Puddles were a common sight in the infield at Sikeston's VFW Stadium Friday afternoon. Heavy rains and flooding in the area over the last several weeks have made it tough for baseball teams to take the field. (David Jenkins/Standard Democrat)

SIKESTON -- "We've played four whole games in three weeks." That was Sikeston head coach Kevin Self's response to the question of how bad the rain has affected the baseball season to date.

Self said it's the worst that he's seen it since somewhere between the years of 1998 and 2000, which was when St. John's ditch flooded out next to VFW Stadium into left field, forcing the team indoors for practice.

Charleston head coach Michael Minner said the last time he remembered missing this many games, either playing or coaching, was when he was 16 years old.

"I remember we got rained out like three or four times in a week or so," Minner said. "It was in Junior Legion. I remember we played for like 18-straight days."

Minner, whose team will be hosting a wood bat tournament in the coming weeks, said that it is scary to think that the tournament could potentially be rained out if the rains continue, as there is a lot of money involved in hosting.

"If we continue to get rain it's going to cause big problems for everybody," Minner said. "Our game from Thursday is moved to next week. We play four days next week and we have five the next with our tournament. The bulk of our season is in a month.

"Even if you do get the games in as far as rescheduling, you could get somebody like a No. 5 pitcher throwing against a No. 1," he added. "We need the experience, but you never know what other teams are going to do."

Self said that all of the games they have missed thus far have been conference games, which will have to be played before the district tournament.

"We've got to make those up," said Self. "We've got to play conference games before non-conference. You run out of days to play. We've only got four weeks and one of those is the conference tournament. Right now we have maybe the first week of May left to get one game rescheduled."

"I guess we could possibly get one game in right before districts," he added. "I wouldn't mind having another game or two that week before the district. Conference game or not, I just want somebody to play."

For Sikeston and Charleston alike, the practice routine has been all but routine.

Minner and Self both said that resorting to the gym for practice every once in a while is not all that bad, but when it becomes the norm for a week's worth of practice that it can cause problems.

"The biggest thing that it has done is prevent a rhythm of games and practice," said Self. "Pitchers need to be in a rhythm. We can't work on defensive stuff that we need to be working on, like we can outside. Kids get tired of being in the gym after a while too."

Self said that he has been trying lately to create games out of the squad's indoor batting practices to keep the kids motivated.

"It's hard to keep it interesting," he added. "But, our kids have done really well with it. Hopefully that mold with the rain will break this weekend and we can get some games in next week."

Minner said one of the only benefits of being indoors is that his pitching staff can get a lot of repetitions.

"My ace is 3-0 right now," said Minner. "We're seeing a lot of people's best pitcher right now with how the rain is working out. The way I look at it is, you're going to have to live off of a few pitchers come the end of the year."

Self said that he believes the rains may subside next week sometime, allowing teams to hit the field as scheduled.

"Lately the rain has been coming like three days in a row," Self said. "I think the showers we're having are saying that spring's not here just yet."

Hopefully, for athletics sake, spring will get here sooner than later and America's favorite pastime will be back in action for all to enjoy.