APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) – Baseball season in Wisconsin is right around the corner, but the Timber Rattlers home is covered in a blanket of snow, in need of mother nature’s corporation.
The clock is ticking, the first home game at Fox Cities Stadium is less than a month away.
“All it takes is a good warm stretch and a lot of sun on the field because the field does get a lot of sun. It will be gone right away once mother nature decides to warm up.”
Chris Mehring of the Timber Rattlers says they need a warm up quickly and a little bit of rain would help.
“It hasn’t really been this bad, this close to the season for quite a few years.”
Looking back, Mehring says last year was bad, only because the April blizzard actually wiped out a homestand of games.
“We had trucks and bobcats in here. Our staff was out shoveling and putting snow into carts and wheeling it out back.”
He says there was one other time that they were concerned about starting on time.
“One of my first years working fulltime for the team there was still snow on the ground when tickets went on sale, but it was all gone by opening day.”
Mehring says given the position of the field, the snow can melt fast, but they will do what they have to do, even if they have to move it with manual labor.
The good news is, for now, the team is in Arizona at spring training with the Brewers and there is still time to get the field ready for the team.
“We are hoping that they get to see at least some green grass and the only snow they see when they get home is piled up in the parking lot.”
The Timber Rattlers home opener is April 6th.
Unlike the Packers, Mehring says they don’t have hundreds of volunteers lining up to shovel snow out of the stadium, in Appleton, it is all done by staff.
“We have to play games to pay the bills so everybody pitches in when they can.”
This year offers one more interesting factor in the whole process.
“We have a new groundskeeper this year, so this is his first experience with this for a while because he came from Florida State.”
Mehring says they know they are in a race against the clock, but they are hoping for the best.
