There is a relationship between spring and baseball. As the days grow longer, the weather gets warmer and the grass turns greener, there is also the hope that comes with a new season.

For high school players, though, that hope begins with tryouts, and those tryouts begin in less than idyllic weather.

Here is what that process was like for players at Marriotts Ridge High School.

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Plain and simple, snow messes up baseball.

No precipitation fell on the first day of tryouts, Feb. 28, but the thick, gray clouds and the see-your-own breath coming from the boys' mouths like puffs of smoke foretold what was to come.

On March 2, the Mustangs' baseball diamond became a blanket of snow. There would be no school and no baseball until the next school day, a Tuesday. Even then, school started after a two-hour delay.

Pitchers and catchers met for a 6 a.m. workout on Wednesday, March 3, which was the players' last day to prove their skills to varsity coach Paul Eckert and junior varsity coach Craig Blum.

Last season, Marriotts Ridge won county and regional championships and played well in a Class 2A title game loss to Kent Island, but as Eckert will tell you, that was last year and this is this year.

During tryouts, returning varsity and JV players were in one group, while freshmen and new sophomores made up another group.

The soft, dirt-sputtering hops of infield ground balls were replaced by hard bounces off the lacquered gym floor. The sound of balls striking metal bats echoed off the cinder block walls of the auxiliary gym and passed balls often ricocheted off the folded bleachers in the main gym.

On the last day of tryouts, the players got outside. The new underclassmen carried their gear through melting snow across the street to be tested on their fielding skills at Mount View Middle School, where the snow had been cleared off the blacktop.

When the assessment period was finished, all the players met back at Marriotts Ridge in the second-floor hallway outside Eckert's classroom for a face-to-face meeting with the coaches.

Eckert and Blum went through the arduous process of informing players who did not make varsity, easily the worst part of the job, the coaches say. The coaches talked with the players and told them why they didn't make the team and what skills they needed to work on.

In the end, none of the returning players were cut. Nine of the underclassmen went to JV, and one freshman made varsity.

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