With a blink of an eye … they're gone

Faster than the blink of an eye, shorter than the life of the average sitcom on the WB Network, quicker than the snowmachines that skip across a busy Alaska highway in the season -- are the spring seasons for the high school squads.

Though they practice for months in the winter, the local prep baseball, softball, track and soccer teams get about a month to be out on their respective fields of play.

In a good year each team might get 30 days worth of outdoor time. Thirty days to kick in goals, bat in runs or speed across the finish line. Thirty days really isn't that much considering that is one-fourth of the high school basketball season, one -fifth of a college football season and about one-eighth of the National Basketball Association calender.

In the bad years, such as this one, athletes are kept indoors until the last possible moment, until the fields are still soaked but just dry enough to play on. Alaskans make great sacrifice for beautiful summer weather. To enjoy the blue skies, balmy temperatures and endless sunlight we must endure snow, darkness and bitter, bitter cold. It is like our penance. If the winter does not kill us, we can enjoy the summer.

For the athletes who compete in spring sports, their penance is hours of throwing the baseball or kicking the soccer ball inside the gym or running down the hallways of the school.

Their reward is about 30 days of competing in the sport the love in the outdoors.

Jeremiah Bartz is the Frontiersman sports editor considers his reward sitting outside on a beautiful Alaska evening, watching a ball game. This is well- deserved after a bitter, bitter cold of winter.