This past Monday at noon, the temperature was a crisp 65 degrees, a nice breeze was blowing and the sun was shining bright. The grass on Bazinsky Field was lush and green, and the dirt was deep brown.

It was a perfect day for baseball — only there was no baseball.

Even though no more rain was in the forecast for a few days, the half-inch or so we got on Sunday was enough to force Vicksburg High and Northwest Rankin to postpone their afternoon game. The City of Vicksburg’s Parks and Recreation Department decided it wasn’t worth the time and expense to make the field playable.

On the surface, it was probably a good decision. The materials used to dry the field are expensive, and the manpower needed to apply it might have been needed elsewhere. Getting the field ready for one game on short notice might not have been feasible.

Digging deeper, though, the sunny-day rainout was symbolic of an ongoing feud between the Parks and Recreation Department and Vicksburg High and St. Aloysius, the two high school teams that use Bazinsky as their home field.

For years now, the high schools’ coaches have offered to team up and work with the city to take care of the field as if it were their own. Maintaining a field is part of a baseball team’s skillset just like hitting and pitching. Vicksburg’s Derrick DeWald and St. Al’s Sid Naron, as well as several of their predecessors, have expressed a willingness to pull their weight and perform some of the game day duties like dragging the infield or tending to it when it’s wet to avoid situations like Monday’s rainout.

They’d also like to tackle some bigger projects to make it a ballpark friendlier to their teams. The pitcher’s mound, for example, is barely higher than an anthill and puts them at a competitive disadvantage. Several coaches at both schools over the years have wanted to raise it up.

The coaches, though, have met with resistance. Perhaps there are liability or legal issues. When scheduling maintenance duties, it might be easier to keep it all under the city’s roof. Maybe the city is afraid the teams will blow through materials too quickly and put a dent in the budget, or maybe it’s just a turf war.

There could be a hundred legitimate reasons why the two sides can’t seem to get on the same page on the issue. Here’s hoping they can find some common ground, though. A knowledgeable volunteer labor force is too valuable an asset to just throw away. It’s like canceling a game on a perfect sunny day.

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Ernest Bowker is a sports writer for The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com