Would Players Be Affected If Iowa Changed High School Baseball Season To The Spring?

Julie Gates
Literature and Composition
Ms. Graves
November 10, 2017

How would players be affected if Iowa changed their high school softball and baseball season to the spring?

Title (centered) Baseball. A sport started in 1839, more than 150 years ago, is still very prevalent in today’s society. It is the eleventh most popular sport in the world. Played in 48 of the 50 states and is watched by people in all of the states. High schools all over the United States play baseball and it’s counterpart softball. One of the largest high school baseball and softball debates is when should the season be. The two seasons where high school softball is played is spring and summer. But which one is better? Iowa right now has baseball and

Some iowans are very stuck on keeping their baseball and softball in the spring while some of the players and their families are unhappy with the summer season. The bigger cities like Des Moines want to get the softball and baseball season changed while the smaller towns want it to stay put. The smaller towns have less athletes because they have a smaller population. Since they have less athletes the top players play more than one sport like baseball which is in the summer and track which is in the spring. By switching the baseball and softball season to the spring the players would have to choose which sport to play and both teams will lose players. None of the other 47 states that have high school softball and baseball have a summer season, all of them starting in the spring (Geleynse “Summer High school Baseball…). Some states like Missouri and Nebraska are even trying to have the softball season moved to the

One state that wants their season to get moved partially into the summer is Ohio. While the schools are not for it the players are. Ohio whose season was from May 30 to June 3 in 2017 wants to add two more weeks onto the end of their season making it go to around June 17th starting in 2019 (McNees). Marissa also talks about how in the season they are playing five to six games a week. This would be fine for softball, with pitchers being able to pitch until they stop pitching strikes or start hurting, but in baseball there is a pitch count. After you hit the pitch count you are not allowed to pitch for another day because pitching does a number on your arm. This new proposed season is very similar to Michigan’s season which was from May 30th to June 15-17th in 2017. Another state who has a similar season is Minnesota whose softball goes from March 12th to June 2nd and baseball goes from March 19th to June 8th (“Welcome to the Minnesota...”). While the northern states all have similar starting times, some of the southern states are sometimes finished by the time the northern states have their first practice. Florida and Texas are two of those states. Florida’s season starts on January 22nd for softball and February 19th for baseball. Their softball ends on April 14th and their baseball April 28th(“2018 Florida High School Softball...”,