DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: False starts of baseball season excruciating

There’s something special about the start of a new sports season for me, and nothing more frustrating when that season is postponed.

That happened to me twice this week as high school baseball and softball games planned for April 24 and 27 were cancelled due to wet fields. It’s no surprise to see these cancellations, as the first week of high school baseball is never a sure thing even in a spring as nice as this, but the false starts are always sad to me.

It’s not just the variation of getting out to some different sports that excites me for ball season, but a new love of the sport that only began after I started covering the games when I worked in Altona.

Let’s get the generic summer positives out of the way first.

It’s so nice to get out of rinks for the summer, and let my system finally eject the “rink cold” I seem to catch from November to February every year. It’s great to bike to events, which is easier to do, and even if I do drive, I tend to do much less of it in the summer. And there’s nothing like taking photos in natural light as compared to indoors. The sun is the best flash anyone could ask for.

But there’s also a comfort for me to cover a baseball game, both from a photography standpoint and a writing standpoint. I try to bring our readers into a single moment in time whenever I cover a game, the decisive play that changed one team’s fortune, literally won them the game or is indicative of what the whole game was like.

In baseball that play is always easy to see coming, meaning I don’t have to be on edge like in soccer, hockey or rugby that I’ll potentially miss the play of the game.

From a photography perspective, it’s maybe the perfect sport to cover. There are easy, solid photos to be found in the first inning, but still the potential to grab the best photo I’ve ever taken. I’ve been chasing the shortstop laying out, with his entire body off the ground and the ball about to hit his glove on a diving stop my entire career.

It’s also the best sport to capture those moments between players that are tough to see in sports with more equipment or take place further away from my lens.

My favourite sports photo of all time was taken in 1972, when Sports Illustrated photographer John Iacono, captured White Sox first baseman Dick Allen juggling baseballs while smoking a cigarette.

That’s the sort of image that is easiest to capture in baseball or softball.

So break out the sunflower seeds, lather up some sunscreen and head out to watch some ball this season.