Little League canceled its regional tournaments and World Series because of the COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday, but that doesn’t mean the entire season is wiped out.
Little League president and CEO Stephen D. Keener left the door open for local Little Leagues throughout the nation to play regular seasons and hold district, sectional and state playoffs, if possible.
“We would also tell you in those states and those areas where you’re less affected, less impacted by this deadly virus, that when you get to the end of your regular season, or how many games you want to play, we would certainly encourage you to have a local district all-star tournament,” Keener said in a video statement, “particularly (so) those kids who are moving on with their last year of age eligibility would have an opportunity to play in a district all-star tournament.
“And there may even be some states where you can take it to the next level to a sectional and perhaps a state tournament if time and the ability to do it would allow.”
How local Little Leagues proceed isn’t known right now. However, since there are no regional tournaments or World Series, leagues aren’t locked into finishing regular seasons by a certain date in order to start all-star tournaments.
“I think the decision gave the local leagues a better chance of having some kind of regular season this year,” District 16/31 administrator Bob Bertoni said. “There’s no time frame, and we’re not obligated to be done by a certain time. This obviously opens up June, July and August to play some type of regular season.”
The District 16 and 31 Little League Major Baseball championship games are scheduled for July 13, with both tournaments starting around July 1. The Section 5 tournament for champions from Districts 16, 17, 31 and 32 is July 18-22. The state tournament dates are July 26-Aug. 2. Little League’s 10 other softball and baseball divisions are more or less in the same date range.
Those dates can be changed or tournaments could be canceled. Little League activities are prohibited until May 11, but that moratorium could be extended.
“We haven’t discussed that yet,” Bertoni said. “I’ll leave that up to our leagues. I plan on having a (Zoom) meeting with them some time next week and we’ll discuss that.”
Bertoni, though, doesn’t see state playoffs happening because the state will be opening regions piecemeal based on COVID-19 statistics. State district administrators will have a video meeting Saturday morning.
“I think it’s very unlikely we have state playoffs this year,” Bertoni said. “One, we don’t even know when we’re going to start. That’s the first thing. Luzerne County is a high volume area of cases. The western part of the state may open in three weeks and we might not open until a month and a half. You don’t know.
“Not everyone is going to be on the same schedule, so it would be hard to put together a state championship if some leagues are playing for seven or eight weeks and some are only playing for three. It would be really hard to do.”
District 16’s Township Little League was scheduled to host the state tournament for 9-10-11 baseball. Bertoni said if there are no state tournaments, then all leagues which were to host state tournament would likely host them in 2021. The state site schedule, which is set for several years, would then be pushed back a year.
“Right now, it looks like all they’re going to do is take everything this year and push it to next year,” Bertoni said. “Even the rotation of how we host tournaments and stuff will just be pushed back one year.”
The main concern for Bertoni is getting local Little Leagues on the field. He knows firsthand what it’s like to have a season canceled. He is also the head coach of Hazleton Area’s softball team, which finished second in the state in Class 6A in 2019 and had its entire starting lineup returning.
“Kids can handle only so much disappointment,” Bertoni said. “I give this generation a lot of credit. They’ve been dealt a bad hand and for the most part we’ve all been coping with it and trying to get along. But if there is something we can do positive for our kids then we have to try to do that.”
