You have to feel for Flyers Classic tournament director John Sarna. For the last eight years the man has put on the most highly respected in-season tournament, secured the best teams, given players the opportunity to compete on a top-notch field and generally busted his hump to provide a service for Illinois high school baseball.
And, at least in the last three years, all Sarna has gotten in return is rain, stress, lightning, headaches, more rain, and attendance-deterring weather. This year’s field is the best Sarna has ever assembled. In fact, six of the eight teams were ranked in the PBR preseason top 20, including the defending state champion, Neuqua Valley.
Last year’s event, due to cryogenic-like temperatures, was for the most cancelled. Thursday’s first-round action was also cancelled thanks to lightning, which sprung from the sky like a jack-in-the-box, followed by consistent rain. If that wasn’t bad enough, the unsuspecting lightning strike came with Jacobs leading 3-0 over Wheaton-Warrenville South with two outs in the top of the fifth inning of the first game – one out away from an official game.
If you’re scoring at home, that’s a bad hop to the groin.
Incidentally, Jacobs, where Sarna is an assistant coach at, hasn’t played a game this season. The two teams will resume play on Saturday, 10:30 a.m., at Jacobs. Thursday’s second game – Prairie Ridge vs. Joliet Catholic – will be made up Friday at either Prairie Ridge or St. Charles North.
The forecast doesn’t call for rain on Friday or Saturday, so it looks like the Flyers Classic will be played. But for his service and hard work, Sarna deserves more than to be glued to the weather report, hoping that Tom Skilling doesn’t wave his almighty wand and pronounce doom and gloom (Skilling is the mythological weather god, isn’t he?).
My sympathy for Sarna has nothing to do with the PBR’s sponsorship of the Classic. It goes out to him because I know he spends nearly a year planning for the event and breaks his back to put on a first-class event. He deserves San Diego-like temperature and to alternately watch great baseball and busloads of fans push through the turnstiles. …
Congratulations to New Trier coach Mike Napoleon, who earned his 600th career victory Thursday in the Trevians’ 10-0 win over Clemente. According to the Illinois High School Coaches Association website, Napoleon is the 12th coach to reach the 600-win plateau.