PETIT DE GRAT: The teams comprising the Richmond Amateur Baseball Association (RABA) have decided to hold off on starting the season.
The RABA held a meeting on June 28, with executive members and representatives from all five teams, last year’s champions the Petit de Grat Red Caps, the Little Anse Hawks, the Isle Madame Mariners, the Louisdale Baracos, and the Port Hawkesbury Flyers.
RABA president Gary David told The Reporter the teams canvassed their players and the consensus is players are unwilling to play under new rules outlined by Baseball Nova Scotia (BNS) and approved by provincial government officials.
“We looked at all the options that we had in front of us, and it’s play with the outline right now as the government would ask us to play, and the teams decided that they didn’t want to do that,” David said. “Nobody wanted to play with catchers so far back, with no tag plays. Basically you’re looking at modified softball rules and they didn’t want to do that.”
The teams then approved a limited eight-game schedule beginning either in the last week of July or first week in August, capped off by a play-off tournament scheduled for Labour Day Weekend. All five teams will qualify for the play-off round to decide the 2020 RABA champion.
If the rules remain as they are by August 3, the season will not start, and David was empowered by the teams to hold a vote of the executive whether to cancel the season.
“It’s just going to be a quick meeting to cancel the season, if that’s what it comes down to,” the president said. “We were given authority yesterday to cancel the season as an administration so it would just be a quick vote.”
David is hoping that the province will approve BNS to enter Phase 4 by late in July – as is the case in PEI currently – so the RABA can hold its 50th season.
“We’re hoping to have a season that resembles real baseball,” David stated. “If the rules have not changed, then there will be no season. If they’ve changed to the point that we’re able to have stealing and holding a runner on at first, and the catcher being that close to a hitter, being able to have tag plays, then we play that eight-game schedule.”
If more public health restrictions are lifted this month and the RABA is able to use standard baseball rules, then teams can start preparing their fields and practicing.
“Some of the teams don’t own their own field so they have to go back and find out what do the owners of the field require,” David explained.
As was confirmed in the spring, Inverness will not
field a team in 2020, and during last Sunday’s meeting, St. Peter’s was permitted to take a one-year leave of absence.
“Because of players being away right now, and not being able to come home, some of them, they would not have had enough players to fill a team,” the president reported.
Entering this its 50th season, the RABA met in April
and appointed a new executive for 2020, including past president Richie Cotton, secretary Trudy Samson and treasurer Sherri Samson-Dorey.
At the time, the RABA formed an anniversary committee but on Sunday, it was decided that celebrations are cancelled this year.
“Right now, we’re not even considering that for this year,” David added. “We’ll do it next year. We were hoping to have an all-star game, we wanted to have a 50th anniversary festival with a lot of former players involved, and things like that. So really and truly, there just isn’t time to organize that and it would just be too much work. And if the season was cancelled, it would be too much work for naught. So rather than have it this year, that’s going to be pushed to next year. And we’ll look at that next year.”