As an avid baseball fan, this is not a fun article to write.

It’s always a tough time both as a fan and a player early on in the season. You have to see the players wearing those ugly hoods that go under their hats and sit in the stands wrapped in blankets. That’s all well and good for football, but not for America’s pastime.

Rowan’s game at Arcadia on Wednesday has been postponed to April 1 and their double-header at Immaculata University on Saturday has been pushed to March 28, both due to cold weather.

Very upsetting.

Very sad.

But it’s for the best, because the temperature Wednesday feels like 12 degrees and it doesn’t take Buster Olney to know that that’s not baseball weather.

According to head coach Mike Dickson, playing in freezing cold weather is actually a health risk to baseball players. The “baseball is boring” people are going to love this quote.

“The biggest thing is going and sitting around for a period of time then running back out there,” Dickson said. “Obviously, sports where you’re constantly moving is different. You don’t run the risk of injury. In our sport you run around and then you’re sitting for a while and then have to sprint to first base. Sometimes, for the pitchers, the cold weather isn’t as bad as the position players because they’re already warmed up. They’re used to moving the whole time. If you’re the left fielder who hasn’t had a ball hit to you in three innings, it’s going to get pretty cold out there and you run the risks of [injuring] hamstrings and groins and stuff like that.”

Junior Jeremy Dyzenhaus, who was scheduled to start against Arcadia, says the team is growing impatient with the bad weather. He’s upset he doesn’t get to pitch Wednesday but knows practicing indoors is still better, as frustrating as it may be.

“Indoors helps especially because it’s extra practice, especially for our hitters, but everyone just wants to get outside right now,” Dyzenhaus said.

Dickson is grateful for the team’s opportunity to work out indoors at Total Turf in Pitman but says it’s hard to simulate game-like intensity. It’s like playing soccer in a classroom. He says there are no errors in the batting cage, so everyone looks good.

With only a one-game sample size to go off, it’s hard for players and coaches to gauge what needs to be worked on.

“Baseball is a game where you need to play it every day because it’s more skill-based than pure athleticism,” Dickson said. “To be able to see different pitches and to be able to see different things that happen in an at-bat, you need to be able to play every day. That’s why the big leaguers play 162 games.”

Dyzenhaus says the team scouts all opponents, especially the pitchers on their match-ups with the opposing teams’ batters because it’s important to “know what’s coming.” Luckily, the coach had an inkling the game would be postponed, so he can delay his scouting until later this month.

The Brown and Gold will see their next action in Florida where the cold can’t turn them anyway. They’ll be there for eight games in nine days from March 15 to 23 for the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational. Rowan went a perfect 8-0 last year during the trip.

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