The high school sports year has ended as the final champions for 2007-08 have been crowned.
Were they crowned soon enough?
Watch my latest video commentary or read below:
Monday night, three high school baseball champions were crowned.
Tuesday night, another two were.
Too bad. It’s not the teams — the winners or the losers — it’s the timing.
State title games on Monday and Tuesday? That’s like having prom on a Wednesday or staff meeting on a Saturday. Certain events belong at certain times of the week, and state championship events should be on the weekend, Friday or Saturday.
And the state baseball tournaments in Oklahoma are supposed to climax on Saturday. All of them were supposed to wrap up a few days ago. A couple did, but most were delayed until this week because of weather.
It happens every year.
OK, maybe not every year. I didn’t go back into our archives and try to figure out if at least one of the tournaments got delayed every year, but remember, these tournaments happen in late April and early May in Oklahoma. If you haven’t noticed, we have a lot of storms around here this time of year.
That isn’t going to change.
What should, though, is the format for the state baseball tournaments. There’s no need to have a double-elimination format. Make the tournaments a win-or-go-home format, and you would avoid those championships getting pushed into the middle of the next week.
And besides, few high school teams have the pitching for a double-elimination tourney. Coaches can stretch a roster, but really, the teams would be at their best and the games would be better if the pitching wasn’t so thin.
So, go ahead and make the state baseball tournaments single elimination. High school state championship events are always going to be grand, but these could be just a little better with one small tweak.