covid-19 disrupts summer collegiate baseball

Jake Lyman

June 14, 2020

As you read this, college baseball players all across the country should be lacing up their cleats for summer league games.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the landscape of summer baseball has dramatically changed.

Multiple leagues have already decided to scrap their 2020 seasons and look forward to 2021 including the Cape Cod League, the Cal Ripken League, the Valley Baseball League and the West Coast League, among others.

Other leagues, like the Northwoods League and the Coastal Plain League, have made the decision to postpone their season start date into early July, hoping that restrictions will be loosened enough to have fans in stadiums.

The loss of games this summer has had a large impact on everyone involved; players will lose experience, coaches lose their summer jobs, front offices lose revenue and interns lose experience.

Players

The sports world was stunned on March 12 when the NCAA announced the cancellation of all winter and spring championships. Spring sports athletes were offered another year of eligibility due to the decision, but the season was over just one month after it began.

Baseball players were sent home and lost over two months of live competition. Now, with summer leagues across the nation being canceled, players are losing all of that experience as well.

Charlie Ludwick is a sophomore infielder at Eastern Kentucky and played for the FCA Braves in the Cal Ripken League last summer. He hit .253 in the league with 14 runs batted in during his time in Northern Virginia, good enough to be named an All-Star.

Ludwick was planning on playing in either the Northwoods League or the New England Collegiate Baseball League, which has already canceled their season. Now, it looks like he may not be able to play at all this summer.

“Live reps are one of the most important things to get in baseball, and facing live pitching regularly is a huge key,” Ludwick said. “That’s the largest negative side effect I think. It just feels super weird to not play baseball all summer for the first time since I remember.”

Without live opportunities, Ludwick and others have to find other ways to improve and stay on track during this extended hiatus.

“For me personally, I have a lot to work on in my game and I need a lot more time in the weight room to get my body where it needs to be to get drafted and be the best player I can be,” Ludwick said. “I’ve used this time to workout twice a day and hit twice a day and I already feel like a completely different person.”

If Ludwick does play, he will have to choose a league that is local to his hometown of Atlanta. This has become a common choice of college players who have become teamless for the summer.

Yareb Martinez, a junior infielder at Georgetown, was expecting to play a full season in the Northwoods League, but due to COVID-19, he has decided to stay at home and play in the newly founded Northern Virginia College League for the NVCL Nightowls.

“My coach in the Northwoods League called me and said that he was 95 percent sure that Minnesota wasn’t going to be able to play this summer,” Martinez said. “I wanted to make sure I had somewhere to play summer ball and when I saw a lot of my old travel teammates were playing, I immediately signed up.”

This could be the final opportunity for Martinez to get summer experience as he hopes to be selected during the 2021 MLB Draft. Therefore, he made the tough choice to prioritize getting live reps this summer over playing in a prestigious league like the Northwoods League.

“Getting live reps is the most important thing a player can do right now,” Martinez said. ”You don’t want to head back to school and play fall ball being rusty. You want to come back to campus knowing that you got better because that will help you in the long run.”

Players have adjusted their plans considerably due to the pandemic and have lost opportunities for growth. The way that players take advantage of this summer could have a large effect on college baseball next season.

Teams

The Northwoods League and the Coastal Plain League have been the rare leagues to not cancel their seasons at this point. Some teams in these leagues have been given the “all clear” to begin play on July 1. However, the majority of these teams are still in areas where large crowds are not permitted.

A few teams in the CPL have already made the decision to withdraw from the league for the 2020 season. This week, the Tri-City Chili Peppers, the Asheboro Copperheads and the Holly Springs Salamanders announced their intentions to sit out of the season. They followed the lead of the Florence RedWolves, the first team that dropped out of the CPL back on May 13.

“Our decision to cancel our 2020 season was mostly based on safety; safety for the fans, host families, players, coaches, workers and the interns,” said Barbara Osborne, general manager of the RedWolves. “Florence, South Carolina has a high number of cases of COVID-19 and as of today, the number is still growing. Our number one priority is about the safety of everyone involved.”

Florence County has had 40 deaths due to the coronavirus, ranking fourth among counties in the state. New cases in South Carolina have trended upwards over the last month since the Redwolves decided to cancel their season and it looks like the organization made the right decision for their team and community.

Despite the disappointment of losing their 2020 summer, Osborne does not expect the loss of this season to affect the future of the franchise.

“I don't believe we will have any lasting effects from not playing this season,” Osborne said. “Our fans are very loyal to us and understand that we chose to cancel our season to be safe for our fans. They are sad as we are but they understand and appreciate our decision to cancel.”

Although teams will be able to survive the effects of the pandemic, losing the season means that coaches, team employees and interns are all out of jobs for the summer season.

Chris Warren is the current coach of the FCA Braves and has been coaching summer baseball since 1991 after graduating college. After initially delaying their season to July 1 back in April, the Cal Ripken League decided to cancel the summer on May 4.

“I thought it was the right decision, given the circumstances,” Warren said. “With so many potential players coming from so many different areas and schools, I just thought it would be very hard to ensure a safe environment for the players, coaches, host families and fans.”

The league plays all of their games in densely populated areas in large cities around the Washington D.C. area. With teams participating in the league from Baltimore to D.C. to Bethesda, it was never going to be an easy task for the league to have a season in 2020.

Warren looks forward to coaching the Braves again in 2021, but believes there could be hiccups for the league due to the economic impacts of the outbreak and the league being in an urban area.

“The virus has had a profoundly negative economic impact, greatly affecting our ability to raise funds and get sponsorships, but I'm hopeful that we will be able to address some of those issues between now and next year,” Warren said. “I'm also hopeful it does not discourage people from offering to be host families next summer as we really rely on them, but that remains to be seen.”

Coaches won’t be setting up in dugouts this summer in many leagues. Just like players, these coaches will be losing valuable experience due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interns

On the surface, coaches, players and front office members have taken the largest hit from the pandemic. However, teams rely heavily on college students as interns in many different fields including marketing, medicine, broadcasting and public relations.

These positions are helpful for students looking to gain real-world experience working with teams. Summer internships can also be very beneficial on a resume when looking for a job after graduation.

Joe Skinner is currently a student at Penn State University and aspires to be a sports broadcaster. He has experience with PSU’s student radio station, PSU Comm Radio, and Big Ten Network Student U. During his summers, he has worked with the FCA Braves and the Purcellville Cannons of the Valley League as a broadcaster.

“It’s been extremely valuable because for me getting as many reps as possible on the mic to get better,” Skinner said. “Working for a team over the summer also helps replicate the experience of working for a front office and calling games every day, as it would be in the real world.”

This summer, he was hired as one of the broadcasters for the Cotuit Kettleers in the Cape Cod League; a huge opportunity for a collegiate broadcaster. However, since their season has been canceled, he will enter his senior year having lost a summer of experience.

“Obviously, I was very disappointed because being a broadcaster on the Cape was one of my original goals in college once I found out that I could work up there as a freshman,” Skinner said. “But I knew the logistics going in of trying to get thousands of people on the cape would be thought given the virus.”

Instead of taking the summer off, Skinner has decided to make the most of the opportunity he has with the Kettleers. Even without games to broadcast, there are opportunities to improve working with the team.

“Myself and the guy who was going to be my broadcast partner started a podcast for the team so that we can still stay involved,” Skinner said. “So far, we’ve interviewed former players and other team members.”

Baseball is a large part of summer across America in big cities with MLB franchises and small towns with minor league or summer collegiate teams. The coronavirus pandemic has taken away opportunities for players, teams, interns and fans.

The country is looking forward to the day when baseball is back and hopefully it comes sooner rather than later.