Chip Shot: Daylight Savings Time Already?
March 6, 2021 at 4:23 a.m.
Chip Shot: Daylight Savings Time Already?
By Chip Davenport-
If you’re an early golfer, you probably miss the spring and summer mornings before 2006 when you could tee off at 5:00 a.m. on the golf course. Outdoor workers could get a jump on their work early before the heat would set in on their work sites. Dairy farmers didn’t have to monkey around with their milking routines. Anglers loved the early sunrises, too. Pyrotechnics, nay, fireworks started after 9:30 p.m. instead of approximately 10:30
Conversely, guys like me who don’t leave our offices before 6:00 p.m. very often can still enjoy food and drink al fresco, or get the lawn mowed with daylight to spare for an evening walk. Softball- and baseball-centered families have more daylight for their games. I always hated playing under the lights when I was in sandlot leagues and slow-pitch leagues. My depth perception was terrible by day, and I played on a men’s slow-pitch team whose manager figured that out and would move me to catcher or first base once the sun moved westward.
Daylight Savings Time also reminds me numerous high school spring sports will be upon us as early as three weeks from this weekend, in some cases. It appears spring sports, fingers and toes crossed, are gonna’ happen!
I’m the public address announcer and scoreboard operator for the Warsaw Tigers girls’ softball team. I never had a kid on the team, so announcing for these ballgames is simply for the love of hearing myself talk. I have an energized pregame lineup introduction; I play music between innings…
Um… hold on… note to self … tell the Tiger athletic department there is a continued increase of softball parents who were graduated from high school after 1995, and the iPad playlist in the softball press box needs to suit them, too. I love the classics: Zeppelin, Eddie Money, AC-DC to name a few. I’m almost 57. However, I jokingly call the softball press box iPad the Geritol pad.
Hold my Metamucil! I digress!
Whether or not my playlist wish is granted, spring sports season is back for the first time in two years! Let’s take a moment to be grateful for this. Let’s also take a moment to be grateful for a very special group of people in particular: athletic department staff!
Never is there a time throughout the year when a high school athletic department’s staff is at its greatest mercy at the hands of the elements than spring sports season.
I’ve seen school administrators lend a hand to athletic staff to repair rain-damaged ball fields so they may be playable again. There is also the slew of newbie track and field event workers who quickly learn the Tiger Athletic Complex (TAC) is just a big ol’ wind tunnel. Thanks to you as well, and trust me, always dress for the cold before Mother’s Day! The sun is playing a shell game with your climatic expectations.
I’ve been called on gameday when a ball field in Goshen became a pond, but the ravages of rainfall spared our friendly confines here in the Lake City. A same-day change of venue involves multiple phone calls, texts, and school buses to be lined up for a ballgame intended to be played in Goshen, for example, being scheduled at the TAC instead. I am glad to help, of course, but I realize when this happens, I am merely a talking head because I know people like Amy Burgh, Leslie Jackson, Matt Binkerd and Roman Smith deploy with “special ops” urgency to herd innumerable cats!
The Tiger softball field does not hold up to rain well, worse than most other venues in fact. I’ve seen the home-and-home schedule get flip-flopped so a planned home game becomes a future swapped home game where I’ll have a meeting that bumps oh-so-closely to first pitch. Thanks, Tiger athletic staff, for the times you’ve had a Snickers bar to counter a sugar low, and smartly paper-weighted (because these folks think of everything) my line-up cards so they’re readily awaiting me to walk in and start barking over the PA system fresh out of a lengthy meeting. Again, it’s a humbling feeling, for I realize I’m just “the talent”, a tongue-in-cheek term I’ll steal from televised journalism.
Most fall sports play in rain or shine, but baseball, softball, tennis, and in some cases golf, are all subject to favorable weather. If lightning strikes in Silver Lake, close enough to provide audible thunder in the TAC, you can kiss thirty minutes of your evening goodbye.
We’ll all be thankful we are – at this point – headed in a direction where Spring sports is alive and well again. Parents and participants will obviously be thankful for this but take a second to thank the athletic staff you see casting a broad net of supervision among multiple simultaneously held Spring home sporting events.
‘Tis the season for putting forth high-effort with low tangible reward among athletic staffers!
If you’re an early golfer, you probably miss the spring and summer mornings before 2006 when you could tee off at 5:00 a.m. on the golf course. Outdoor workers could get a jump on their work early before the heat would set in on their work sites. Dairy farmers didn’t have to monkey around with their milking routines. Anglers loved the early sunrises, too. Pyrotechnics, nay, fireworks started after 9:30 p.m. instead of approximately 10:30
Conversely, guys like me who don’t leave our offices before 6:00 p.m. very often can still enjoy food and drink al fresco, or get the lawn mowed with daylight to spare for an evening walk. Softball- and baseball-centered families have more daylight for their games. I always hated playing under the lights when I was in sandlot leagues and slow-pitch leagues. My depth perception was terrible by day, and I played on a men’s slow-pitch team whose manager figured that out and would move me to catcher or first base once the sun moved westward.
Daylight Savings Time also reminds me numerous high school spring sports will be upon us as early as three weeks from this weekend, in some cases. It appears spring sports, fingers and toes crossed, are gonna’ happen!
I’m the public address announcer and scoreboard operator for the Warsaw Tigers girls’ softball team. I never had a kid on the team, so announcing for these ballgames is simply for the love of hearing myself talk. I have an energized pregame lineup introduction; I play music between innings…
Um… hold on… note to self … tell the Tiger athletic department there is a continued increase of softball parents who were graduated from high school after 1995, and the iPad playlist in the softball press box needs to suit them, too. I love the classics: Zeppelin, Eddie Money, AC-DC to name a few. I’m almost 57. However, I jokingly call the softball press box iPad the Geritol pad.
Hold my Metamucil! I digress!
Whether or not my playlist wish is granted, spring sports season is back for the first time in two years! Let’s take a moment to be grateful for this. Let’s also take a moment to be grateful for a very special group of people in particular: athletic department staff!
Never is there a time throughout the year when a high school athletic department’s staff is at its greatest mercy at the hands of the elements than spring sports season.
I’ve seen school administrators lend a hand to athletic staff to repair rain-damaged ball fields so they may be playable again. There is also the slew of newbie track and field event workers who quickly learn the Tiger Athletic Complex (TAC) is just a big ol’ wind tunnel. Thanks to you as well, and trust me, always dress for the cold before Mother’s Day! The sun is playing a shell game with your climatic expectations.
I’ve been called on gameday when a ball field in Goshen became a pond, but the ravages of rainfall spared our friendly confines here in the Lake City. A same-day change of venue involves multiple phone calls, texts, and school buses to be lined up for a ballgame intended to be played in Goshen, for example, being scheduled at the TAC instead. I am glad to help, of course, but I realize when this happens, I am merely a talking head because I know people like Amy Burgh, Leslie Jackson, Matt Binkerd and Roman Smith deploy with “special ops” urgency to herd innumerable cats!
The Tiger softball field does not hold up to rain well, worse than most other venues in fact. I’ve seen the home-and-home schedule get flip-flopped so a planned home game becomes a future swapped home game where I’ll have a meeting that bumps oh-so-closely to first pitch. Thanks, Tiger athletic staff, for the times you’ve had a Snickers bar to counter a sugar low, and smartly paper-weighted (because these folks think of everything) my line-up cards so they’re readily awaiting me to walk in and start barking over the PA system fresh out of a lengthy meeting. Again, it’s a humbling feeling, for I realize I’m just “the talent”, a tongue-in-cheek term I’ll steal from televised journalism.
Most fall sports play in rain or shine, but baseball, softball, tennis, and in some cases golf, are all subject to favorable weather. If lightning strikes in Silver Lake, close enough to provide audible thunder in the TAC, you can kiss thirty minutes of your evening goodbye.
We’ll all be thankful we are – at this point – headed in a direction where Spring sports is alive and well again. Parents and participants will obviously be thankful for this but take a second to thank the athletic staff you see casting a broad net of supervision among multiple simultaneously held Spring home sporting events.
‘Tis the season for putting forth high-effort with low tangible reward among athletic staffers!
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092