“Play ball!”
P.J. Stein said he has been waiting for a long time to hear an umpire say those words prior to a baseball game.
Stein is manager of the Seymour U10 Diamondbacks baseball team that played in a USSSA baseball tournament Saturday and Sunday at Shields Park in Seymour.
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“I was pretty excited to finally get out on the field here,” he said. “We worked a lot over the winter before the COVID-19 hit. We had to put everything on hold like everybody, but it was great to get back on the field today.”
The international COVID-19 pandemic halted sports play for all ages, from Little League to the professional sports leagues, starting in March, and this summer group was thrilled to get going again with some game normalcy.
“This was the first weekend we were allowed to play tournaments,” Stein said. “We’ve been practicing outside for a few weeks.”
Most of the teams in Seymour carried 12 players, a manager and two or three coaches.
Stein said social distancing is difficult.
“In a small town with a lot of friends, it’s hard to keep them away from one another,” he said. “We did spread out, and I think all the fans spread out well, and it seemed to work out real well.”
Stein said the Diamondbacks are going to have a busy summer, as they plan to play in nine tournaments.
“We had scheduled 10 before all this, and we’re still going to be able to play nine,” he said. “We’re just not going to have a couple weeks off that we would have had off. We’ll play almost every week. Most of our tournaments are within an hour drive, and most of the teams would be from southern Indiana.”
On Sunday afternoon, the Seymour U12 team played at Kasting Park and faced a team from Illinois. Not all towns and cities in Illinois have opened their parks for games.
One member of the Seymour U12 is Drake Goodpaster, who plays middle infield, left field and does some pitching for his team.
When he’s on the mound, Goodpaster said, “I like to start. I like to throw my knuckleball and my fastball.”
He said he began practicing with this team last October, worked out indoors during the winter, then was back outside this spring and was pleased when practices resumed earlier this month.
“I really looked forward to just playing baseball,” Goodpaster said. “Our first tournament was supposed to be in April or May. We’re going to play from this tournament all the way to late August about every weekend. I just like getting out there playing with friends and having a good time.”
Ohio Valley Sports Productions conducts tournaments throughout the area.
“There were 145 teams in everything combined,” said Joey Rollins of Brownstown, co-area director for USSSA baseball. “We were really spread out, which was good for our reopening. This is the travel ball side of it. We had tournaments in Seymour, Brownstown, North Vernon, Nashville and Austin. We will have tournaments through the end of August.”
In Seymour, games were on all four diamonds at Kasting Park, both diamonds at Shields Park, three diamonds at Freeman Field and at Gaiser Park. Games were played on all three diamonds at Brownstown Park.
Rollins said he was happy when Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb moved the date parks could begin to hold games earlier to June 12.
Rollins and B.J. Sigler of North Vernon are co-USSSA directors for this area, which covers Bloomington, Nashville, Columbus, Edinburgh, Seymour, Brownstown, North Vernon, Austin and Paoli.
“There are other directors north and south of us,” Rollins said.
Some communities have not opened their parks to hold tournaments, so some of the tournaments had to be moved. Rollins said his organization works with communities and with USSSA softball on diamond availability.
Rollins said with COVID-19, this year was set up differently.
“The state tournaments will be the next two weeks, and the season will extend through July and into August,” he said.