HUMBOLDT — The Humboldt Minor Baseball Association is readying their bats and balls for a more practice oriented season.
“It’s going to be a shorter season, the younger children don’t have any games, they just practice,” said Brett Suchan, secretary with the association.
“It’s definitely going to be a learning experience, for all of us. I know coaches are usually kind of focused on drills, so we may need another volunteer to help out with keeping the distance.”
Suchan said the practices will contain various stations focused on different aspects of the sport such as catching and infield, with an attempt to keep social distancing.
The association is working to try to ensure all programs obey a 30 people maximum on the field at a time.
“It’s going to be spaced out, obviously with disinfectant. Unfortunately, no sunflower seeds at the ball diamond, you’re not allowed those,” he said.
“We will be using baseballs and sharing baseballs, but we’ll try to keep those baseballs as clean and disinfected as we can.”
While the season will be practice oriented, Suchan said if COVID-19 restrictions continue to lift, and the association they have more than one team, the older players may get to play in some local exhibition games.
“Anything is better than nothing, even though it’s shortened, and maybe more practice oriented and not as many games.”
Registration for the Humboldt Minor Baseball Association started June 16 and end Monday, June 21, with the practices starting on June 22.
“We started a couple days ago and we’re seeing registrations come in, and seeing a good number too. It’s very positive,” Suchan said on June 18.
“Typically, in a normal registration year we’ll see anywhere from 170 to 190 kids. In opening the registration, in a couple of days we’ve seen close to 90 already registered.”
Suchan credits the success with the youth craving some outdoor, physical activity.
“I think kids are getting a little stir crazy and want to be outside with their friends and have something physical to do.”
Baseball Sask previously announced that no provincial competition will take place this year.
