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SML to play if all is well
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Posted on Aug 28 2005
By the time this paper hits newsstands this morning, the fate of tonight’s Saipan Major League Baseball Association championship contest between the pennant winning Northern Yankees and the Ford Rangers may already be decided.
If the skies open up and water the already saturated ground of the Oleai Sports Complex, chances are that Game 2 will have to wait another day, but if the infield of Francisco M. Palacios baseball field is dry, the best-of-five series could continue tonight at 6:30pm.
For the better part of the past week and a half, the field looked more like Lake Susupe than the home of the Commonwealth’s top hardballers. Perhaps Mother Nature is intentionally postponing the series because the SML finale will be the last action seen by Palacios field until the proposed Micronesian Games comes to Saipan.
Tentatively the Summer/Fall League will move to the Kan-Pacific baseball field in Marpi to allow the centrally located Beach Road facility to grow a grassy infield, but all bets are off—including the date of the next contest.
If the sun and heat can deal the rain a defeat this afternoon, Game 2 of the best-of-five series will continue tonight at Francisco M. Palacios field at 6pm with Game 3 to follow on Wednesday, Aug. 31.
After wining the pennant and eliminating the Budweiser Kings in the opening round of the playoffs, the Yankees took a huge step toward regaining their 2003 title last Monday as they edged the Rangers by a pair of runs to take Game 1, 4-2. They will gain a strangle hold on the Rangers if they can win their second in a row tonight.
