SALT LAKE CITY — It is late June in the shadow of the Wasatch Front, the sun is shining and there is nary a cloud in the sky. Little League baseball is in the air, be it the ding an aluminum baseball bat makes as it strikes the ball, the cries of strike or ball from the home plate umpire or the cheers of devoted parents as their child successfully reaches the bag.
You can smell it, the aroma of carefully prepared dirt mixed with that of freshly cut grass. Also soda, much of it spilt, and snacks of every kind, sunflower seeds being a favorite. Fans are in the bleachers or in their camping chairs, with players in dugouts and on the field.
It is baseball at its finest. Only, this year it isn’t exactly like that.
“We aren’t going to be intense. We aren’t going to be hardcore. We are just trying to make it a fun way back to normalcy during these super hard times for so many people. We want to have that community feel and kids playing baseball, and we think it should be OK.” — Crown Colony league president Kristi Diemoz
The sun is shining and there isn’t a cloud to be seen, but the smell of sanitizer is noticeable and very much present. Fans are in the bleachers, only with 6-foot gaps separating groups from each other.
After leagues across the state had their seasons delayed for months following the breakout of COVID-19, baseball has started up again, but it isn’t quite the same.
The pandemic has brought change to Little League baseball. Take Crown Colony, for instance. Based in Holladay, it is one of a few rec leagues to start up again this summer. The league kicked off its 2020 season last week.
What went into that restart was and remains daunting.
To start, during tryouts every player was sanitized after they touched either a ball or bat. Quickballs were used, rather than a normal baseball, in order to prevent the need for helmets. Social distancing was attempted, even if it was and is difficult to keep kids 6 feet apart.
“We tried, but that wasn’t great,” league president Kristi Diemoz said with a laugh.
Tryouts proved the easy part. After taking feedback from parents, Crown Colony took a variety of steps in order to ensure the health and safety of all involved once games commenced.
A lot of steps.
The league has encouraged everyone to download the Healthy Together app. Temperatures are taken prior to every game and every practice. Where in the past helmets could be shared — coaches were given four helmets every season to divvy out as necessary — now all players must have their own helmet, whether purchased themselves, or rented from the league for the entirety of the season.
Then there is the warning.
“We’ve been really clear that if you are high risk or concerned, do not play,” Diemoz said.
And then there are the dugouts, a challenge above all else.
“Initially, and for tryouts, we closed off the dugouts,” Diemoz said. “For games, we originally thought that was what we’d have to do. Everyone would bring their own camp chair and we’d put chairs outside the fence line 6 feet apart, because they can’t stand inside the fence line.
“When I shared that with the coaches they were all a little frustrated, though, so now kids are using them and they are trying to sanitize. We will have a big thing of sanitizer at every game, at the end of every dugout, right when you step down. We are taping off sections of the dugout and are trying to have the kids stand at the fence, one on the bench, stand at the fence, one on the bench, etc. Honestly, do I think they’ll follow it, not 100%, but we are trying to limit spectators and we will have sanitizer for everyone.”
The effort was necessary, though. People wanted baseball.
“We gave parents different reset options,” said Diemoz. “We offered a full refund, a deferment to next year, and a 50-50 refund, where you donate 50% to the league to take care of the field. A few parents wanted refunds, but the majority said they were in. They wanted to play.”
Crown Colony isn’t alone in returning. Rocky Mountain School of Baseball is back in action too, having started up on May 23. The Super League also has a host of safety measures, and all who wanted to participate had to agree to follow them to the letter.
Among the measures were:
- Social distancing: Individual households must sit at least 6 feet apart from other parties.
- Healthy participants only: Any players, coaches or spectators who are sick will not be allowed at games or practices. Coaches must check players for COVID-19 symptoms prior to games. Players who have household members with symptoms must stay home from games. All state COVID-19 guidelines apply.
- Required hand washing: Players are required to wash hands or use sanitizer between every inning. Coaches to provide adequate hand sanitizer for every player.
- Clean dugouts: Coaches will be required to sanitize dugout bench prior to their games.
- Entry and exit plan: To limit the number of people gathering between games incoming teams cannot enter the complex until the team they are replacing has left. We recommend waiting beyond the outfield fence. Teams done playing must exit the park in a timely manner.
- No congregating: Do not congregate in groups before or after games.
- 6 feet apart: Social distancing rules apply when in lines for the restroom, concessions and all other times when possible.
- End of game: Lining up to shake hands with the opposing team is not permitted.
- Good hygiene: Please teach players safe hygiene as it pertains to game days.
Not every league has restarted nor will, though, regardless of the precautions that could be put into place. For many rec leagues, Little League baseball during the pandemic simply means no baseball at all, no matter the amount of sanitizer on hand.
That is especially true for a number of leagues across Salt Lake County, those who rely on the use of county or city ballparks. Access to those fields has been in doubt throughout the spring and into the summer and the uncertainty of when fields might be made available played a key role in the decision to cancel the season. (Crown Colony is a nonprofit with a privately owned field that is held in a trust. That made a restart not only possible, but greatly needed in order to raise the funds needed to maintain the field).
“We held out as long as possible, but with so much uncertainty and the feedback we were receiving from our parents, we decided it was time to shut it down,” James Walje, president of Rose Park Baseball, told the Deseret News. “We are still waiting to see what the guidelines would be in Salt Lake City, where other areas of the state are up and running now.”
Initially, Tyler Rice, the contact for Olympus Youth Baseball, imagined the shutdown of the sport would last two to four weeks. The league expected the season to resume at some point this year. There was demand for it.
“We only had two parents out of the 460 contact us about getting a refund,” Rice explained. “Everyone else wanted it to go. We had over 450 boys, ages 5 through 16, who wanted to participate. We had a tryout March 14. We were ready to do a draft and that is right when everything shut down.”
The dream of a season persisted through the spring, midway through May — “We were hopeful that we could get something going in early May,” explained Rice — with the league providing periodic updates to parents. Eventually, though, all signs pointed to June being the earliest point for any sort of season to commence and that simply wasn’t viable.
“We were looking at going into June, but based on the way things were going, and there was no indication that they would change, we did a refund the second week of May,” said Rice. “We would have had to do another effort again and while there was interest in doing a season, there wasn’t a ton. Nobody really wanted to go past June. I think people were a little reluctant to lift off again, to jump into it.
“As far as social distancing goes, there were one or two people who said it didn’t matter, but other people said it is crazy to consider starting a season because major league sports aren’t even going yet,” he continued. “There were both sides of the spectrum, but when we made that announcement to cancel there weren’t really that many people who were upset. People weren’t contacting us encouraging us to launch it. No one really wanted to.”
There is always the option of Super League for those who wanted a season, Rice added, and Crown Colony provided an additional, unforeseen outlet.
“A couple weeks ago we announced we had opened registration for a special 2020 season and Cal Ripken” — a division of Babe Ruth League, Inc. — “was being more lax with the boundaries,” Diemoz explained. “We got quite a few kids from Brighton and Olympus, even one or two from further south in Sandy. Skyline reached out too. They had teams already formed and ready to go.”
For those leagues that won’t play this year, there is optimism about the future. As of right now, there doesn’t appear to be any indication that participation will dwindle next year. Rather, the absence of baseball might actually lead to some renewed interest in the sport.
“I anticipate the same amount of kids, if not more,” said Rice. “We actually had parents reaching out to us in April, wanting to get their kids signed up while everything was closed. I think people want a season. They want to get back in the community. They missed that. They appreciated less hectic schedules, but we have more people interested in doing it. I think people will appreciate it, as something they didn’t have.”
And for those who are playing, they are just happy to have the opportunity.
“We aren’t going to be intense. We aren’t going to be hardcore. We are just trying to make it a fun way back to normalcy during these super hard times for so many people,” Diemoz. said. “We want to have that community feel and kids playing baseball, and we think it should be OK.”