Pony needs to adjust, find a plan B
In the baseball movie “Moneyball,” Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, played by actor Brad Pitt, tells his head scout, who refuses to embrace statistical data to evaluate players, that scouts and the organization must “adapt or die.”
Such is the case for PONY Baseball and the organizers of the Pony League World Series.
If the daily rain that plagued the Pony League World Series has taught the event’s organizers anything, it’s there must be a Plan B in place for a catastrophic event. And that’s what this week was for all involved, from PONY to the world series organizers to the four teams that were sent home before being officially eliminated from the double-elimination tournament, and even for parents who made the financially costly trip to Washington. Everybody lost because of the rain.
Lots of rain.
So much rain that it caused the losers’ bracket games Tuesday and Wednesday night’s championship games to be canceled.
Lew Hays Pony Field was simply unplayable. Much of the outfield was under water for three days.
“We took so much water off the outfield, it had to be in the thousands of gallons,” said World Series coordinator Stephen Rydzak. “We might have been able to fill the pool (at Washington Park). Walking in the outfield was like walking on a waterbed.”
A rain delay of more than five hours, starting late in the morning, impacted play Monday. Herculean efforts by the ground crew and more than a dozen other volunteers were enough to make the field playable by late afternoon. The format of the tournament for that day switched from seven-inning games to a mere five innings. That was not ideal, as nobody wanted the change, but five-inning games had been played before and the shortened contests kept the world series on schedule. It’s called making the most of a bad situation.
The situation got worse Tuesday. Rain continued to fall and the field was deemed unplayable. Trenches had to be dug into several spots in the outfield to drain the standing water. But water kept rising up from beneath the grass level.
There was no plan B in place for such an event that would continue the world series.
“We didn’t have a plan B because we never needed a plan B before,” said Nathan Voytek, president of World Series Tournaments, Inc. “How do you develop plans for what you’ve never experienced?”
“It’s unfortunate that Mother Nature did not cooperate,” said Abe Key, president of PONY Baseball and Softball, Inc. “Mature Nature remains undefeated.”
Key said he did not recall having a world series in any of PONY’s age divisions end in a cancellation and no champion being determined.
“The last two days have been tough,”Key said Wednesday evening after the decision to cancel was announced. “This is no way to end the 75th anniversary of PONY.”
Key knew PONY would take heat for the decision to eliminate four teams – West Covina, Calif., Hagerstown, Md., Novojoa, Mexico and Guaynabo, Puerto Rico – on Tuesday and advance undefeated Washington County and undefeated Chinese Taipei to the Wednesday final, which was never played. The organization was skewered on social media Tuesday night.
Key said, moving to a synthetic turf field in the area – EQT Park or Ross Memorial Park – was not a viable option. In the end, the unique aspect of Pony League baseball, with its bases at 80 feet apart and pitcher’s mound at 50 feet from home plate – proved to be its biggest hurdle.
“We exhausted all options,” Key said. “We couldn’t find a viable venue that had 80-feet bases and a workable home run distance and did not have a pitcher’s mound at 60 feet and in play.”
Key said moving the world series, even if for only one day, would be a massive undertaking.
“There’s a liability factor. Paramount is the safety of the athletes,” Key said. “You also have to get clearance to relocate. There was nothing that we didn’t think about.”
When the tournament switched from a nine-day format to a shortened six-day schedule in 2013, the plan B was to utilize Colt Field, which is adjacent to Lew Hays Pony Field. At that time, Colt Field was home to Washington High School baseball but the Prexies’ home games were moved to EQT Park years ago. Colt Field has been left mostly vacant.
Today, Colt Field serves as a parking lot for the world series.
In the near future, world series organizers will have to develop a plan B so this situation is not repeated. It’s time to adapt.
“It was a perfect storm,” Key said, and he wasn’t referring to rain clouds. “Once we regroup, and are able to catch our breath, we’ll meet and talk about our plans. This is a unique field. Do we have another field we can access? We also need to have a conversation about this facility. Does it include a drainage project, a synthetic field? … We have some options and we’re going to explore them.
“When this field was built in 1952 and ’53, this was a stone quarry that was leveled off. It doesn’t allow for much permeation.”
Lew Hays Pony Field is located in a bowl. The playing field sits lower than the roads around it. And left field, which was the worst spot on the field all week, is the lowest section of the field. Much of the rain drained off the hillsides and into left field.
“The hard lesson we learned is we need to regrade the surface and put in more drains,” Voytek said.
In other words, adjust.
Sports editor Chris Dugan can be reached at dugan@observer-reporter.com