Baseball Sask releases return-to-play guidelines, waiting for green light from province

Baseball Sask hopes a return-to-play plan it released on Tuesday will convince Saskatchewan government and health officials to allow games to happen this summer.

"The game will look much different than our traditional game," reads a portion of a 12-page document detailing the return to train and play guidelines.

Much of the plan is devoted to regular sanitizing of equipment and facilities, as well as new rules designed around physical distancing.

Players and coaches must stay at least two metres from each other in the dugout, umpires can call balls and strikes from behind the pitching mound, if they prefer, and mound visits are allowed between the coach, pitcher, and catcher as long as they remain two metres from each other.

Anyone who comes within two metres of an umpire to argue a call is gone for the season.

Postgame handshakes, team huddles and pre-game plate meetings for lineup exchanges are banned.

The total number of people attending games or practices, including parents, officials and teams on the field, can't be above the maximum outdoor social gathering limit at the time. Attendance must be taken at every event for all people present, including parents.

Other guidelines include no spitting, chewing gum or sunflower seeds, no sharing of batting helmets and no sharing of any other equipment unless disinfected between uses.

Anyone displaying any illness symptoms will not be allowed to participate.

Game play left unchanged

Mike Ramage, the executive director of Baseball Sask, said they have left the playing rules as they are because "it is deemed that the brief exchanges in certain plays do not present much risk."

"In terms of the actual rules of baseball, we haven't really changed those at all," he said.

Ramage said Saskatchewan is one of only two provinces that hasn't set a date for when baseball players can return to train.

"All other provinces, other than Saskatchewan and Ontario, have been given dates where they can start to either train, practise or play games," he said.

He said that as of Monday, June 15, baseball players in the other eight provinces will at least be able to train.

The plan is designed to help convince the provincial government to let baseball players in the province return to action, Ramage said.

"With the government preaching the whole social distancing and hygiene and sanitization, we kind of did as much as possible to hopefully appease them and allow them to give us the go ahead to start here once Phase 4 opens up," he said.

The province has yet to announce any guidelines around organized sports for the summer, but it indicated last week that the earliest that organized sports could take place would be Phase 4, for which no date has been announced.

Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province's chief medical health officer, addressed the issue of sports competition on Monday.

"The guidance that is going to be developed is going to allow training within a certain group — the same group getting together to train. It may allow some cohorting if there's play allowed within one or two teams within the same area," Shahab said.

The Baseball Sask return-to-play guidelines include several assumptions, including that recreation facilities are open, and that insurance providers have looked at the guidelines and liability exposure "is not a concern for anyone involved."

The organization also said the guidelines are subject to change at any time based on requirements from the Saskatchewan Health Authority and the provincial government.