I have coached baseball for more than 15 years and have seen some crazy things on a baseball field. However, until this past summer, I had never coached a game that had started in ONE state and finished in another.
I was reminded of that experience today when I read about Bethesda University’s bizarre college basketball schedule. Bethesda is scheduled to play five games in four days across three states, including two games on the same day in different states.
While that is certainly strange, my Xtreme 14U baseball team did something even more unusual this year. We played ONE game in TWO states.
It All Started With A Little Rain In Illinois
We were playing a pool-play game in a tournament in Rock Island, Illinois. The tournament organizers were running two tournaments that day, one in Illinois and one across the river in Bettendorf, Iowa. That little detail will prove important.
As the game began, everything was normal, but after a couple of innings, it started to rain. It wasn’t terribly heavy, but it made the dirt-and-grass field a problem. Water pooled around home plate, the pitcher’s mound became very slick, and by the fourth inning, around 6:30 p.m., the conditions were becoming unsafe.
Because of that, I spoke to the other coach, and he agreed that we didn’t want to put our players at risk any longer. We informed the umpire that we were done playing. The umpire needed permission from the on-site tournament director to officially call the game, so he went to get it. This is where things got interesting.
How About We Play The Rest Of The Game In Iowa?
Unbeknownst to us, the tournament director in Rock Island phoned the tournament director in Bettendorf to see if they could help us finish our game. While the fields in Illinois were causing problems because of the rain, the fields in Iowa were artificial turf, so the rain wouldn’t cause any issues there.
Just one problem, if you can call it that: Bettendorf is in a completely different state! Luckily, it was only a 10-minute drive across the Mississippi River to the other complex.
So, both teams emptied our dugouts, packed up, and jumped in our cars to head over the river. I thought it was pretty comical, and I made sure our players knew how crazy this was. They were about to do something I had never heard anyone do in all my around 30 years of playing and coaching baseball.
Playing a game in two different states! The kids thought that was pretty cool.
There Was One More Catch
We couldn’t just jump in our cars and head straight to Iowa to play, though. First, a game was already being played on the field we were going to use. Second, we didn’t want to pay to get in. Remember, this was a completely different tournament. We had to tell our players’ parents not to enter the complex until 8 p.m., or they would have to pay to get in since they weren’t actually playing in that tournament.
Eventually, everyone arrived; we put our equipment in the dugout and checked with the umpire to make sure we knew where we left off in Illinois. We got onto the field about two hours after we had stopped playing. The players were thrilled to no longer be slipping around in the mud and to be playing on nice turf.
Same inning, same score, same game… Different state!
Over my many years of playing and coaching baseball, I have had games canceled, rain delays, schedule changes, and all sorts of other issues, but I had never experienced anything like this. Starting a game in one state, crossing the Mississippi River mid-game, and finishing it in another state. A night of baseball I will never forget.