Reign of fair weather ends

DAVE CONNOLLY'S stretch as Philadelphia's calmest sports person ended Monday.

His phone and email accounts again were ablaze/jammed and all was finally not right in his management world.

Connolly, the athletic director at Horace Furness High, in South Philly, is the Public League baseball chairman and Monday, for the first time all season, rain and/or wet grounds caused a rash of postponements.

Ten, 20, 30 years from now, someone will stumble upon this story via a search engine and growl, "Hold on here. In 2012, you actually expect me to believe no rainouts occurred until April 23? One whole month into the season? Nice try."

Nothing like nonstop respectable weather.

And check this out: All winter, there were no postponements of Public/Catholic/Inter-Ac basketball games due to snow. And here's something even crazier: The only postponement during football season occurred Oct. 29 thanks to . . . snow!

Remember that? Snow right before Halloween? West Catholic's Saturday afternoon game against Lansdale Catholic, scheduled for Wissahickon High, was postponed even though both teams were already at the stadium. It was played Oct. 31 at Plymouth-Whitemarsh and West's 40-8 victory ended the 44-year career of LC's coach, Jim Algeo.

This has to be the most unaffected-by-weather school year in city sports history.

"The winter was so mild, we could have played the baseball season then," cracked Connolly, who last Friday was honored by the Public League Coaches Association (all sports) for his achievement/service. "I usually hope for five snow days, nicely spaced out. They serve as mental health days."

Judging by the forecast, this week could present further problems.

"I was reading one day where the area's rainfall is 9 inches below normal; something like that," Connolly said. "Guess what? I don't care. Let's get the baseball season completed and then it can rain all it wants in July and August.

"No [weather] postponements until now. It is amazing. Of course, we had some of our usual issues with transportation. Like the beautiful, 85-degree day when we had to postpone a game because a team's bus didn't show up. Hey, everything can't go smoothly, right?"