OK, so if you have stepped outside at all recently, I could see why this headline could be a little misleading. But for me, the beginning of August has always marked the end of summer.
Maybe it was having to return to school while it was still 100 degrees outside but as with a lot of things in my life, my concept of time revolves around sports. When the calendar turns to August, the fall sports are starting to come alive.
As much as I have talked about sports over the summer, there may not be anything that compares to fall sports. Fall baseball feels like a whole new sport compared to what is being played in the spring and summer while football season is about to get into full swing in August.
The first day of fall is not until Sept. 23 but there are way too many football games, important baseball games, volleyball matches and more before we get to the changing leaves. Living in Alabama, football is related to every season but the fall truly marks the perfect time for football.
The high school football season begins in August with practices before the first week wraps up. I will spend more days on a football field during the final month of summer than I will in the final month of fall.
But football still belongs to the fall. There are two weeks worth of high school games plus the recovery day of Saturday will belong to college football before September arrives.
The first time being under the Friday night lights always feels like fall to me. It may take two quarters of football before the sun finally goes down but when you have a close game, no one cares it is only August because it can still feel like a game in Week 8.
On the diamond, you will see the intensity shoot up from the players, fans and even front offices across Major League Baseball as teams prepare for the final stretch. Usually it really starts getting good in September but with the number of teams involved in division races, games in August are going to have an energy nearly matching playoff games in October.
The New York Yankees will start their August with a vital three-game series against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. If that doesn’t feel like fall baseball to you, you probably just are not a baseball fan.
So, no, it is not officially the end of summer and it is pretty doubtful the sun is going to take things easy on us just because of the sports going on. (There are plenty of reasons to look forward to the fall and for me, the weather is one of them.)
While it may not feel like the seasons are changing, the sports we will be watching will still bring us a sense of fall.
Do not be bummed out your summer vacation is ending because fall sports are here to ease your pain a little bit. And if it somehow helps the temperature magically drop outside, I will not be mad about that.