These are strange days for players and coaches of all sports, but those feeling the pinch the most right now are involved with baseball and softball.
April is supposed to be baseball season. Of course, this being the Ohio Valley, it’s also the month of buckets of rain and mass postponements, followed by a mad dash to cram in as many games as possible before the OVAC tournament cutoff date.
Well April is ending tonight. True to form, the rain has done its job and was plentiful. Vacant facilities with water-soaked infields dot the landscape. But while the sun may come out tomorrow, the boys and girls won’t be following it out onto the fields — just another casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.
Baseball players and coaches like St. Clairsville Post 159 manager Mike Muklewicz, hope for a legion season still yields promise, though that hope is starting to wane.
Muklewicz, a starring pitcher both at Bridgeport High School and later Bethany College, has been around the game since before kindergarten. It’s one of his great loves. As the prospect of an entire year without baseball becomes less a possibility and more a likelihood, the coach has spent time reflecting on the negatives, and the few positives, coming from this shared experience.
In the last eight seasons, five as the manager, Muklewicz has helped guide Post 159 into a regional power in legion ball. The last four years, the team has gone 91-39, twice winning the District crown and advancing to the state tournament. The other two seasons? Post 159 was the district runner-up.
Muklewicz’s team also became the only local outfit in the 30-plus years of the Edgar Martin Beast of the East Classic to win the summer classic’s coveted 19-and-under championship trophy back in the summer of 2016.
He also served as either assistant or head coach at his alma mater for both the Bulldogs’ baseball and golf teams in the past, helping guide Bridgeport to the 2014 OVAC golf championship. He’s assisted Donnie Cash with the boys’ basketball team for five years and two at the junior high level before that.
Sports is in his blood, but for Muklewicz, baseball holds that special place in his heart. But so does his family.
“Muk” as many know him, lives with his wife, Alison, in St. Clairsville. Under their roof are two boys, Deklan and Kash, along with Ryah, the eldest of three. And while the sporting life is on hold for the family, life, in general, is not.
Barely above the age of 30, Muklewicz is taking almost a sage-like approach with his thoughts on the present situation. On one hand, he greatly misses the sport, his players, the camaraderie and watching it all come together. But he realizes why what’s done had to be done, and he’d rather not risk the safety of those players he so cares about if not necessary, no matter how much they may protest.
He also realizes the special time both he and Alison are able to spend together with the family as a unit and that an opportunity like this most likely won’t—and especially won’t for this type of reason—come around again. In true coach speak, Muklewicz is taking it one day at a time, living in the now and not overlooking the great opportunity the extra time together as afforded his family.
This has to be a rough time for you, no spring baseball, no Major League baseball, and the legion season is still in limbo. Can you remember a time where you went through a whole season with no baseball involvement at all? How have you been managing your time?
I officially picked up a baseball when I was five. From little league, high school, college, and back coaching two teams — now down to just Post 159. This is the first time in 26 years it has ever being absent. It’s weird. It just feels like a long winter at this point, but it’s starting to set in.
The high school kids hung on so long with the hope of maybe at least a shortened season for the spring, only for it to be canceled. Do you almost not want to wait to the last minute for news on legion, only for them possibly to get crushed again? Is it hard to resist the temptation when you see a nice day and an empty field to “accidentally” meet a few of your players there to even just pass or throw a little bp?
That high school season being cancelled is really unfortunate. I can’t imagine. You practice and endure the cold February and March practices for a reason. Playing baseball up here in the North is rough, and for the kids to go through the worst part and not get to step on the field when the weather finally breaks is awful. Seniors were playing their last game as a junior and never knew it. Everyone looks forward to that final year, and poof, it’s gone. No one forgets their last high school game. I was the tying run standing on second against River at home in a sectional game when mine ended almost 15 years ago, and we sat under the lights in the dugout for a couple hours after everyone left the field. Those are the memories that the kids are missing out on. It was a decision that OSHAA had to make, and obviously it was the right one, but it’s tough and I feel for these guys.
On the positive side, are you enjoying the extra time with your wife and son? As a coach’s wife, I’m sure she’s used to you being gone or busy a lot of hours of the day both during the preseason and in-season. Is she taking advantage with either extra time with the three of you, or extra sleep while you are on duty? Has the honey-do list increased in its length?
I have an 18-month-old, and if there was ever a time to have some extra time together, it’s now. I really appreciate it. As far as the dreaded honey-do list, I’m lucking out since we are in the process of buying another house.
Do you get a lot of messages and texts from players and other coaches even, on if you’ve heard anything in relation to the season? Being that you played at the next level, how is this affecting those sophomores and juniors as far as getting looks, along with maybe some of the seniors who were still waiting to make their choice or get that call they were waiting for?
I’m getting texts from a handful of players and parents, texting my coaches, and members of the media all asking the same questions that none of us Legion guys have an answer to. Almost 20 states have cancelled their seasons. The National Headquarters has cancelled the regional and Legion World Series. At this point, they have left it up to each state to make its own decision being that the severity of coronavirus is varied across the country. Ohio is on right now. If I had to put my paycheck on it, I have a feeling the closer we get, the more likely it is to be cancelled. I just don’t see how we stick a bunch of kids in a dugout together in close contact with each other when we are wearing masks when we go to Walmart. I hope I’m wrong, but we have a responsibility to take care of these kids and it’s not necessarily about them but their parents and grandparents.
There are some possible contingency plans. Some states are playing unofficial seasons as legion teams or creating non-affiliated teams. I have been looking at how that might work, and we are more than willing to take those steps if possible. It would be a lot easier to make these decisions if opening if there were at least a month between opening day and opening the country. I hope we can just roll with our official season, but we aren’t going to know until the third or fourth week of May. Until then the kids are tossing and taking BP together. I love seeing the social media posts of a bucket of balls or long tossing. They will be ready to go if we get a thumbs up; that’s for sure!
What have you as a family done to break up the monotony of the stay-at-home order? Your son is younger. How have you gone about explaining to him what’s going on? Did you dial it back some or try to be as honest as you can so he can know why things are different and he can’t do certain things he’s used to doing? You obviously worry about your family and your players in moving back too soon, but adding your child into the mix, does that add a whole extra layer of precaution in how in a hurry you may be for things to get back to normal?
My grass is cut on a regular basis; I can say that. Working from home is a blessing and a curse. The flexibility is great, but my office chair is forming a nice mold at this point. There is only so much you can do around the house and so many walks you can take. The good thing is we are all spending time with our families. The world is so fast-paced, and we get so caught up in school, jobs, ball games that we never really sit down and break bread or talk. I would advise anyone to enjoy this time around whomever you are because this kind of situation is once in a lifetime. Some of us may never slow down this much to enjoy what we have again. You can’t take that for granted.
