Baseball is back at Wild Things Park
Apparently, there will be professional baseball played at Wild Things Park this summer after all.
It won’t be the Frontier League-variety baseball. That much we know. The 14-team independent league that includes the Washington Wild Things as a member announced last month that its season was canceled because of the COVD-19 pandemic.
Since then, two Frontier League franchises have said they will be forming four-team leagues to keep their players and ballpark busy for a couple of months. Joliet’s ballpark will have four teams playing there and competing for the “City of Champions Cup” in a season that runs from July 16 through Sept. 6. Players will come from the Joliet Slammers’ roster, other Frontier League teams, recently released minor leaguers and undrafted free agents.
The setup is similar in Florence, Kent., where four teams will play in the “Battle for the Bourbon Trail” from July 31 to Sept. 13.
When the Frontier League opted not to play this summer, a Wild Things spokesman mentioned that the team is “working hard to bring baseball to Washington County” this summer and that plans will be released soon. Two weeks passed without word from the Wild Things – until Thursday night when the ballclub posted on its Twitter account: “Opening Day July 9 at Wild Things Park.”
The tweet also included four team logos. One was the Wild Things’ logo, another was the logo of the Road Warriors, who played 96 road games in the Frontier League a few years ago. A third logo was pair of black socks and the fourth logo was a sandwich with arms.
The tweet also said, “Socially distanced. Socially responsible. But still social.”
There was no mention of any games scheduled for Thursday at Wild Things Park on the team’s website yesterday afternoon. When contacted by the Observer-Reporter, two team officials said they were not authorized to speak about plans for any upcoming competition.
Then, last evening, the Wild Things posted on their website a schedule of games for the upcoming week.
There are four teams – the Wild Things, Baseball Brilliance Sox, Road Warriors and Steel City Slammin’ Sammies – with two games scheduled each day. Game times are 3 and 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 1 and 5 p.m. Sunday. There was no indication of who will be playing on these teams, or if this is a league or only a one-weekend deal.
Tickets go on sale Monday at 10 a.m. The Wild Things stressed that tickets are extremely limited. Just how many people will be permitted in the ballpark for each was not mentioned.
Because Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration made wearing f
- ace masks mandatory “when outdoors and unable to consistently maintain a distance of six feet from individuals who are not members of their households,” several local high schools shut down offseason workouts for their athletes.
- The PI
- AA is still planning for fall sports to start as scheduled. Football players are to begin heat acclimatization Aug. 10 with full-scale practices beginning Aug. 17. The first scrimmages will be Aug. 21 and Week Zero games are scheduled for Aug. 28.
Because of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, New Jersey already has announced that its high school football season will not start before Sept. 4. Arizona and Tennessee have delayed their seasons until September. Tennessee is pushed back to at least Sept. 18. Officials in Texas, Louisiana, Michigan and Mississippi are considering moving high school football seasons in those states to the spring.
In Pennsylvania, those ideas haven’t been extensively debated.
“We’re not discussing pushing it back,” PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi told the York Dispatch this week. “We’re still cautiously optimistic about starting practice on time. We’re just going to take it day by day. If things change, we’ll adjust. I think it’s too early to make that call.”
It might be “too early” but the fourth-quarter clock is running and the PIAA is out of timeouts.
The idea of flipping most fall sports with spring sports is something the PIAA should be strongly considering. Kids are currently playing baseball and softball and could continue doing so in the fall. Golf, a fall sport, is one that shouldn’t be pushed to the spring. It’s the easiest sport in which to adhere to social-distance guidelines.
The spring sport that could be difficult to flip to the fall is track and field. Social distancing would be almost impossible to enforce at the WPIAL or PIAA Championships.