Benson vs. Durham rain out

Tonight's game between Benson and Durham was called off at 1:00pm by the home team (Benson). The statement was that the field was "under water". As you can see in the photos below, the field was available for play today, as these pictures were taken at 6:00pm.



My concern is this: According to an e-mail sent to every coach and umpire before the beginning of the playoffs, this was the expectation:

"As you can see by the playoff brackets I sent early in the week, there is not a lot of extra time in getting these games in and I will do my best to have the outcome of all series decided on the field. This may include double headers if necessary. It is the responsibility of the home team to have a field ready for play and maintain the field once the game starts. I expect the umpires to be extremely lenient with field preparation time."

When the fact that the field was playable was brought to the attention of the commissioner, it was stated that there was nothing he could do and that we have to take the coach at his word that the field was unplayable.

Where does this nonsense stop? It is absolutely ridiculous that a team can call off a game 5 hours before game time without attempting to make the field ready, while at the same time buying rest time for pitchers (which is the bottom line in all of this if you want my opinion), without being held accountable for telling the truth.

 

too bad

that field at SJHS always drained pretty good I recall, but I will say that it rained a frog-strangler in parts of Johnston Co. Thur night, 3+ inches.

 

Lack of backbone...

What you have here is an Area I Commissioner with weak decision making skills and a lack of fair and equitable judgement ability. The Commissioner declined a request to visit the field and to get a first hand observation of the foield from the Durham Post 7 officials. The Commissioner lives within 30 minutes of the Benson field, but said he was unavailable to make the trip. The kicker is no other Area I West game was canceled tonight because of wet grounds. The Durham vs Benson game should have been postponed at 7PM tonight at the field, not at 2PM in the afternoon on the telephone. Next time, read the words to the Legion Code of Sportsmanship, just don't stand there and mouth them. Leadership comes from the top. Good people are leaving Legion baseball because of BS such as this. And you wonder why people get frustrated.

 

Looks like this is something going on everywhere: This involves the Caldwell/ Huntersville series. Huntersville sweeps anyway, 3-0.

"Just got back in town from vacation to find Huntersville up 2-0. I wanted to know why the game from Thursday was canceled. I talked to several people who went to Granite Falls Thursday afternoon to find a dry field. Is Caldwell waiting for some pitching to show up or what? This is unchartered teritory for Huntersville but I believe they could have been railroaded. I guess we'll see what happens tonight."

 

We had the same thing happen last season in the regular season final against New Bern. I didn't have a cell phone and drove from Durham to the field. They could have played the game. But that may have had more with the coach not wanting to invest his valuable time with a shovel, etc.

The poster who criticized Bob Figulski may have a point, but Bob is a radical improvement from what we have before him. He will talk to people and have an email address. The one before him? You would have better luck finding that guy in the mountains of Afghanistan.

How about someone who says a suspended game is a loss for both teams?