Effie Dawson, The Examiner
2008-03-05 08:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Throughout Maryland, gymnasium doors opened Saturday morning for public school athletes to drop off paperwork, pick up their baseball bats and tennis rackets and head to the great outdoors.

It’s one of the greatest days of the year.

In high school, March 1 announces the arrival of spring sports in Maryland, just as professional baseball begins with a practice pitch on a sunny Florida field in early February and the college basketball season is born again each fall at Midnight Madness.

It might be 39 degrees with a wind chill of 19, but it’s time to get outside. No other season explodes with the same kind of hopefulness. Athletes, coaches and parents have been inside way too long. Even a referee friend gleefully stepped up his off-season workouts in anticipation of full field competition.

As much as I lament the year-round demands on young players, I respect the baseball and softball players who keep their arms loose and their bats warm from November through February in poorly lit indoor facilities. I admire the lacrosse boys and girls who sharpen their stick skills playing on basketball courts. And while indoor tennis isn’t exactly a sacrifice, the scheduling and cost of playing in a dome warrants appreciation for these youngsters.

And so March 1 is the recess at the end of a long winter indoors, a joyous celebration in sport. It’s time to leave the basketball and wrestling gyms and grab a breath of fresh air and some natural sunlight. You can’t smell cut grass, but you can sense it.

Every new season begins with that clean slate. So much will be written over the next few months. Some softball pitcher will amaze her coach - and her opponents - with a single great game that even she didn’t realize was inside her arm. A baseball player will hit a home run longer than he has ever hit before.

A tennis player will be demoted in regional rankings because he wanted to play with high school friends one last time. And he’ll enjoy every moment of it.

And yes, some players will become injured, ineligible and disinterested along the way, letting down parents who had envisioned a lucrative athletic path. There will be soaring highs and deep lows along this spring season, as exist in every piece of the puzzle that is high school sports.

But the spring season holds a special place in high school sports because it grows fast and furiously like those impatient daffodils that erupt before the final frost.

Baseball, softball, lacrosse and tennis begin with chapped-cheek teams, dusty baseball diamonds and uneven patches of turf. At the first games, baseball fans will wrap in blankets and worry about the sun fading before the final inning. Concession stands will keep their coffee urns plugged in and their snowball machines off.

But there won’t be many complaints. Because one afternoon not too far from now, the grass all of a sudden will become bright green and the sun will hang around forever. Warm-up suits and Under Armour will give way to bare arms and sunburned noses.

Lacrosse parents will deck themselves in madras shorts and flip flops. Tennis parents will arrive at courts fresh from their own matches, still in coordinated tennis skirts and tops. Empty sunflower seed shells will blow about the baseball stands.

So read the Farmer’s Almanac if you like or swear by Punxsutawney Phil’s forecast. But for me, March 1 means the beauty of spring is upon us. Let the games begin.

Effie Dawson writes about high school and youth sports. She can be reached at edawson@baltimoreexaminer.com