Mike Grasso is known to be a very positive individual and why not?

This month he's celebrating his 40th year of coaching and teaching, as well as his 40 year wedding anniversary, and on Monday, he celebrated his team's first day of being able to practice outside.

The Golden Hawks have only one game under their belt this year, an 11-2 defeat at the hands of Whitehall, but Grasso isn't fretting the backlog of games his team is going through, even staying positive that this week's slate of games won't be canceled because of the weather, despite Monday's game with Notre Dame-East Stroudsburg being called because of poor field conditions.

To Grasso, it's all part of being patient.

"I think baseball is one of the great games that teaches you to be patient in life and that's how we're looking at it," he said of his team's current state. "We're just going with the bounces. I can't really worry about it because these kids are working hard and they have a great attitude."

With such a young team this season, Grasso knows that game experience is the biggest thing his team needs moving forward.

"I need game time with them," Grasso said. "There's no substitute for it. I think when you have a veteran team with seniors, you can deal with not playing this early in the season better, but with such a young group, you need them to play and learn from their mistakes. We only have three guys with varsity experience really, so it's going to take time. I just wish we could get out there."

The Hawks were supposed to play Pleasant Valley on Tuesday, Dieruff on Thursday and Central Catholic on Saturday. With rain in the forecast nearly every day this week, the odds of playing appear slim.

The problem that will pose is playing the rest of their season in such a tight schedule. The Hawks regular season finale is slated for May 4. As of print of this article, that would mean they'd have to play 16 games in 27 days to get everything in, which leaves little room for error.

"I think it's just one of these years where if we started the season against more Lehigh Valley teams, it would be a different story," he said of the canceled games, "but we were scheduled with more teams from up north and fields just weren't ready. I just take it as experiences in life that you learn from."