Wednesday marks opening day for outdoor youth sports in Minnesota. On Friday, the Minnesota Department of Health gave the go-ahead for outdoor youth sports to resume inter-team scrimmages June 24 which opens a path to more summer sports competitions amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
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"We know that people are antsy to get going," Minnesota Department of Health Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann told Mike Max on Sports to the Max Friday. "You don't have to start in June 24. You can, but we still encourage a phased-in approach."
As part of MDH guidelines, teams can begin inter-team scrimmages in practices starting Wednesday. Two weeks later, teams can begin playing local community and club teams. After another two weeks, teams can consider expanding play outside their communities based on COVID-19 testing and data.
The Minnesota Youth Athletic Services summer league, Gopher State Baseball, running from April-July was canceled because of COVID-19. Now, they will begin the Gopher State Summer League; a hybrid season starting July 6.
"Teams are mostly from the metropolitan area," said Dawson Blanck, who is the Executive Director for Minnesota Youth Athletic Services. "We're really going to work hard to put people into close, geographic proximity so travel isn't very far between communities."
Getting youth baseball players back to the diamond took a collaborative effort between MYAS and Metro Youth Baseball, who together developed the Baseball Alliance of Minnesota.
"They are also running a separate league in the south metro, they'll have a similar amount of teams and players participating," Blanck said.
Altogether, there could be upwards of 10,000 players and 800 teams ready to play after the Fourth of July. The path back to the baseball diamond wouldn't have happened without even more sides coming together in early May.
The Back to the Diamond Plan brought Metro Baseball, Gopher State Baseball, and Minnesota Softball together to create a plan for bringing the state's 40,000 youth ballplayers back safely during the pandemic. The effort helped bring back practices starting on June 1 and Blanck believes the collaboration will serve them well beyond the pandemic.
"The collaborative effort put together by the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission, I think it's the start to something awesome," he said. "We finally got the statewide organizations together and met virtually multiple times a week. Just to have the rapport now and I think that together we can really work on making youth athletics a better experience for everyone involved."