Rain delays Rabinovitz baseball tournament

Heavy rain postponed Tuesday’s baseball games in the first round of the A.L. Rabinovitz Tournament in Santa Rosa until today and Thursday.

The 23rd annual tournament, named in honor of longtime Montgomery High School boosters Al and Leona Rabinovitz, is hosted by Montgomery and played at three other sites in Santa Rosa.

It was set to start Tuesday and finish today.

But after heavy rains overnight Monday and Tuesday morning, tournament director Mickey Rabinovitz made the call early Tuesday to delay games for one day.

“I will do everything I can to get it played,” he said.

In years past, the annual spring tournament has been postponed similarly, and one year was even played over three successive Mondays to accommodate school and team schedules.

The new schedule, weather permitting, calls for opening games today to all begin at 12:30 p.m., instead of some at 11 a.m. Second-round games will start at 3:30 p.m.

Today’s games will be at Montgomery, Piner and Analy high schools and at Doyle Park, home field to Sonoma Academy.

Other teams in the tournament include Northgate, Petaluma, Ukiah and Windsor.

Thursday’s games are scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. at Montgomery, and 2 p.m. at Doyle Park.

The championship game is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday at Montgomery.

Al and Leona Rabinovitz were married for more than 55 years and were both graduates of Analy. They were boosters for youth programs and athletics in Sebastopol and at Montgomery. Al volunteered for many years with the Viking baseball program when his son Mickey was a coach.

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.