Local youth leagues in holding pattern
Local youth leagues pause during pandemic
March is supposed to be the time when the area’s baseball and softball fields begin to get packed with games and community leagues’ celebrate the game with festive Opening Day ceremonies.
But like the rest of the sporting world, local fields are quiet as the coronavirus pandemic puts a pause on double plays, diving catches and home runs.
“We are trying to be patient and open-minded with what the season will look like if and when that becomes a possibility,” North Penn Little League vice president Kelley Reed said. “We are certainly sad about the current situation and not being together as a league. Our registration numbers were the largest they have been in over six years this season.
“There is a lot of great energy surrounding the upcoming inhouse and travel seasons. Our disappointment is framed in the context of the larger public health issue at hand. People’s health is more important than our baseball seasons. So far, our members have been incredibly patient and understanding, with very few cancellations and refund requests.”
Little League Baseball and Softball posted on its website that it is” strongly advising all its local Little League programs to suspend/delay their Little League seasons through no earlier than
Monday, May 11.”
Babe Ruth League — which includes the Cal Ripken Baseball division for ages 4-12 — stated on its website it is “supporting decisions to suspend baseball and softball activities until your Local, State, and Federal Government restrictions are lifted.”
Cooperstown Dreams Park in Cooperstown, New York — home of the Baseball Hall of Fame — cancelled all of its tournaments from April through August. Teams going spend a significant amount of time fundraising but Dreams Park said teams would either receive a 100% refund or ability to participate in the future.
“We don’t want to shut the doors on the season yet,” said David Wisnoski, who is on Harleysville Baseball executive board and also coaches its 11U travel team. “We want to get creative and really use our fields and our area as a place to bring people together once this all passes. I watched 9/11 happen from my office in Northern NJ and it changed how we traveled...we will make it through this.”
Wisnoski said Harleysville Baseball had teams picked, jerseys ordered and practiced scheduled in early March and then had to put everything on hold.
“We did not allow team practices for Travel or Rec
baseball,” Wisnoski said. “I was scheduled to have my last travel practice of the season on March 15 which was cancelled. My travel team was scheduled to start local games this coming weekend March 29 but everything is on hold. We were scheduled for a tournament on April 11 and that has been cancelled. Tournaments in the area seem to be cancelling them two weeks as a time.”
Towamencin Youth Association (TYA) is not holding practice and games for its spring travel and intramural baseball leagues for ages 5-16 including Connie Mack — and spring travel and intramural softball leagues for ages 5-18. Tryouts for its Hatfield-Towamencin American Legion baseball team were postponed. TYA’s Opening Day set for April 18 is still scheduled for that date while all travel tournament sponsored by TYA from May to July are scheduled to take place.
“Like many other organizations, the Towamencin Youth Association (TYA) continues to put the health and well-being of our community at the forefront of all of our decisionmaking,” said TYA in an emailed response. “In accordance with the Governor’s direction, since early March we have suspended all sports activities and have moved to holding all meetings via phone or web conference.
“We continue to plan for the worst and hope for the best regarding the spring, summer and fall sports seasons. TYA will
continue to adhere to the Governor’s and local municipalities instructions and guidelines as we work together to overcome the virus.”
Soccer is in the same spot as baseball and softball. Jeff Hill, Towamencin Soccer Club (TSC) soccer director says it is continuing with its registration while the schedules at the moment are “in a state of ‘wait and see.’”
“Before the COVID- 19 pandemic the TSC travel soccer program was following our state association, EPYSA, recommended initiative to ‘keep kids first’ and not schedule tryouts till May,” Hill said. “This was to allow players and families to participate in spring sports and not have to worry so much about competing schedules and pressure to miss spring sports to make early soccer tryouts.
“These tryout dates for TSC as of now are still to take place the first weekend of May and then follow are our continued scheduled dates for them. As of now we have not released that schedule because off the pandemic and could be changed to later in May beginning of June because of the pandemic.”
Despite not being able to physically get on a diamond to run drills, Wisnoski is still trying to make sure his players are still working on their game during this time of social distancing.
“Next few weeks we will be posting drills for players of all levels to do through social media,”
Wisnoski said. “Instagram has a wealth of knowledge and I collect videos and will be posting them for kids/parents to follow. I gave my travel players an email with roughly 20 drills they can do at their home with family members or just a wall.
“This is obviously an ever evolving situation but we are determined to provide baseball to our community. We don’t have a full proof plan in place (because of the constant change) but we are considering pushing the season back into June and July. One thought behind this is parent may be less likely to take a vacation this year because of either job loss or COVID-19, so what better way to bring everyone together than with baseball.”
Like Wisnoski, Reed sees the return to the summer sports landscape would help communities return to a sense of normalcy.
“In the end, we are going to do all we can to play baseball this season, even if it might have to look different than year’s past,” Reed said. “Given this current crisis, we feel strongly that communitybased sports will play an important role in bandaging wounds caused by this virus and bringing people back together for fun, friendship and joy. With that in mind we are not rushing to cancel anything, set deadlines, etc. and we are going to think outside the box as needed to give all our members a great experience.”