As playgrounds begin to open across Saskatchewan later this week, many are hoping outdoor sports will soon be given the green light as well.
“We’ve been hearing rumours when Phase 4 might open but until we actually hear from the government, we’re hoping that potentially it’s going to be sooner than later,” said Mike Ramage, Baseball Sask executive director.
“All summer we’ve been planning on having some type of a season. Obviously, it’s kind of a waiting game as we stand right now.”
Outdoor sports, like baseball, fall into Phase 4 of the Reopening Saskatchewan plan amid the coronavirus pandemic, but no date has been announced for that phase. Many other provinces have already announced a return for outdoor sports, which has many frustrated.
For the time being, organizations like Baseball Sask and Baseball Regina can just continue to develop scenarios on what a return looks like.
“We as a board talk about how the game will be changed,” said Rob Gartner, Baseball Regina president. “These are things we are OK with because the alternative is not playing, and to me, that’s not a good alternative.”
The game itself will remain the same, even with physical-distancing measures in place, since Gartner says the fielding team is typically already practising that distancing.
But there are some instances where there might be some physical contact when a player gets on base.
“If there’s a runner on first and they’re leading off and they dive back in from a pick-off throw, they will be within less than six feet, but that’s brief incidental contact that we feel the risk is very low,” he said.
Some other things will need to be adjusted, like limiting how many players can be in a dugout, or how many spectators can be in the bleachers. Baseball Sask issued “return to play” guidelines this week, with many of those protocols outlined.
“The changes that we’re going to have to make obviously is the proper health and hygiene for all of our players and coaches, sanitization of all equipment (and) still maintaining that social distancing as well as much as possible,” Ramage said.
Gartner said the organization didn’t want to have to make drastic changes to the game.
“We didn’t want to compromise how the game is played and it’s not being compromised, other than what’s happening in the dugout and how often they clean their equipment and themselves,” he said.
Baseball Canada has already announced that national championships have been cancelled and Baseball Sask followed that up by announcing that provincial championships won’t be played either.
For the many baseball organizations around the province, a return to the field in any capacity will have to do.
“We’re really excited that we are going to have a season,” said Gartner. “A couple of months ago, we didn’t know. We were planning to but we certainly had in the back of our minds that that may not happen.
“We’re doing everything we can to get our players ready to play and our coaches ready to coach, we’re just hoping that the government comes around sooner than later.”
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