Cape baseball crew rakes and floats 20 yards of concrete
Concrete is coming! I have been the unskilled guy too many times on days when “The concrete is coming!” I’m talking going back 50 years, pushing a large wheelbarrow called a Georgia Buggy down a narrow South Philadelphia sidewalk. I lost one, dumped a yard of wet concrete into the street and was chased by a little Italian foreman with a plank, intent on swinging it at my head. Wednesday at Cape’s Chris Short Field I saw three Atlantic Concrete trucks and a group of men with rakes and floats. I thought of letting my dog out of the truck for some imprinting and to see, given the choice between pulling concrete or spearing my dog in the spine with metal teeth, how many would wail and flail while calling me names, “Get your dumb butt dog out of here, you moron.” Men bond in a crazy ways when the concrete comes! They are afraid of losing it and having 20 yards set up in a worthless ball of frozen stone. Later I saw the finished product. Twenty yards leveled and smooth, all very impressive. Coach Ben Evick said he ran a bull float. Oh, like who can’t? George Fluharty, masonry contractor, donated 10 yards and Atlantic Concrete also donated several yards. Good community effort.
Campus community – I have been impressed during this awful weather leading into spring sports seasons on how teams have shared the fields including both boys' and girls' lacrosse, girls' soccer, and track and field. Baseball even had a turf field practice. Baseball and softball suffer the most; natural fields become very unnatural during freeze and thaw and wet weather. I don’t know the answer, who in power cares more or less about certain sports? Ideally turf fields for baseball and softball would solve the problem; anyway who needs new elementary schools? At least the old ones are dry inside.
Suckered into stereotypes - I don’t need sports stereotypes shattered because I really don’t believe in any, although the NCAA tournament is always filled with a composite of characters on teams with themes that give a different look than what we’re used to seeing in basketball. I was enjoying watching BYU clinic Ole Miss Tuesday night with a different style of basketball - a bunch of 6-foot-5 missionary guys who can pass and shoot and play like mad dogs. The Cougars led by 17 at halftime over the Rebels, and no way that smart and disciplined squad is blowing a 17-point lead, but they sure enough did and lost, which I found rather shocking in a stereotype shattering.
Private school privilege - We live in the private school nexus from Washington/Baltimore through Wilmington up through Philadelphia to New York and Connecticut ending in greater New England. Start at $30K per year for the privilege of not being a “public school” kid and if a family can afford it, what’s the downside? There is none; why not attend a great school with good sports teams, schools that seem to have an inside track to more prestige like Ivy League schools, all of which leads to more privilege and the power nexus, what we middle class call the social network. A Penn professor teaching a night class at West Chester went snarky on me in 1968, saying “There’s an elite class in the country that you’ll never be a part of, row house boy.” I had no idea what he was talking about. I just knew he didn’t like me calling him a “Tweedy Bird.” Go, Harvard men! Go, Princeton women! Hope they make the Sweet 16.
Leprechaun lunacy day - Just a few days after Crazy Hat Day, the Cape girls' lacrosse team went searching for the hidden leprechaun. On March 17, it was assistant coach Richard Collins who was found by a team not using clues but just walking around. “We could be wrong, but that looks suspiciously like a leprechaun or lawyer, either way it’s coach Richard.” The Atlantic Lacrosse Easter Egg Hunt is up next - there is a hidden golden egg - and three young players get to warm up for a varsity game and get introduced. You may be thinking, “How has this team won six straight state titles when they seem to be playing around instead of practicing?”
Ladder workouts - Tuesday’s weather was atomic balmy, so track coaches seized the sun to construct ladder workouts for distance runners and sprinters. Distance runners can go up the ladder 400 meters to 800 meters to 1,200 meters, while sprinters like to come down 400 meters to 300 meters to 200 meters.
College track athletes do insane ladder workouts going up and down with little rest interval in between. Race pacing and race strategies also play a role in developing an intelligent runner who knows how to race. My experience is it takes about 15 athletes who can score in multiple events to field a championship track team.
Snippets - All day rain predicted for Friday, March 20. Cape baseball scheduled to open at home March 21 at 1 p.m versus Caravel. Coach Ben Evick will drop the bull float and make the call to play or postpone. “The field can take a lot of rain, but no one wants to be miserable,” Evick said. Cape girls’ lacrosse will host a quad scrimmage beginning at 10 a.m., Saturday that also includes Charter, Sts. Peter and Paul, and Kent Island. Softball is scheduled to scrimmage at Sussex Tech Saturday, March 21, at 9:30 a.m. Go on now, git!
