Sometime in the next few weeks, the 2014-2015 season's final high school basketball game will go into the books.
The calendar might tell us that spring is still more than six weeks away, but spring sports are upon us. Florida's high school softball season starts this week and baseball season starts next week.
Sure, we will have our share of colder temperatures, but our cold weather would be a warm day for people in Pennsylvania, Vermont or Maine.
The weather forecast for Punxsutawney, Pa., the town famous for Groundhog Day, on Monday called for 14 degrees Fahrenheit and a 70 percent chance of snow.
I think it’s safe to say people in Punxsutawney won’t be starting baseball or softball season any time soon. In fact, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association didn’t open its baseball regular season until March 21, 2014.
The first day that Tennessee high school baseball teams can play games is March 9. Ohio high schools don’t start their baseball season until March 28. Alabama, our immediate neighbor to the north, allows high school baseball teams to start play Feb. 16, which also is the case in Georgia.
Yes, while states in other areas of the country are throwing snowballs, athletes in Florida and our neighboring states are throwing baseballs and softballs.
Local baseball and softball seasons will be a full month old in March, when teams from Kentucky, Tennessee and parts north start the annual migration to the Emerald Coast to play a few warm-weather games on the Emerald Coast.
Some of those teams could play with anybody in the area, but many of them are just getting their baseball and softball legs under them.
I was working at a small paper in Lenoir City, Tenn., in 1996 when Lenoir City High School's coach told me he was bringing a team this way during spring break.
The Panther team was a good baseball team, by Tennessee high school standards, but I knew it would struggle with local competition.
I tried to warn the coach as best I could, but he was confident in his team and his ability to coach the boys up.
Upon his return home a week later, he asked me why I didn’t tell him how good teams were in Florida. To which I replied, “I tried to.”
We tend to get a bit spoiled with our baseball and softball, as well as our weather.
We take it for granted that schools in other states play in the same kinds of top facilities we have here.
We even forget how fortunate we are that our weather allows us to get out and play ball during the dead of winter.
It might not be spring just yet, but baseball and softball season are upon us.
I can’t wait for the first shout of the umpire to, “PLAY BALL!”
Email randyd@crestviewbulletin.com, follow him on Twitter, @BigRandle, or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: SIDELINE OBSERVATIONS: Take me out to the ball game