Hutchinson Junior League Baseball Association

To All Players and Families:

As you have all seen from the previous announcements, the leagues that HJLBA plays in have cancelled their summer seasons for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  MYAS and the other state level baseball and softball organizations are still actively pursuing their “2020 Back to the Diamond” campaign to open up youth baseball.  Right now it is a phased approach and there is some activity allowed but no games yet and no group events of more than 10 people and no timeline as to when anything more will be allowed.    Many of the tournaments for the summer have been cancelled but there are some associations holding on to the hope that they can maybe still get their tournaments in for the year.  There is also a hope from MYAS that they will be able to put some kind of a league together.  There are a lot of unknowns in this campaign.  That is a lot of the reason that the Crow River Junior Baseball League and Crow River Youth Baseball League have cancelled the 2020 season. 

HJLBA Board of Directors wanted to reach out to everyone that has been involved with Hutchinson baseball in the past year to let you know a few things regarding this season.  First, as stated previously, we hope to get the kids exposed to some baseball this season still.  We will be watching the restrictions and will be looking at putting together some mini camps as soon as restrictions lift enough to allow it and will also be looking to be more involved than in past years with putting teams into fall leagues.  So, the message there is that yes, the summer season is cancelled, but baseball is not over for 2020.  We still of course don't know what the state of everything will be later this summer or fall so can not say anything for sure.  

There are also going to potentially be travel teams from Hutchinson looking to still play in some tournaments and possibly a league this summer.  The HJLBA will not be involved with organizing these teams.  These teams will be initiated by parents and will be operating independently from the association regarding team selection, funding, scheduling, etc.  Given the unique and crazy circumstances of this season, the association is supporting the parents decision to go on their own for this year, but only for this year.  We will be allowing these teams to use HJLBA equipment and jerseys but that is pretty much all we will be doing.  We can get contact information (for scheduling, umpires, insurance, etc.) out to any parent who wishes to look into doing this with a team.  This will be completely independent and HJLBA will assume no responsibility - any team doing this will basically be playing at their own risk and will need to be funded completely on their own.  We know that there is a team at the 13 year old level that is looking at playing if possible still this summer and we have not heard about any other age groups. 

Thank you

HJLBA

Baseball Families-

Crow River Baseball has made the very difficult decision to cancel the season. To read their message go to leaguelineup.com.

What this means for Hutchinson baseball is that all levels are cancelled, from Minors to 14U. We will be working on developing some mini camps for later this summer and planning a fall ball league. As for right now, have your kids get out and have fun playing some backyard ball or like the Crow River Baseball post states " some sandlot ball ". You might have to explain what that means to your kids. 

We are also working with PRCE on getting refunds to all the families that have paid registration fees already. 

We will continue to keep all of you updated as we receive information pertaining to youth baseball.

Thank You;

HJLBA

Hello - All,

This is definitely the strangest baseball season we have been involved with.  We have all been patiently waiting to see what we would be allowed to do regarding baseball amidst all of the other chaos and changes we have been dealing with and living through.  As you all know, the stay-at-home order in MN did expire yesterday May 18, however there are still restrictions in place that will not allow a baseball season to begin yet.  Full team practices, games and tournaments are on the list of prohibited events - most specifically the restriction of group meetings of 10 or more people.  There has been a coalition formed between the various state level baseball and softball associations to work with the MN Governors office to develop a safe "2020 Back to the Diamond" plan to open up youth baseball for the season.  https://us6.campaign-archive.com/?e=[UNIQID]&u=fc3e04cba1c52114454c55a3b&id=cbcb2f9344

HJLBA is watching the news from this group closely and we will post updates on our website and Facebook page when concrete news is released.  Right now there are proposed timelines and restrictions to phase into a baseball season, but there is not yet a definite plan that we have seen.  As soon as we see a plan released and approved by the state, HJLBA will review the plan and determine how we can safely start a season at all levels conforming to this plan.  The primary focus of HJLBA will be the safety of the players and families.

If you know that your family will not be participating this season and you have already registered, please let us know and we will help work on getting your registration fee refunded.  This will be one thing we will stress through all of this - if you and your family are not comfortable with the plan to play ball, HJLBA will 100% support the decision to not participate this season.

There are too many scenarios in the works to start listing possibilities so we will not even start doing that yet.  Right now we are waiting for additional news.  We have been told that there is hope that a plan will be established no later than June 1.

Thank you

HJLBA