by Sarah Thomack
St. Joseph Post
As summer approaches, several baseball teams are wondering about a start date.
Pony Express Baseball 14-and-under Coordinator Travis Dodge says they use St. Joseph city facilities and had a lot of questions as they looked into how to start their baseball season safely.
“When you catch the baseball, there’s hands touching it, does it have to be sanitized every time there’s a play? Players that are at first, a base runner at first base, do they have to stay six feet apart, no pickoff plays? There’s lots of questions that we just kind of need addressed," Dodge says. "We brought those up (to the city council) and they probably weren’t thinking that way so it was good that we did that so they can formulate what their answers want to be to us because we want to proceed with the baseball season, but we also want to be safe for the people in attendance and the players, the coaches.”
In a work session last week, St. Joseph Parks Director Chuck Kempf said under the order, they are anticipating a tentative start date for summer baseball on June 1st.
"Then revisit it again with the intent of trying to allow practices and games to begin in June and then at least we have an opportunity to see what’s going to happen with the public health emergency, see where our numbers are at, see if we’re comfortable by the end of this month in moving forward," Kempf says.
The St. Joseph City Council meets for another work session at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.