East Lyme — Under the category of Things Required To Run A School System, maintaining the baseball field ranks about 713th in overall significance. Rake, drag, grade, water, cut. Not exactly trying to decipher the particulars of a nuclear reactor.

And yet the lifeless lawn at East Lyme High remains inoperable, to the point that the senior baseball players will complete their careers this spring never having played a game on their home field.

"At this point," senior Chris Martin was saying the other day at practice, "there's really nothing you can do about it. It is what it is. Kind of like the pandemic."

Martin's words elicited a chuckle, if for no other reason than his enviable deadpan. How sad, though, that something as elemental as playing on a baseball field suddenly gets tethered to the tentacles of the pandemic and the associated feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness and exasperation.

Funny thing about stories like this. On the surface, it's a baseball field, easily dismissed as irrelevant in the bigger scheme. But do elected officials appreciate the frequency with which they're judged on the little things?

Put it this way: Abstractions makes for good sound bites — like your thriving economic development plans — but if your town swings and misses on plowing snow effectively or untimely trash pickup, everyday life is imperiled and the fallout is severe.

This is why the town's Board of Education should understand the importance of this project. It's "only" a field, sure. But public perception is not complicated: If you can't figure out how to maintain a baseball field, why give politicos the benefit of the doubt on bigger matters?

The two-minute drill version: The Board approved a $175,000 expenditure last year to fix a boatload of issues, including poor drainage. Irrigation and other incidentals increased the expenditure recently to $230,000. The Board chose reconstruction over rehab and should be commended for finally realizing that a Band-Aid doesn't work on a hemorrhage.

But it'll be at least June before the field is operable, what with questions of prepared sod vs. cultivated sod, site work, irrigation, connecting water and time required for the sod to take and grow.

The biggest concern: What if this doesn't work? What if there are underlying problems that require the whole complex to be redone? It's a legitimate question, given that this field has been the town's bete noire for a decade.

If $230,000 doesn't work, East Lyme needs to proceed in one of two ways: turf it or forget it. Invest or punt. Because this can't keep happening.

The Vikings, ever the successful baseball program, are playing their home games at Bridebrook Park. It's perfectly suitable and faithfully underwhelming. Kind of like if Avis promises to rent you a Mercedes and gives you a Ford Focus instead. It gets the job done, but in the most vanilla way possible.

Plus, Bridebrook is a 10-minute ride from the high school, either on the highway or the winding North Bridebrook Road. It's not ideal. High school kids are either negotiating the precarious on ramp to Interstate 95 at Exit 74 or the turns and bends of North Bridebrook. It's safer to keep the kids playing at the high school.

There's no denying the decision to potentially turf the field is a big nickel, especially after the money required to turf the football/soccer/lacrosse field. Except that this has been 10 years of futility. The kids deserve better. Turf the high school field or sink some funds into making Bridebrook a better home, namely with enclosed dugouts, shorter outfield fences and other amenities that make it more homey.

Martin and fellow seniors Julian Baez, Greg Morgan and Chris Stevens kept their sense of humor earlier this week talking about their misfortune. They're disappointed that Viking Valley, the school's lively student section, isn't at many of the games. They're disappointed that they'll go 0-for-4 years. They're inconvenienced by driving off campus to play their sport.

Maybe the juniors get their field back for next year. But if they don't, the People's Republic of East Lyme will have a decision pending. Turf it or forget it.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro