Honestly, setting up Limestone Baseball’s full schedule for 2025 felt like herding cats at first. I had this giant stack of papers – emails from other coaches, league rules scribbled on notepads, last year’s crumpled schedule stained with coffee – sprawled all over my kitchen table early Tuesday morning. My laptop screen was blindingly bright.
The Data Dump Begins
First, I grabbed my notebook and flipped through pages from months of talks and meetings. Dates started floating around in my head – regional games gotta fit school holidays, gotta avoid those SAT testing weekends everyone complains about, plus our field maintenance days penciled in for April. Total chaos in my brain. Started scribbling potential home game dates in pencil, lots of erasing involved. My dog kept trying to eat the eraser crumbs.
Then came the real headache: who we play and where. Pulled up emails going back to November. Coach Reynolds confirmed our traditional opener against Rock Creek for March 15th, which felt solid. But Coach Bennett? That dude ghosted me for weeks about rescheduling the Pine Grove away game from last year’s rainout. Finally got him on the phone while I was microwaving lunch – settled on May 10th as a doubleheader. Typed that straight into my spreadsheet before I forgot, almost burnt my soup.
Building the Skeleton
My spreadsheet looked kinda messy at this point – just columns for date, opponent, home or away, notes. Started slotting games:
- March 15: Rock Creek Valley @ HOME (Season Opener!)
- March 22: @ Rivertown (Their field drains slow, pray no rain)
- April 3: COUNTY SHOWDOWN vs. Cedar Bluff @ HOME
Kept jumping between tabs – school district calendar for snow days, league master sheet for bye weeks, my own notes. Accidentally put Valley High down twice! Almost messed that up big time. Had to go back double-checking junk constantly.
Filling in the Bloody Details
Once the main chunk of games looked right (late March to early May), I went digging for specifics. Emailed our Athletics Director about bus times – turns out those Friday away games gotta start later for driver availability. Updated those times. Found a sticky note reminding me about the annual “Community Day” game where kids run bases after – shoved that into the June 7th slot vs. Oakwood. Added little notes everywhere: “Senior Day”, “DH” for doubleheaders, “Black jerseys?”. Wanted parents scanning it to actually find stuff.
Cleaning Up the Mess
Ended up with a spreadsheet row for every single game – regular season, tournaments, even that weird exhibition against the alumni planned for August. Still looked like abstract art. Closed it and walked away for an hour. Came back, printed the damn thing out, grabbed a red pen, and sat on my porch. Circled typos (“Rivertown” vs “Riverton” – fixed it). Made sure all the “HOME”s and “AWAY”s were clear. Double-checked no games fell on holidays or Graduation day (almost missed that!). Cross-referenced with the League master list one… last… time. Yup, finally freaking done.
The Big Reveal
Hit publish on the blog post just before dinnertime. Threw in the finalized schedule table I built manually in HTML – took ages getting the borders right. Made sure to add that key note about checking the Athletic Dept website for last-minute weather changes because that always bites us. Previewed it, sighed that sigh of relief you get after building IKEA furniture without leftovers, and hit post. Coffee break time. Tada!