Hello LPPLL Families,
I hope this letter finds our community in good health. You may remember that previously we had asked that families make a commitment to either play this season, or not, by May 22nd – tomorrow. We thought that would allow enough to time for you to review our guidelines for resuming play and what the proposed schedules would look like. The Board formed a committee to research what social distancing would look like at Dooley (and Doc Oliver) and the steps we could take to let baseball be played safely.
We looked at having Tee Ball and Rookies play before AAA and Major games on M, T, Th and F evenings, with four games of AA being played on Wednesday nights. Then Majors, AAA and AA would play games on Saturdays and Sundays. We looked at playing shorter games with hard time limits so that arriving players would not overlap with departing players, even though we would have separate entry and exit points with hand washing stations located at the entrance and on either side of Dooley 2.
Encouragingly, we have recently received some good signs about baseball being played, from Ohio and San Diego and now even Sacramento County has moved forward with Outdoor Recreation. And, just yesterday, Little League gave their best practices for playing baseball during this pandemic. It was funny to see how closely the ideas we had come up with were echoed by Little League. However, no official start date for baseball to play ball has been given.
So, given what we know, the Board (in conjunction with other Little Leagues in District 7) has sent an email to Mayor Steinberg, the Sac County Public Health Department, Supervisor Patrick Kennedy, and the City of Sacramento Parks and Rec to encourage them to let us play ball. In our email We have pledged to follow the guidelines set forth by Little League, including any limit on spectators imposed by Sac County Health Department. We will let you know as soon as we get the green light.
ALSO, out of an abundance of caution, we are planning to stagger the start of our season to have the Juniors, Majors and AAA divisions’ seasons start as soon as possible (hopefully from June 6 to July 25), and the AA, Rookie and Tee Ball divisions to follow immediately thereafter (hopefully on July 27). All of these divisions (except for Juniors) would be played at Dooley.
The decision to stagger the season was made after a lot of discussion. Believe it or not, the majority of the Boards’ kids are AA and below. We discussed concerns about lower division kids having a harder time maintaining social distance both on and off the field, as well as the fact that many kids in lower divisions do not all have their own gear for batting or catching and depend on sharing it. As our lower division parents know, when a grounder is hit in the infield, players in these age groups often all run to it and the chance for contact/collision is higher. Similarly, in the lower divisions, managers need to physically touch their players to help them adjust their batting stances and throwing mechanics. Lastly, in AA, it is a hybrid of player and coach pitch so there are more hands on the ball.
We strongly believe that the lower division players need to be developed just as much as the older kids need to play their season. So, for this season only, we will let the younger kids play every game at Dooley this Fall. This may mean no Fall Ball for the older kids, unless we can secure access to alternate fields – something we will look into. As a board, we are doing our best to come up with plans that serve all of our families, even if it means there are compromises to the “normal” schedule; we truly appreciate everyone’s understanding and patience.
We hope you will hang with us as we get guidance from the state, county and city to nail down the specifics of when the games will begin. As soon as we hear back from the powers that be, or the County issues further guidelines on playing baseball, we will let you know.
Thank you,
Land Park-Pacific Little League Board of Directors