Update From Wallingford Little League President Joshua Carroll
I wanted to give you an update on the 2020 Wallingford Little League season. Like you, I am patiently awaiting the word that we can play baseball this year. In the meantime, I want to share with you some details about our season so that everyone is on the same page.
Our Board met last week (virtually, of course!) and we are committed to having a season if we are permitted. We feel that it is an important part of our mission to help bring back some normalcy to our children.
We are also committed to safety and have developed a plan, based on guidance from Little League, the World Health Organization, CDC and the State of Connecticut, that will keep our children safe. Our Return to Play Plan has been submitted to the town to review. Once approved, we will post the plan in its entirety on our website. We tried to balance the Covid-19 risks with the added risks of playing in the summer and think we have a solid plan to make this a great and memorable year for all that choose to play.
Survey
Thank you for completing our survey. Overall, 171 parents completed the survey. Your answers were helpful and informative and many of you gave us some great recommendations that we will be implementing to improve safety. I sincerely appreciate your time and effort.
Overall, more than 80% of those that responded are still interested in having their children play Little League this year. In the Majors division, that number was almost 98%! That said, many wanted to see our safety plan and others had prior commitments that make their child unavailable to play this year.
Safety Guidelines
With our re-opening plan, we also submitted to the town a draft copy of our Safety Guidelines for review. These are a set of rules, modified rules, and standards that we plan to use this year to help curb the spread of Covid-19. These rules may change, based on further guidance from the state and the CDC. It is very important that we all follow these rules or we risk being shut down mid-season. We urge you to read them and will be asking you to respect them throughout the season.
Starting Dates
There are a lot of moving parts and the state has given us little guidance, but it seems that the Governor is allowing outdoor activity more quickly than we had anticipated. Last week, he issued an Executive Order allowing some outdoor sports with 25 participants, which gives us hope that we will be in the next phase.
Our current thought, based on news articles, is that we might be able to start on June 20. The starting date is tentative – it may get pushed up or pushed back – but we plan to be prepared and will communicate as soon as we know more.
Our plan calls for a rolling out of the season based on division and the state may initially require some restrictions (e.g., practices or split squads). For the upper divisions, we plan to have two to three weeks of practices before any games can start. This time will allow players to build up their skills and strength in an environment that permits more social distancing.
Because social distancing is more difficult for many of our younger players, we will phase in those starting dates over the next few weeks.
If we start games in early July, our goal is to complete all games by August 10 to avoid conflict with football.
Refunds
For those of you who do not want to play this season or cannot play due to a conflict, effective immediately, we are opening up our Refund Period. Please visit www.wllbball.com to fill out the Refund Request Form. Parents seeking a refund will have three options:
Obtain a full refund
Receive a credit for 2021 season
Make a donation to the league
We will open the refund period for two weeks. If the state has an extended delay and we have to significantly alter our plans, we will open a second refund period. Please note that uniforms need to be ordered two weeks before the first game. Once the uniforms are ordered, refunds will be considered on a case-by-case basis and will be reduced based on expenses incurred by the league.
Open Registration
Although our teams have been formed, we understand the role that Wallingford Little League plays in the community. Given that several other sports leagues have canceled their season, we are going to open up our registration period effective immediately. This registration period will last for at least two weeks so we can reach out to people that may be looking to play a different sport for the season.
We are only allowing registrations during this period from Wallingford residents and are not extending this to other towns that have a Little League that has canceled its 2020 season.
While we are attempting to keep all formed teams together, given that we do not know how many refunds and new registrants that we will have, we cannot guarantee that those teams will not be modified.
Finally, I also need everyone to understand that there is always the possibility that our league (and other youth sports) will be shut down by the town or state if there is a change in circumstances. Hopefully that does not happen, but if it does, we will re-assess our season. If the season is canceled at a later date, we will look at providing pro-rated refunds, based on the expenses that we incurred for the season.
Again, thank you for your continued patience. As we receive more information and guidance, we will forward it to you.
Sincerely,
Joshua Carroll
President, Wallingford Little League
