Freak storms can affect even the most hardy of athletic facilities. Extended torrential rain can leave a soccer pitch or baseball diamond soggy and occasionally even unplayable.
But a 5-minute rain and hail shower? That shouldn’t take a facility out of commission, should it? Incredibly, that would have happened at Charlottesville (Va.) Monticello High if a game had been scheduled for the school’s baseball field on Tuesday afternoon.
The picture you see above was tweeted out by @scrimmageplay and depicts the Monticello field after what is purported to be a “5-minute hail storm.” For a five-minute storm, that kind of water log is absolutely astounding.
Weather software showed that there was precisely 0.09 inches of rainfall at Monticello on Tuesday, which seems completely at odds with the photo you see here. Clearly, any field with that kind of moisture accumulation on the surface has a major issue with its drainage system.
The larger concern, of course, is the effect that such an oversight in facility planning and management would have on Monticello athletes themselves. Luckily (or unluckily, if you’re a Monticello fan), the Mustangs baseball season ended on May 21 with an 11-3 loss to Palmyra (Va.) Fluvanna County High. If they had still been alive in the state playoffs, they could have been facing an ignominious cancellation due to a flash storm that hardly lasted enough for anyone to notice.
Here’s hoping that the field is taken care of before the 2014 season. After all, in a place like Charlottesville, the last thing that they need is forced cancellations after the extended Winter fades to Spring.
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