcher ... and the auto-focus centering on the piece of chain-link fence in the frame — you groan. 

And mutter other things. 

FORTUNATELY, SOME places around here have little gaps between the backstop and the dugout to shoot through, or a short fence on the other side of the dugout to shoot over. 

Others have a fence that extends past the dugouts, but not all the way to the outfield fence. 

Those work, but the angles aren’t always the best, so the action isn’t coming right at the camera, as you would hope on many shots. 

Screens, I've noticed, are easier to shoot through. But there are few screens around here — Hayden's main Little League field at Croffoot Park has one, as does War Memorial Field in Sandpoint. Screens are common at major league, minor league and college parks.

Then again, I think back to five years ago, when there were no spring sports to shoot — through a fence, or a screen — because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The only photos available to take that spring were ones of empty tracks, or empty fields.  

I ALSO thought of how lucky we are that someone invented GameChanger, the app for scoring baseball and softball games.  

What a time-saver for us — and more importantly, for coaches, who no longer had to call in and report all the details of a doubleheader, plowing through a scorebook they didn’t keep, trying to decipher someone else’s chicken scratchings, and what they meant. 

How did that run score? 

When did this kid come in? 

What does that mark mean? Is that a run, or a spot of chocolate?

It’s not perfect, but GameChanger has certainly made things easier for reporting baseball and softball scores — for us and the coaches. 

Now, if someone could invent a GameChanger for high school football ... 

TRAFFIC CIRCLES are praised by some, complained about by others. 

Ideally, it keeps traffic moving better than a four-way stop would, and reduces wrecks when folks enter the intersection past the CROSSING TRAFFIC DOES NOT STOP sign. 

Then again, sometimes you have to watch for folks entering the traffic circle, when you’re already in the traffic circle, who think THEY always have the right of way. 

Remember the old, old days where, to turn onto U.S. 95 coming from Highway 53 in Rathdrum, who came to a stop sign and rolled the dice by gunning it across speeding traffic just to get onto 95? 

Or worse, to make it to the other side, to Government Way? 

Now, living on the east side of 95, I can drive to the end of Government Way, through a traffic circle, onto 53 and the bridge over 95, and cruise toward Rathdrum with a lot less stress. 

SO THERE you have it.  

Fences, GameChanger and traffic circles. 

One, a bit of a hindrance, the other two helpful.

Then again, a fence would have helped me out last November, during that kickoff return, when the return man and the defender were suddenly converging near me ... 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.