Coaches, kids await word for return to diamonds
One more season. One more at-bat. One more swing.
Coltyn Povlick only hopes he gets the chance.
“I want to hit my first home run,” said Coltyn, a 12-year-old Butler youth baseball player. “I've come close a bunch of times and this is my last chance to play on the minor league field.
“I don't think I'll be able to get one on the Pony League field.”
Coltyn will move up to Pony League next season.
Right now, he just wants a this season.
“I miss playing a lot. I miss being with my friends,” Coltyn said.
That feeling is prevalent among youth baseball and softball players who are awaiting Gov. Tom Wolf to move Butler County into the green phase and get teams back on the field.
“We're pretty much ready to go,” Carl Ekas, president of the Center Township association said. “All we need is a start-up date from the governor.
“That's what everybody is waiting for.”
Most youth baseball and softball leagues were originally scheduled to begin the first week of May. None are expected to start before mid-June.Kevin Knapik, president of Butler Youth Baseball, said travel ball will probably be eliminated this year in favor of in-house programs.“We're hoping to be able to start by mid-June, maybe the third week of June,” Knapik said. “Even if we settle for a 14-game season, just to get some ballgames in for the kids, it'd be OK.”Some local associations are talking about extending the in-house season well into August, if necessary.“We''ll go as far as we need to go,” Knapik said. “Our fall ball season usually gets going in August. We may just run right into that ... anything to get these kids some baseball.”Ryan Rattigan, 11, of East Butler, like Coltyn, has been playing organized baseball since beginning T-ball at age 5.Ryan plays soccer in the fall. The potential length of this summer's baseball season doesn't matter to him.“I'll keep playing baseball in August,” he said. “It's my favorite sport. I like soccer and I play basketball, but I want to play baseball right now.”The Rattigan family has a batting cage in the basement.“I've been down there a few times, play video games, play golf in the yard,” Ryan said of passing the time. “It's not the same.”Coltyn can identify with that.“Sitting around home all the time, doing nothing ... It's not very much fun,” he said.Getting back on the field — even with new safety rules in place — would be well worth it to him.“If I have to wear a mask, it'd be weird, but I'll do it,” Coltyn said. “Everything's kinda weird right now.”Among the new rules will be no physical celebratory contact, such as high-fives and chest bumping.Coltyn isn't sure how effectively kids will follow that one.“What?,” he responded when told of that rule. “That's going to be hard (to follow), real hard.”Boden Lenyk, 12, a former Butler resident who plays travel baseball in the Pine-Richland area, agreed that no high-fives or chest bumps would be difficult.“I haven't heard that,” Boden said of the rule. “That's how we celebrate with our teammates and coaches,” Boden said. “It'd be weird not doing that.”Boden and his 10-year-old brother, Karsten, both said they would play baseball “anytime, as long as we can.”They are involved in youth hockey, which starts in August and could present a conflict.“Since they can't play team sports right now, we've been spending a lot of time on the golf course,” their father, Erik Lenyk, said. “We do nine holes a couple of days a week, just to get them out there.”Knapik viewed Thursday's virtual roundtable — hosted by Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) — concerning the potential return of youth basebnall and softball this summer.“I liked what they said about getting back to a normal lifestyle, with baseball and softball leading the way in that regard,” Knapik said. “It would be the first chance to see if we can get back to reality in the fall, to see if it works.”Mars Baseball Association president Larry Fox doesn't think it would take long for the kids to get back into the swing of things.“T-ball, coach-pitch, those kids could almost start games up right away,” Fox said. “It's ages 9 and up, where kids are pitching. They might need a week or two to ramp up a bit.“We've got 50 teams in the Mars association. That's a lot of kids being denied the experience of being on a team right now.”The safety rules will be a big part of the games when they do return.Knapik believes parents will play the most critical role in the success of those rules.“Teaching the kids the right way about cleaning up after themselves, throwing trash in the garbage, the social distancing, that stuff has to begin at home,” he said.“Some parents just drop their kids off and expect us to do it. That's not going to work now.”
