As a baseball player the weather can be your best friend or your worst enemy. It could range from the cold weather in school ball to 100 degrees in summer ball. There are a few tolls the weather does on your body when you’re on the field.

I went to Coach Crawford, the head baseball coach here at Locust Grove, to give me a point of view of what he sees from his players in cold weather followed by a few questions. “Those late February nights at LakePoint really can take a toll on a player. It being 42 degrees and you have a double header you can see the energy drained from their faces sometimes,” stated Coach Crawford.

My next question for coach was how he game-planned for the cold weather, “Of course you always stretch and throw before, but when the temperature gets below a certain degree sleeves are a must for my players arms. To keep your arm warm throughout a game is a struggle at least and pitch counts are reduced a little but not much because a pitcher is constantly using his arm making it easy to keep warm.”

Now I asked for a different game plan for hot weather to see the difference. His response was,”Hot weather is a lot different because my players are old enough to take care of their arms in normal conditions, but when it comes to cold weather you have to watch out for them.” Thanks to coach Crawford we are able to see a quick insight of how the weather can affect a high school baseball team.  Not only does the cold weather drain you of energy but taking care of your arm becomes more difficult. From keeping it warm to stretching and throwing properly, everything can be a damaging factor.