Welcome, April — hope for warmer weather, green grass and flowers, and a most welcomed new baseball season! It’s been a rough past twelve months, and we all look forward to better days ahead.

Among those annual rites of spring are increased activities on the area youth baseball, softball and soccer fields. Much of which was taken away by the “cancel culture” we have all endured. Locally, there has been increased speculation about the upcoming season and the 2021 Little League World Series status.

While little has been known about the behind-the-scenes planning for the World Series, Little League International President & CEO Steve Keener recently met with the local media via a zoom conference to give some insight about the preparations taking place.

Keener revealed that a Little League International Pandemic Response Advisory Committee has been formed. The Commission is chaired by Dr. Daniel Lueders, a sports medicine official out of UPMC in Pittsburgh and a member of the Little League International Board of Directors. Among its members are a wide range of medical and logistical professionals to help guide and counsel Little League with the decisions that will ultimately be made regarding a 2021 World Series.

“The commission’s charge is to review our plans and share with us any blind spots we might not be thinking about relative to the tournament season,” Keener explained. “I want to emphasize that the Commission has the latitude that if they believe we can’t effectively do this, then they can make the recommendation that we cancel the World Series for 2021. Right now, we are planning as if the World Series will be held. There are multiple contingencies being planned and reviewed. I would expect the Commission will make its recommendation, and we will make a decision regarding the status of the World Series by mid-May.

“The planning will revolve around the safety of the Series participants, but, that said, we can’t have a Little League World Series or regional tournaments without making it accessible for families and people from the communities to some degree, from where the teams come from. We will plan with an abundance of caution and may have to put some pretty restrictive measures in place for who can attend. That is one of the unknowns at this time. What I will tell you is I don’t believe we would do this if we are not going to allow families and a reasonable number of people associated with the teams to be able to attend.”

During the 2019 World Series, Little League revealed plans to expand the World Series field from 16 to 20 teams. In doing so, facility upgrades were scheduled to take place to accommodate a larger tournament. Keener addressed how those plans are now proceeding.

“When the governor lifted some of the restrictions last May, work continued with some of the facility upgrades for the first phase of the expansion we had planned. The dormitories, the laundry facility, the new infirmary, and the new batting cages have all been completed. Those things were all necessary for our planned expansion to 20 World Series teams, scheduled for 2021. That expansion has been pushed back to 2022.

“The remainder of the renovations, the gift shop, the stadium concourse area, the parking area, and the facility enhancements at Lamade and Volunteer Stadiums has all been put on hold for the time being.”

As an organization operating internationally under pandemic circumstances, Little League has experienced a drop in its affiliated programs.

“I think everyone thinks that participation will be down this year for a number of reasons,” Keener added. “We tracked our chartering league affiliation data pretty closely. Right now, we are about 19% behind compared to the 2019 numbers. I would be surprised if we can get back to 2019 numbers this year.

“One of the things we’ve heard from many of our affiliated programs is that their communities are in economic distress, and many of the businesses and organizations that support their leagues are not able to do so. The leagues are trying to scrape by and get back on their feet so the kids can play. Others have told us that with so many families facing economic distress because of the pandemic, they are not able to participate. To help meet that issue, we have partnered with T-Mobile in making available grant funding to ease some of the burden.”

Asked how the Williamsport Little League office has fared during the pandemic, Keener provided an assessment.

“I think we have fared reasonably well, but like virtually everyone else, we’ve been affected by the pandemic. We have been very cautious about returning to the workplace, both here at Williamsport and at our various regional locations. We have adhered very strictly to the governor’s recommendations and mandates on getting back to capacity at our workplace.

“We’ve learned some things over the past year about remote work and using technology that we have found to be very useful. We currently have a limited amount of people coming into the office on a regular basis and have altered schedules for our workforce. We’ll continue in that manner for the foreseeable future until we get the green flag to return to a more normal schedule. Nothing replaces being in the same room with people, but we are doing OK with a work efficiency standpoint.”

Let’s all hope that the anticipated mid-May announcement will wave a green flag for the 2021 Little League World Series!