It has been a long, hard nine-month wait, but Mississippi’s high school baseball season 2026 is finally here.
And I, for one, am so looking forward to the opening day ceremonies of my favorite high school sport. In fact, the first game for my local high school team, the East Union Urchins, is scheduled for Tuesday, February 10, 2006.
Get this, though. The high temperature for that day is predicted to be 72 degrees, with a low of only 49. Sounds perfect, right?
But truthfully, this weather forecast is the only thing that has me a little worried for the opening day of baseball season. Because let’s get real. It is never, ever 70 degrees for the first game of the year, here in Mississippi. So, yep, it makes me a little nervous.
So, I am hoping that we pull up to the field in a few days from now, and we need only get our chairs out of the car. I truly hope that we can leave the big blankets, multiple coats, and the Buddy Heater (or its big sister with the larger butane tank) in the car.
I really do hope that is the scenario, but … in all my years as a coach’s daughter, a player’s mom, a coach’s mother, and a player’s grandmother, I have never attended a warm and sunny opening day of baseball season.
I have, on the other hand, sat in frigid temperatures, with sleet falling or icy winds blowing. Those scenarios are so common in my historic love of high school baseball that those scenes kind of all run together. I can pull up dozens of memories, for sure, from my memory bank that involve cold, running noses, freezing toes inside two or three pairs of socks and the best boots in town, along with a backpack full of HotHands handwarmers that I might (or might not) have shared with the poor, freezing players in the dugout.
But I cannot – for the life of me – recall a warm opening day of baseball season.
Can you?
If so, make sure and share that memory with me. Maybe, I have simply forgotten. But I just cannot shake the feeling that somehow, some way, the weather forecast will change drastically between now and Tuesday, February 10, bring ingus our usual share of frosty, windy, and even icy conditions for the beginning of baseball.
I know, I know. I am just being a pessimistic old lady, and I should be grateful and excited for our predicted fair weather. And I will be. I promise.
I promise that I will set my favorite chair down right by the dugout on Tuesday and enjoy the sunshine and sunflower seeds that my husband always packs for each game. I will even admit to those sitting around me that I was wrong – totally wrong – if it actually is 70 degrees for our opening day.
Until then, I am making sure that Pops has the Buddy Heater tanks and the bigger tank filled with propane. I am getting out all the layers of clothing we will need as well, the Under Armour garments, the hoodies, the coats, the hats, the gloves, and an entire mound of warm blankets to share with those non-pessimistic and unprepared grandmas that will be sitting around me on Tuesday afternoon.
But no, my beloved Mississippi weather men. I cannot fully trust your call on this one. I am betting that Old Man Winter will come out to enjoy the first day of Mississippi high school baseball again this year.
I hope not! I really do.
But whatever the weather – wind, rain, sleet, hail, or even snow – I cannot wait to see those Urchins play ball. I know you feel the same way about your Mississippi high school athletes.
So, go to https://www.misshsaa.com/school-web-sites/, and lookup your local high school baseball team. Then, make plans accordingly, so you can watch your favorite baseball players shine on their opening day of the 2026 baseball season – even if the sun does not shine on that day as well.
