Baseball in the Northeast is always dicey early in the year, as winter often lingers well into spring. So it was an extra special treat today to watch the players on the Princeton baseball team scrimmage one another outside, on their home turf.
After a stretch of several days without rain and with the temperature poking up into the 50s, the team was able to play at Bill Clarke Field on campus. This is my ninth year associated with the team, and this is the earliest I can remember an outdoor workout, let alone a scrimmage, at Clarke Field. There have been outdoor workouts and scrimmages in the past, but they were played on the artificial turf of a neighboring soccer or lacrosse practice field, with snow banks off to the edges.
Today, it was great to hear the smack of the ball on leather and the “ping” of the ball caroming off the metal bats.
This is a big weekend for Princeton athletics, especially in basketball, with the women playing Penn at the Palestra in Philadelphia and the men playing Penn at home, a sellout at Jadwin gym for the first time since 2001.
Still, it seems to me that an outdoor baseball scrimmage is rarer than a Jadwin sellout.
Go, Tigers!
The Ball Caps Blog 