The local baseball loop announced Friday that they would be returning to the field as of July 7 as part of Phase 4.1 of the Re-Open Saskatchewan plan.
It’ll only be practices, and it’ll be as weird at first, but baseball is baseball, and the anticipation is palpable.
“I think people are excited about it, the kids need something to do, right?” said MJLL president Tony Dreger. “It’s going to look a little different, but at least it’s going to be something.”
First things first: Little League re-opened registration as of Thursday and will continue to sign on players until June 25.
After that, teams will be drafted, schedules put in place and everything will ready to go when they can officially hit the diamond. It's expected the schedule will be available around July 3.
That’s the easy part.
When it comes to dealing with the Return to Practice and Play protocol and following Government of Saskatchewan rules, that’s another thing altogether, as Dreger explained.
“There will be no dugout per se, we’ll have to have everyone social distancing and hanging out in front of their bag before they go out on the field or to hit,” he began. “So that will be different, then we can’t go out to the mound, we can’t have umpire visits, we can’t have plate visits prior too, but at least at the end of the day we can throw the ball, hit the ball and catch the ball and get the kids out running.
“That’s the big thing and that’s what’s going to excite us, even with all the protocols we have to follow.
For a full list of the basic guidelines can be found at www.mjlittleleague.com.
One thing that isn’t a question is how popular things are going to be when they do resume – Dreger estimates that 330 players have signed on as of Friday, a number that could increase dramatically now that a plan is in place.
“We’ll have some who will drop off because they don’t want to be part of the process or whatever, and that’s fine, but also we’re hoping that we can get 50 or 60 more kids who will sign up,” he said. “So we’re hoping to stay in that range.”
As for a potential schedule, the idea right now is to keep everything in-city, meaning no travel to Regina for games and especially no travel outside of the province.
“There’s nothing saying we can’t play Regina, but we chose to go with this way because it’s less travelling, less risk, so we decided to stay in the city,” Dreger said.
All in all, it’s a sign that good times could be on the horizon.
“It’s been a long time coming, we’re all looking forward to it and we can’t wait to get back out there.”
