NH finds way to play summer baseball in COVID league
By GREG FENNELL
Valley News Staff Writer
With players and coaches standing at least six feet apart, coach Rob Woodward talks to the team about how the new summer New Hampshire COVID Baseball League will be a different experience from the usual at their first practice in Lebanon, N.H., on June 1, 2020. There will be temperature checks, no shared equipment and sunflower seed spitting is not allowed for the 11 teams competing, who are a mix of former Legion rosters and club programs. (Valley News - Geoff Hansen)
Joey Perras is going to have to break the baseball habits of a lifetime — high-fives, ferrying teammates’ gloves, spitting — to do something he’s missed since March. He’s up for it.
Perras lost his senior Hanover High season as well as his Lebanon Post 22 American Legion campaign to the coronavirus pandemic. However, Monday night found him among 17 other high school baseball players at Eldredge Park circling coach Rob Woodward prior to the first practice of a suddenly anticipated schedule.
Enough New Hampshire programs have bought into an alternative — what they’re calling the New Hampshire COVID Baseball League — that meaningful time on a diamond could be realized. The one-season league became possible when New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu approved small group workouts for youth sports last week. Should stay-at-home restrictions be further reduced, Perras could be throwing to live batters in three weeks.
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