Everyone in college baseball seems to have a weather story. Those involved in the governance of the game deal with ways to mitigate early season temperatures. Others who see the game through the lenses of player, coach or umpire — and in one case, a broadcaster — have more acute views of the weather, and it is their mostly amusing stories we captured this off-season.
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"It was the mid ‘80s and I’d only been at Creighton for a year or two. We played on a field about three miles off campus and it had snowed for a couple days. Southern Illinois was coming in for conference games and the distance was so great that it was very hard to make up games. (Richard) “Itchy” Jones was a legend to me, so we were going to play and “Itchy” was going to get a fair shake.
All day Thursday and Friday I made my players work relentlessly to clear off about seven inches of snow with very little game preparation — minimal hitting in the cages. When it came time to play on Saturday, I had worked the kids so hard on the field that we couldn’t hardly stand up. We got our butts kicked for two days! Itchy was so proud of me for playing and we got thumped. He went home happy!"
— Jim Hendry, former Creighton head coach
"We were playing the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1999. We’d already canceled one day due to cold weather, and the next day they carried two pickup truckloads of ice off the field to get it ready. The field played so fast that day that balls hit through the shortstop were shooting to the wall. The final score of the game that day was 27-26 with us losing. I called home to tell my wife, “The good news is that we scored 26 runs. The bad news is that we gave up 27.” My wife said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” Unfortunately, I wasn’t."
— Bob Bennett, former Fresno State head coach and 2010 College Baseball Hall of Fame inductee
"I’ve been in Georgia for about 20 years. About three to four years ago at our place (LaGrange College) we had a snow the night before we played. So the team went to the field at midnight to pull the snow off. Because the snow in Georgia was very wet, we rolled huge snowballs off the field behind the dugout. I’m from up north in Wooster, Ohio, so I’d dealt with this before. Several of our kids had never seen snow, so they made a huge igloo and fort back behind the dugout. The snow melted off a couple days later so we were able to play, but the piles of snow behind the dugout lasted for weeks."
— Kevin Howard, then-head coach, LaGrange (Ga.) College
"In 1989, Georgia Tech was playing at our place on ESPN. They had a very good team, and I’d told them we’d have no problems with weather in Wichita so we’d be good for TV. We played the night before and the weather was good and we had a packed house and won, which is always good.
Overnight, the weather turned and changed everything. We were scheduled for another TV game, this time in the afternoon. By game time the wind chill was -4 and the actual temperature was something like 17, but we insisted on playing because of the opportunity for television.
Needless to say, that’s the last time Georgia Tech ever came to Wichita for a regular season game. But we were on national television and we probably played in front of somewhere between two to four fans. I’m telling you, it was the coldest day I’ve ever seen anybody play baseball. We had snow flurries all day and the wind blew. Nobody was excited to play, but we got it in and won the game, 7-2."
— Gene Stephenson, then-head coach, Wichita State University
"A couple years ago, I was doing radio for Texas Tech for a series in College Station against Texas A&M. At the time, visiting radio crews still sat outside in the open air. For the Friday game, the weather was pretty typical, but an unexpected front blew in and they decided to move the Saturday game to the evening to try and avoid expected wet weather.
Earlier in the day, a group of us hit the stores in College Station to try and find some cold weather gear, but unfortunately for us, it was March and most places no longer were carrying that type of clothing. The wet weather subsided so they played the game as scheduled.
The wind was blowing directly in from the north at about 30-35 miles per hour into our outdoor broadcast table in the upper deck. I think the wind chill got as low as 15 to 16 during the game. It was simply brutal. The game lasted over three hours and by the time it was over I couldn’t even really feel my hands or fingers. I had a blanket from my hotel room and wrapped myself up in it. People who saw me said I looked like I was a shepherd from a nativity scene.
With the wind blowing as it was, papers were impossible to keep on the table and keeping score in my book was problematic with gloves and the loss of feeling in my fingers. The Aggie media crew was great and they brought us coffee and hot chocolate every inning. They had to keep replenishing because the wind would render the drinks cold within minutes. I can’t tell you the number of times they apologized to us for leaving us outside.
They tell us as broadcasters not to share your hardships with the listeners — just call the game. That became nearly impossible in these conditions. Our head coach’s wife, listening at home, texted me to say she could literally hear my teeth chattering on air. Needless to say, our postgame show was quick and we were anxious to get back to the hotel. To make things worse, the Aggies scored a run in the bottom of the eighth to win, 5-4.
Interestingly enough, the weather the next afternoon would again be by most accounts miserable. The high was around 48 or 49, but again the wind was around 35 mph from the north and it was sunny. We were still extremely cold, but when compared to the previous night we thought we were in the Bahamas. And Tech won the finale!"
— Robert Giovannetti, then-Texas Tech broadcaster
"I was playing at Vernon Regional Junior College against Collin County in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. It was about 28 degrees and sleeting all day. The sleet was so steady that the warning track was white. We split a doubleheader with them and got out of there."
— Kyle Moody, then-coach, Central Christian College (Kansas)
"We were on our way to play Metro State College of Denver. There was no snow forecast, but three hours down the road we rolled into a blizzard near the Colorado border. We had an emergency hotel arranged and we were close enough to the hotel that we could actually see the glow of the sign through the snow, but we couldn’t move because the snow was so bad. We were stuck on our bus, not able to move, for nine hours in a blizzard watching it snow. We finally made it to the hotel and spent the night. Our doubleheader the next day was scratched, but we were able to play the following two days to get the series in. It was one of my worst experiences as a coach."
— Damon Day, then-head coach, University of Nebraska-Kearney
"In my first year at Notre Dame we had a twinight doubleheader scheduled with St. John’s. The temperature for the first game at 4 p.m. was about 35 degrees. Ed Blankmeyer, the St. John’s coach, and I were in my office before the game wondering if we should play. On the TV in my office the Cubs were playing at Wrigley, 90 miles up the road. We decided if they were playing, we have to play. We got through the first game and in between games it started to snow. Within about 20 minutes it had snowed a couple inches. I think Ed and I hugged at home plate because we were so excited that we didn’t have to play."
— Paul Mainieri, then-head coach, LSU
"We came to Lubbock in 2006 to open the season against Texas Tech. The weather was extremely cold and we had to scratch the Friday game. On Saturday, the weather was equally cold so we scratched that game, too, but I practiced our guys outside for about 45 minutes in the brutal cold. Coach (Larry) Hays and I had another phone call that night to discuss the Sunday game.
Coach Hays wanted to scratch the game, but I insisted on playing because I didn’t want to tell my administration that we went all the way to Texas and didn’t play a single game. We played the ballgame in bone-chilling cold weather — that “dry cold” on the Great Plains is different from the “wet cold” we have in the Northeast. We lost the game, 5-4, and I think each of us threw about eight pitchers just to get through the ballgame."
— Ed Blankmeyer, then-head coach, St. John’s University (New York)
"I actually have two stories, both involving rain. When I was a Division III head coach at North Central College in Illinois, we were scheduled to play a series with postseason implications at MacMurray College downstate in Jacksonville (Ill.). Heavy thunderstorms with a possibility of tornados was the forecast and while driving down for the series we got hit with thunderstorms and hail.
We got to the field and started batting practice and the skies opened up. They got the tarp on the field and it rained hard for about 10 minutes. They got the tarp off the field and started getting it ready to roll up. Another front came flying through with heavy winds and they tried to get the tarp back on the field. They lost the tarp and one kid was still hanging on to a corner and got whipped about 15 feet in the air then thrown to the ground which resulted in a broken collar bone. The tarp blew over the left field fence and knocked the left field fence down. We eventually got the game in that day, after all that bad weather.
My second story involved a weekend series at our place (Northern Illinois) against Ball State with rain all over. At the time, we had an old tarp that wasn’t doing its job very well. We spent all weekend working the field to get it ready before and after games, getting the tarp on and off when it rained. In the series finale, we were in the second inning and saw the rains coming, so we got the tarp on before the rain came. When the rains left, we got the tarp off but there were puddles everywhere. We had to cancel the game, and maybe needless to say, we got a new tarp out of it."
— Ed Mathey, then-head coach, Northern Illinois University
"In 1998, we were playing the finale of a series in Waco against Nebraska. It was about 32 degrees with winds out of the north at about 40 to 50 miles per hour. I called Bob Jones, the supervisor of umpires in the Big 12 at the time, to ask if there was a guideline to follow on what was too cold to play. The guys in the north play through some really cold weather so I wanted to be sure. He said if we could take BP in it, we should be able to play in it. I went to the umpires and I could tell they were a little hesitant, but it was my call as the home coach.
The home plate umpire, Wade Ford, told me that if we started the game, we’d finish it. I think he was trying to scare me out of starting the game. Anyway, in the top of the first inning Kip Wells, our starting pitcher and an eventual first-round pitcher with a million-dollar arm, threw the first pitch and I thought to myself, “This is stupid.” One of the first three hitters hit what would have been a routine fly ball to shallow left field that ended up as a foul ball behind the dugout.
A couple more hitters into the game, Wade called (Nebraska head coach) Dave Van Horn and myself to home plate. He took his mask off and there were tears running down his face due to the cold wind. He said to me, “Steve, I know what I said, but I just can’t do it.” The parents weren’t even there to watch — it was awful. We were glad to get out of there."
— Steve Smith, then-head coach, Baylor University (Texas)
"When I was an assistant at Northern Illinois, we were scheduled to play at Kent State about four years ago. We got a couple inches of snow, but they’ve got FieldTurf and Coach (Scott) Stricklin said we’d be able to play eventually. Our kids were out there doing snow angels when the snow was still on the field. Eventually, the sun came out and it drizzled a little so we started the game. Then we got some more snow and were delayed a while. I think we had three or four snow delays, but we got the game in."
— Steve Joslyn, then-head coach, Chicago State University
"I was umpiring the Big Ten tournament in Ann Arbor between Michigan and Indiana back in the ‘80s. We waited and waited to start the game amid snow and freezing rain. (Michigan coach) Bud Middaugh had a real good team and wanted to get the game in. We hadn’t exchanged lineup cards so it was his call if we’d start the game. He called the local prison and asked for 25 inmates to come over and help clean the snow off the field. I’m sure he’d promised them a nice meal after the game in return for their work.
Anyway, a little later a bus pulled up and 25 inmates unloaded in their orange suits ready to work. They picked up their shovels and went to right field and got about a 10-yard square cleared off before they decided it wasn’t worth it. It was too blasted cold to be out there and they wanted to go back to prison. They dropped their shovels, got back on the bus and left, so we didn’t play."
— Dick Runchey, longtime college umpire and recipient of the inaugural National Collegiate Umpire Award
