Lincoln Potters cut season short due to positive COVID-19 test
The Lincoln Potters, a wood bat baseball team located in Lincoln, terminated the remainder of their 2020 summer season on Thursday due to a positive COVID-19 test within the organization.
An unidentified player on the team was tested Monday and has been in self-isolation since showing symptoms. No one on the team has been in contact with the player since Sunday, when the Potters played a game against Bay Area Force.
“It’s heartbreaking to conclude our season in this manner,” team co-founder and owner Isabel Domeyko said in a news release. “We had a special group of players this year and we know the time spent in Lincoln this summer will benefit their careers in baseball. However, our team was founded on providing a platform for player advancement and paramount to that is the safety of our players and coaches.”
The Potters organization is coordinating testing for all players, coaching staff, employees and volunteers who had close contact with the player.
“It’s been a crazy ride in 2020 in general,” Lincoln Potters manager Ryan Stevens said. “We did everything we possibly could to get our guys on the field. We were doing a great job of staying healthy and getting a good product on the field. We found out on an off day one of our players wasn’t feeling well, so we haven’t seen him since Sunday night. Our protocol was if you feel any symptoms, you have to take a test.”
Lincoln’s roster is made up of high school and college players who already had their spring baseball season cut short due to COVID-19. The cancellation of summer ball is a big blow to the development of players. “That’s kind of why we tried to play a season in the safest way possible,” Stevens said. “Guys needed at-bats and to see live arms (this summer). I think for a lot of guys who don’t have that opportunity, it will be a tough transition. The development will definitely be a little slower, it just depends when these guys get the green light of when they can practice and how dedicated they are.”
The team planned to play a shortened 31-game season this summer against other collegiate wood bat teams in Northern California. Lincoln got through 20 games of the season and finished with a record of 16-4.
McBean Park, home of the Potters, was set to host the inaugural West Coast World Series on Aug. 4-9. The World Series was set to feature 10 wood bat teams from across California, but was canceled due to the positive test result.
“It was shaking up to be a really good bracket,” Stevens said of the West Coast World Series. “It was going to be the cream of the crop to end the season. Our owner made the decision and we all agreed that we have this circumstance whether some guys are positive or some guys isolate even after the 10 days, is it safe to bring in nine other teams in which we don’t know where they’ve been or if they’ve been tested. We (didn’t want to put) our guys in that environment right before school starts.
“When we were healthy and everyone was being checked, it was one thing,” he added. “But when you have a positive (case), you don’t know what that looks like. We just felt like it was unfair to (the players) and the college coaches that sent us their players — it’s not fair to them to put them in harm’s way right before fall ball starts.”