Here’s some tids and bits to put a spring into your step on the first weekend of, well, spring:

Here’s a rescue story.

Kudos to Rivier University and baseball coach Anthony Perry, who helped spearhead a near miraculous rennovation of now-closed Daniel Webster’s Harvey Woods Field.

The facility, thanks to the school’s closing and the property being in semi-limbo, had become an overgrown disaster. In a city always craving field space, a baseball diamond was dying a slow, painful death.

Raiders softball coach Mike Holloran was on the property for some industrial work a while ago and spoke with former DWC president Mike Diffily, who has been acting as a spokesman for the property’s new owner, Chinese national Sui Liu. Can the Harvey Woods diamond be rescued? The answer was yes, at your cost.

Holloran relayed the message to Perry, the Raiders baseball coach, and Rivier invested some $20,000 into fixing the field. “Part of the agreement is we take care of the field, maintain it,” Perry said, noting the company Oasis Property Management and owner William Bourque out of Haverhill, Mass.oversaw the spectacular work.

The Raiders, remember, don’t have a baseball field on campus, and they would much prefer to have their home games at Holman Stadium when it’s available. But when it’s not, and for practices, Harvey Woods will do just fine, thank you.

“My personal hope is that we can do even more rennovations to it next year,” Perry said. “It’s great to have another field available.”

Whispers have been that Nashua city officials weren’t happy seeing the DWC fields go to waste, and why would they? Kudos to the Raiders for stepping up. Harvey Woods Field isn’t even 20 years old yet, and deserves the care it’s now getting.

—Sneak Prevew: Sunday readers will all get a look at the preliminary Nashua Silver Knights roster, and while it’s a predominantly freshman-sophomore team, it’s a roster of players who for the most part are seeing action this spring. The goal is to avoid the slow start of last season that contributed to a 21-33 mark, including a one-run playoff loss to the Brockton Rox. Meanwhile, new owner John Creedon is making the rounds; he is said to have met with manager B.J. Neverett and his staff this past week as well as Nashua athletic director Lisa Gingras to familiarize himself with the area schools and their athletic needs when it comes to Holman. Good job.

—–The National Football League owners meetings begin early this week, and it’s going to be an incredible media feast attempt on New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft thanks to his highly embarrassing Florida solicitation charges. It will deflect some of the league business that badly needs to get settled, mainly issues with replay and overtime. But the calls for Kraft’s head on a platter are simply ridiculous. A fine, perhaps a suspension, and you can bet he has kept NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell informed of what he’s doing legally and why. But it will be quite the show this week in Arizona.

—– Other than the Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team, how tough was this winter for local hoop and hockey teams? All you had to do is look at the All-State teams – for example, there were just three local boys hockey All-Staters, period. And two girls. There was a glaring omission also when the Cards’ multi-positiona Lindsay Hult was not named. If you watched the Cards play, you’ll see why. The good news locally is a lot of the top players were underclassmen and will be back.

—-Major League Baseball is becoming more and more of a joke. It tried having its big opener on Sunday Night Baseball, and abandoned that idea for some reason. And this year it has its first games that count being played in Japan, with Oakland and Seattle just having concluded a two-game set in which both games began at 5:30 a.m. Yes, 5:30.

It’s all about the dollars, right? But is it really worth it? Contrast that with the NFL, which has a huge celebration with a Thursday Night telecast. Baseball has simply lost its way.

—- Consider this about the Guertin girls basketball team. Junior forward Aaliyah Forman just received her fourth offer, this from UMass-Lowell to go with Holy Cross, UNH, and URI, and could get up to four more offers between now and the fall. Other teammates have received offers as well. All six to seven in the Cards’ regular rotation will be playing college basketball two years from now, be it Division I, II, or perhaps III. We likely haven’t seen that since the Nashua dynasty of the mid to late 1980s.

Tom King may be reached at 594-1251, or@Telegraph_TomK.tking@nashuatelegraph.com

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