A sick Sycamore decision
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Canceling a baseball game because of bad weather is one thing.
Canceling a game like Indiana State did by not even showing up to play Eastern on Wednesday is something else.
Eastern head coach Jim Schmitz said he’s never seen anything like the situation that developed Wednesday in his 23 years of coaching.
Indiana State head coach Lindsay Meggs called Schmitz around 11:30 a.m. to tell Eastern’s head coach the Sycamores wouldn’t be making the trip to Charleston.
The reason: Meggs and ISU Athletic Director Ron Prettyman didn’t want to drive 45 minutes over to Charleston to play a mid-week game scheduled at 3 p.m. because of potential bad weather, Schmitz said.
Excuse me?
Since when does a visiting team tell a home team a game at the home team’s field can’t be played?
They don’t.
Yes, it had rained some Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning in Charleston.
In Terre Haute, Ind., it rained all of Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.
But Terre Haute isn’t Charleston.
Just because there may be crappy weather in Terre Haute doesn’t necessarily mean there’s crappy weather in Charleston.
Besides, the game wasn’t supposed to start until 3 p.m., meaning Meggs told Schmitz ISU wasn’t coming three-and-a-half hours before the game.
Terre Haute isn’t three-and-a-half hours away from Charleston.
More like a mere 45 minutes away.
But, since the ISU athletic department apparently had the dual role of being the chief meteorologist for the city of Charleston on Wednesday, to go along with making decisions for Eastern’s athletic department, it also can decide three-and-a-half hours ahead of game time that it can’t make a 45-minute trip to Charleston.
Meggs and Prettyman had no right to decide Indiana State wasn’t coming to play.
Schmitz and Eastern’s director of athletics Rich McDuffie had that right.
The sun was out and temperatures were in the low 50s by the time the scheduled 3 p.m. game was supposed to begin.
The infield dirt was a little wet, but nothing that some rakes and bags of dry dirt couldn’t fix.
The outfield grass was damp and a bit muddy, but nothing that couldn’t be played in.
Schmitz said he plans to see if Wednesday’s game can be counted as a forfeit win for Eastern.
While the win won’t help Eastern’s chances of making the College World Series, or even the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, Schmitz is making the correct decision by seeing if he can get a win for his team.
Eastern’s Associate AD for Operations Mark Bonnstetter said Wednesday Eastern would go through the Ohio Valley Conference to see if the game could be counted as a win for the Panthers.
Props to Schmitz and Eastern’s athletic administration in trying to do the right thing.
To Indiana State baseball: here’s hoping a visiting team cancels a game on you sometime this season.
And here’s hoping Eastern takes Indiana State off future baseball schedules for the classless behavior ISU showed on Wednesday.