Rain Soaks Region Causing Problems For Natural Grass Playing Fields

Courtesy of the Daily Item
Writen by Matthew Roy
May 15, 2006

Rain, Rain. Go Away. Come Back another day.

That old refrain might be what most local residents have uttered recently and to say that a little bit of rain has fallen on the North Shore over the past five days might be the most eternal of understatements.

In fact, most areas have received nearly a foot of rain since Thursday evening and said weather has become quite a nuisance for those running local athletic programs. And with the rain scheduled to hang around until late on Tuesday, the prospects of getting a full schedule in for teams is getting bleaker and bleaker.

Just ask Lynn English athletic director Gary Molea about the rains, and you get an inkling as to how bad it's actually been. "Well, I woke up (Sunday) with 18 inches of water in my basement," Molea said.

The sheer volume of the water is what has made life difficult for Molea and his counterparts. With no place for the rain to go, it has turned baseball and softball fields into quagmires underneath nearly two feet of water.

English isn't the only one who is now in a race against the clock to get games completed. Just up the road in Peabody, a flood-prone area, it's much the same story.

 "I haven't seen anything like this in a long time. It's amazing," Peabody AD Phil Sheridan said.

Peabody is one school that wasn't as hard-hit by the rains like English or Lynn Classical. The Tanners managed to get some games in on Thursday and Friday before the deluge hit. But with school called off today because of over three feet of water in downtown Peabody and other places, the schedule is going to get no better for the Tanners.

"I haven't been up there since Friday but I imagine you could hold a swim meet up there," Sheridan said. "Once this rain stops, it's going to take a while for the fields to dry."

Even when the teams get back up and playing, another problem is that the MIAA's cutoff date for the state tournament is next Monday. So teams trying to fight their way into the tournament are trying to play as many games as possible in that stretch.

One school where that applies is Lynn Classical, where both the softball and baseball teams are on the postseason bubble.

"It's certainly toughest on a team that's right on the bubble for qualifying," Classical AD Dick Ruth said. "What will happen if we run out of days is that the season becomes what you've completed by the cutoff date."

Teams ran into this situation a year ago on Memorial Day weekend as several local teams wound up playing doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday while others had to play for up to five consecutive days.

"This is getting to the point where we can't make it up," St. John's Prep's Jim O'Leary said. "Last week was a nightmare and the forecast certainly isn't helping."

O'Leary's teams face an even more difficult situation because of the school's location in Danvers, one of the hardest-hit areas, and that the Prep's baseball and lacrosse fields will be out of commission because of graduation all next week.

"Everybody in our league has AstroTurf ^® fields, so we might be playing games away as the home team just so we can get them in," O'Leary said.

Over at Lynn Tech, Dave Johnson has a double whammy working. First, the Tigers have to get games completed for the State Vocational Tournament selections before getting the rest of the schedule done for the state tournament.

"What we're going to do is schedule as many games as are needed for tournament play. The teams that need the game will get priority," Johnson said.

Another thing complicating the problem is that most schools' seniors will complete classes at the end of May and the problem of proms and other events come into play.

That's something, according to Sheridan, which will be dealt with accordingly.

"We have proms on Fridays, so I imagine that we're going to have to play late on a Saturday or Sunday. If we have to do it, we'll make sure it's done right," Sheridan said.