We had our third baseball game of the season on Saturday. And just when I thought all the male managers in the league had gotten used to the idea of me managing a team? I run across a coach that clearly thought I should be home ironing. And barefoot. I watched the expression on his face change when part way through the game it dawned on him that *I* was the manager and the males were the coaches. He tried to tell me to go sit down and not worry about it when I was trying to clarify a rule with the other manager. I wanted to throw down right then and there. Because? I was right about the rule. And he was an arrogant ass.

Steve’s got a position on the little league board this year and it’s his responsibility to recruit coaches and managers, help form teams and schedule all the games. And while Steve goes to the board meetings, at home we’ve been sharing the duties of this job because it’s a massive job. Only a few weeks before the season started, the league was short more than half the managers they needed. They didn’t even have enough managers to start the season. I’ve met enough people in the last few years in this league to go on a recruiting campaign. I recruited most of the missing managers. So managing the team we played on Saturday was someone I had cajoled into managing. Rich didn’t come by it easily though. He even sent Steve a list of demands a few hours after my first conversation with him about it. He was serious about the demands, but he was good natured about it.

Anyway, you’ll recall that the national weather service predicted 7 inches of snow over the weekend. The weekend consisted of totally bizarre weather. It was raining, snowing and hailing, usually all at the same time and sometimes with the sun shining. There’s no such thing as dry snow here.

When we got to the field on Saturday, the infield was mostly under water. The snow had melted from the night before and the field was a mess. I was attempting to cancel the game on the spot, when Steve noticed that the soccer field was relatively dry. Sigh. They wanted to play. It was snowing lightly. That hideous, sloppy, dripping kinda snow. My down jacket smelled of wet dog and I was already cold. I was completely outnumbered in wanting to go home to a warm fire. So we started warming up. And by warming up, I mean, trying to see the ball through the snow and hail. Steve sidles up to me and says “Huh. That’s a first. I never thought I’d hear myself say ‘I wish it was hailing’ because you know? The hail is a hell of a lot drier than the snow.”

After the second inning of playing baseball in the snow, I trotted out to the mound to confer with Rich over ending the game at that point. Our kids were freezing and losing interest. Rich scoops me up into a huge bear hug and says “Oh hell no! You got me into this! I am out here freezing my ass off because you had to go and recruit me for this job! We are totally playing another inning! Look! The sun is even shining!” (It shined for a whole 30 seconds, I’ll have you know!) Sigh. Double sigh.

So we started the next inning and halfway through the batting order, the snow really starts coming down. By the time we took the field for the second half of the inning, it was snowing and hailing so hard, I couldn’t see the kids’ faces. They had snow accumulating on the bills of their baseball caps and most of them were looking up at the sky trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Then? Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse? I shit you not, there was a blizzard. No one could see a thing with all the snow and hail. At that point I yelled to Rich “WE ARE TOTALLY EVEN NOW! EVEN STEVEN! YOU HEAR ME?!?! WE COULD HAVE BEEN IN THE WARM CAR ON OUR WAY HOME NOW! THERE’S NO SUN SHINING! YOU JUST HAD TO PLAY ANOTHER INNING!” And he’s standing on the pitcher’s mound laughing because the truth hurts.

So that was my Saturday, folks. Playing baseball in a blizzard, while smelling like wet dog and not being able to feel your extremities. Next time I will fight my way back to the car. That’s right, I will roundhouse kick and pummel anyone who disagrees and thinks that the game must go on….. 

Update: One of the parents just sent me this photo of when it first started coming down: