The players and fans were ready to go, but Mother Nature had other plans.
With the wetter-than-usual spring, the Westlock Red Lions were forced to cancel their May 7 North Central Alberta Baseball League season opener versus the St. Albert Cardinals because of the poor field conditions.
“It’s the first time that I can remember in 20 years and I was talking to a couple other guys and they can’t recall a time we had to do this either,” team manager Adam Sawatzky said.
“It didn’t rain very much, but with the amount of saturation there were puddles all around the field.
The decision came at 10 a.m. May 6 after a steady overnight rain lead to the ground being too saturated with moisture to effectively play a ball game.
“That’s the timeline we have,” said Sawatzky. “We have to make the call so far in front of the game to let the other team and the umpires know.”
The Red Lions are now looking to the skies for a few days of steady sunshine to help dry out Keller Field for the make-up game, scheduled for Friday, May 12. Barring that, the club’s next home game is slated for May 17 against the Stony Plain Mets.
While rainouts are part of baseball, Sawatzky noted that the soil is still hanging onto moisture leftover from winter.
Were the rains to happen later in the season the teams could probably have worked around the moisture.
“If this rain had happened in June we probably wouldn’t have even noticed,” he said. “With the amount of softness on the field, I would expect it’d be a few days before we get out there.”
Sawatzky said that the Red Lions were hoping to get into the batting cage before next Friday’s make-up game, but had no practices scheduled this week.
