Baseball in Boston: Weather Kills

Emerson Lions vs. The Coast Guard Bears and the wild series of events that took place between the first pitch being thrown on April 3rd and the final out being made on April 28th.

Spring in Boston is a wild one. Some days it pours, others it hails, and even snows up through the month of April. You never what you are going to get. In terms of Emerson Baseball, they have to somehow fit in 16 conference games during this bipolar season. As a result, they are forced to play in very dramatic weather conditions. This played a huge role in their first home game of the year with conference rival Coast Guard.

It all started on April 3rd when the Lions took the field in the pouring rain and snow, the temperature was around 15 degrees and many thought the game would be cancelled right away. Lions Head Coach Nicholas Venocchi had other plans saying, “The coaches both knew the forecast, but because it was only light rain/snow at game time we wanted to see how far we could get in the game. We hoped to get 5 innings so it would be considered an official game.”

Another key factor in the desire to play the game was the fact Emerson had not yet played at Campanelli stadium this year. Venocchi told me, “I think it was a complicated situation, and because we hadn’t played a home game yet, and because coast guard had traveled two hours to play, I thought the best thing to do was to give it a shot.”

Junior Tim Mainella started the game on the hill and it was evident he should not have gone out there. Going just a third of an inning, Mainella’s command was simply off in the awful climate conditions. He would give up just three hits, but Coast Guard would come away with 10 runs.

In the bottom of the inning Coast Guard refused to take the field, as if knowing they weren’t going to send their team out there from the get go. Coach Vennochi said it was the umpires call to postpone the game , “Coast Guard did not take the field because the umpires said the field was unplayable the way it was.”

From this point forward there would be many talks with the Conference Committee and school administrations to decide how this would be played out. Would the game restart at 0–0 since it was only a half inning? Or would Coast Guard maintains it’s 10–0 lead and the game simply resume where it left off?

“The Commissioner of the conference made the final decision. Sighting the Halted Game Rule in the NCAA handbook” Vennochi informed me. The ruling stated that in the case of games that do not make it through five innings, the game must be resumed from where it left off. In conclusion Emerson would face a 10–0 deficit going into the bottom of the 1st.

Then came the rescheduling process which seemed to take years. The game was scheduled four more times before April 30th and postponed every time. Coach Venocchi was also able to touch on this saying, “There’s a lot of factors that go in to a reschedule. There has to be a mutual open date and field availability. The weather this spring did not make this reschedule easy.”

Finally on April 30th, both sides would agree to complete the game at Clark University’s turf field. Sophomore Jack Fox started this game on the bump, he wasn’t thrilled with the feel of the 10–0 deficit saying, “It was not fair having to start down 10–0. There was no hope of winning for us. It didn’t even feel like a real game because we already knew the end result.”

He seemed to be correct as the Lions wouldn’t put up much of a fight at all. Coast Guard would collect 17 hits and ultimately end up winning by a score of 20–0.

Despite the tough loss for the Lions, it was the beginning of a new chapter in the program. This year’s senior class graduated 8 players who had for the most part been starters their entire time with the team.

These seniors were not in attendance to the makeup game against Coast Guard and this gave the world an opportunity to see the new look Lions. Coach Venocchi can definitely see a bright future, “It was exciting to see a lineup of underclassmen in there . There’s a lot of talent in our freshman and sophomore classes. And our juniors have had a lot of experience, they will be able to lean on to help our team next year.”