Amateur teams trying to stay on schedule

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For the most part, the rain has let up in recent weeks in the Mitchell area, and the weather has begun cooperating with outdoor sports — with the exception of Tuesday’s tornado warnings, of course.

And amateur baseball teams from all around have taken full advantage.

After a rain-filled June caused many of the area’s amateur baseball teams and leagues to miss two weeks of action, the majority of them have finally caught up with their schedules.

“We are not behind in any games and we don’t have any issues, surprisingly,” Dimock/Emery manager Ron DeGeest said. “We actually could probably pick up a couple games; we have more pitching than games. You can’t complain about having too much pitching, but you also need to find a little bit of work for all of them.”

The Raptors had to reschedule two league games, against Delmont and Geddes, but fit them in quickly enough to not force much strain on the end of their season.

Elsewhere in the Sunshine League, the Mitchell Mad Dogs have had only two cancellations thus far on their schedule. A game scheduled against 4-Corners won’t happen because of 4-Corners’ league schedule, and Tuesday’s matchup with Salem was wiped out by tornado warnings in the Mitchell area.

The Mad Dogs have three more league games on their slate — home contests Thursday versus the Parkston Mudcats, Sunday against the Parkston Bullheads and July 15 versus Delmont — and a handful of non-league games that player/manager Jason Skinner is hopeful will remain scheduled.

“We’ve been really fortunate,” Skinner said. “As bad as the weather was, it could have been a lot worse. Hopefully, the other leagues have been able to keep up with the schedules, too, so we can play those non-league games we have scheduled.”

One team that has had some issues with rescheduling has been the Geddes Ballrockers. Manager Mike Slaba said his team played seven games in eight days, a run that concluded Sunday, to get back on schedule for the first time this summer.

Slaba said finding pitchers — and players — to fill all the innings were his team’s biggest problem.

“It makes it awfully tough to get pitching in line and to get players to games,” Slaba said. “Our whole league is filled with teams that have players that travel from out of town to play, so getting them here on weekdays has been an issue.

“We basically dropped all hopes of having non-league games when we got all that rain in early June, but I guess that’s part of dealing with a wet summer.”

Mudcats’ manager Dave Roth, who has seen his team win each of its 14 Sunshine League games so far this summer, said his team has gotten through the weather issues without much problem.

In the Pony Hills League, Wessington Springs manager Nathan Hainy said his team is still trying to decide which games to play for the rest of the summer. The Owls have already had to cancel games with 4-Corners and Plankinton because of rain, and have a busy week of games ahead of them.

Wessington Springs is scheduled to play five games in seven days starting Thursday, but Hainy said either Saturday’s game with the Mad Dogs or Tuesday’s contest with Dimock/Emery will most likely have to be canceled to save the Owls’ pitching staff.

Wessington Springs missed out on two non-league games with Clark and Ipswich earlier this summer.

“We went 14 days without a game and that was real hard to keep our pitchers on a rotation,” Hainey said. “I hate to cancel another one, but we’re going to be real short in pitching if we don’t.”

The Sunshine League schedule comes to a close — weather permitting — on Thursday, July 15.

Tags: amateur baseball, our towns, wessington springs, mad dogs, sports, baseball, parkston, dimock, emery, geddes