When I was a kid, every February, at the start of spring training, I'd talk the rest of our pals into playing a game of whiffle ball. No, we didn't play in some warm gymnasium. We'd be out in the backyard, shoveling out the basepaths, because February in Erie, Pa., almost always means snow -- a lot of it.

Today's cover story in Varsity -- the Erie Times-News' Wednesday sports magazine about high school athletes -- focuses on the indoor baseball facility at Denny Braendel's painting and home services building.

As Matt Jackson describes in his article, Braendel decided seven years ago to build a 20,000-square-foot baseball and softball facility in his building, which at one time housed a Cola-Cola bottling plant. He did it because he loves baseball, and, at the time, his son, Shane, was a member of Cathedral Prep's baseball team. Also, Braendel's daughter, Chelsea, was a sophomore on Villa Maria's softball team.

Like a lot of fathers, Denny Braendel took a great interest in his children's athletic pursuits, and he sponsored and coached several of his sons' teams. But, in Erie, baseball is a difficult sport because the season is so short.

It's not like California or Texas or Florida here. Sometimes we get snowstorms in April, and the high school baseball season is often played in frigid weather. The coldest nights I can ever remember were evenings in April when, as a boy, I went to tryouts to make a little league team.

Enough of my complaints. Braendel did something about his dream of practicing baseball almost year 'round. He built a field, with backstops, baselines -- the whole works. About the only thing players can't do is field high popups, because the ceiling isn't high enough.

Teams from throughout Erie County use the facility for practice from early in the morning until late into the evening -- sometimes past midnight.

Jackson's story in today's newspaper gives readers a unique glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that Braendel's indoor field has helped improve the quality of baseball played in Erie.

Today's story in Varsity reminded me that our sons and daughters, who love baseball, have it easier than we did. It was hard work to shovel off those basepaths in February!

-- Kevin Cuneo

** Send me a comment about this blog, so we can have a dialogue **