Hi All,

I’ve been kind of quiet over the last few weeks to let you all adjust to your local COVID situations – however, it’s time to start Little League back up and get things moving.

First and foremost any forward motion on restarting Little League is about the PLAYERS FIRST, families second, community third, and Little League last.

Little League has and always will be about the kids for me. It’s incredibly important for your players, their families, and the community to get your programs back in gear and start thinking about 2021.

Studies have shown, and you all have experienced it over the last few months that social relationships, playing outdoors, and team sports are important to children. While we have been in various phases of lockdown and COVID response, mental AND physical health has suffered in many, and the need for social interaction has become readily apparent.

YOU as Little League Board members have an incredible opportunity, and somewhat of a social responsibility to get your leagues back in operation and be a service to those around you in your community. It’s not just about baseball anymore, or about “select teams” vs. “Little League”. It’s about doing something GREAT in your community, and something even more incredible for your kids and families in your league. Lets get moving! Below are some updates for you and a path forward to getting the 2021 season kicked off.

COVID Guidelines

Currently the DAs in Washington are putting together a waiver request for Little League (and youth sports in general) to be allowed to play even on city or government owned fields. This has been a problem for some leagues that use school or city fields. Since College and Professional teams have been allowed to play in our state, there is a precedent now for youth sports. Soccer leagues, Basketball, and other youth sports organizations are beginning to petition the Governor’s office to get the same waiver applied to their sport. We in Little League are doing the same. More info on that soon, but the goal is to get the waiver, and get a copy to those leagues that have to use school, city, or county owned fields.

Privately owned fields should have no problem in restarting so long as they have a COVID mitigation plan, policy, and policing in place.

A liability waiver is probably going to be needed by the agency who owns the field if not a privately owned field. More on that in a minute. But START NOW GETTING THE IDEA FLOATED TO THOSE IN CHARGE OF YOUR FIELDS THAT:

YOU WANT TO PLAY IN THE SPRING
YOU HAVE A COVID PLAN that includes screening for temperature, social distancing, and mask wearing for fans. If you need help organizing the plan, call or email me.
YOU MAY HAVE A WAIVER FROM THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE
YOU MAY HAVE A LIABILITY WAIVER

START NOW by talking to those in charge of the fields. There may be some push back, and local guidelines must be followed, but, we think by 2021 and the spring season, several of these exceptions will be made. The Government is starting to see that people need their social programs whether it is church, Little League, or other types of social settings that can be conducted safely.

Liability Waiver

There will be a webinar for DAs in the near future on the steps or concepts around the Liability Waiver. In the past we have not had that, but there is some official guidance coming down from Little League International on this. Their legal department is going to conduct this. As soon as dates have been confirmed and the webinar attended I will have more info on this.

New Cross-Boundary Rule

For this year only (and possibly permanent), Little League is going to allow T-Ball participants to be recruited outside of league boundaries. This new rule works this way:

If the player is T-Ball age they are eligible for this rule (4-7)
If the player is T-Ball age and does not play in another Little League sanctioned league they may play in ANY Little League they choose.
Once they “age out” of T-Ball however they must play in the boundary they have residence in.

SO this plan works like this:

If a kid playing in say a “city” league wants to play in Little League, but doesn’t live within the boundary of a Little League that offers “T-ball” or wants to play in a specific league in their city they can. They can play in that league until they age out of T-Ball. So if in your city they have a city sponsored T-Ball or another Little League in your town doesn’t offer T-Ball, they can play in your league. Another way to say this is you can recruit city league players for your League regardless of where they live in any boundaries. See attached “formal” rules….

Kinda neat eh?

New Idea for minimum games

One of the ideas that we can implement this year is “weekend tournament play” across all divisions to meet minimum game rules, AND to give the kids a more “select team” feel to their season. Little League is going to allow for 2021 that leagues that want to just play “Weekend Tournaments” can – so long as all safety and pitch rules are maintained. This means that leagues that want to play a tournament on the weekend for any division can. Teams can get 4-5 games in on a weekend…. And do this 3-4 weekends in a row (say in May), and the minimum game play is met in 30 days – easing up schedules for fields and so forth… easier on the volunteers, and easier on the COVID guidelines. It also means practices during the week can be scheduled more conveniently and less demand on field space.

Tournament Season

We are planning several things for tournament season.

First, all state tournaments will remain with the Districts that were awarded them for 2020. We CAN discuss who/where the tournament(s) will be held again if you all think necessary. Right now Dist 13 has the Majors State Tournament – And looking to host in Cheney at West Plains LL, but if the folks in Cheney want to give it to someone else we can talk about that too. Liberty Lake is a good second choice for that….

District Tournament play is going to be encouraged, but there is a new “Travel Team” option that I will talk about in a bit…lower down. This is exciting… it basically sets up travel teams within the District !! I’d like there to be another go around at picking the site for District Tournaments… we talked about several ways to get that assigned as well.

We will have a meeting for the District Presidents in November (early) to get organized for the 2021 season… as far as tournaments go anyway… you should be working on your regular season stuff now!

Board Elections

Your board elections should be done this month. If you need some help in organizing a “Virtual Election”, well then Little League has published some guidelines for that. See below:

Please note the following for Electronic Elections:

Due to the COVID-19, local leagues may hold their annual election electronically provided they confirm the following:

Notice of the meeting must be provided as outlined in the league’s constitution. Each league will be required to provide a notice of election to membership that provides for 10 additional days from what is currently outlined in the league’s constitution.
Nominations are accepted in accordance with the current constitution.
A quorum of membership must still be established in order to conduct the election, for this purpose the number of ballots submitted will establish a quorum.

Attached is the template to use if holding an electronic election: Please update to reflect your individual league and league’s constitution.

Notice of Meeting: Allow for an additional 10 days plus number of days outlined in constitution.
Nomination: Send out at the same time as Notice of Meeting.
Election: Allow for 72 hours (3 days) to collect ballots.
Election Results: Share after board has been voted on and after board of director are in position.

Please note: if the league is using an online platform to conduct elections, notate such in the attached documentation. All areas highlighted in YELLOW will need to be modified to fit the league’s needs. Please remind leagues to reference their constitutions.

I have the notice samples if you need them.

Funds

There are two funds that are available or will be available for “scholarship” kids and programs… one is from T-Mobile … and the other I am getting the details on. It’s best to get those requests in early. Let me know if you are interested in those types of programs. Yes it takes paperwork to get at them!

Also – there are MILLIONS of dollars available through the State of Washington, you need to start with your local state representative, but we have had discussions at the DA level about districts getting HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars recently for field construction and other expenses for operations. Some of this comes from the RCO program, but there are other sources available. Ask your Washington State Representative about how to get at these funds if you need them. If they don’t give you any satisfaction, then contact me and I’ll give you some people or methods to use to talk to them.

Marketing and Promotion

Little League is talking about doing some “national” marketing with the theme “Little League is Back” – sometime in the next couple of months. I don’t have the exact details on that but should them soon. I am assuming some of it will be national TV promotions. With the advent of COVID, many traditional sources of marketing and advertising your programs / leagues has gone by the wayside, but one interesting thing that some leagues in Washington has done is use the new “Drive-In-Theater” venue to advertise… the “Drive in theater” (In Spokane, Liberty Lake, and Hayden) has made a come back… and they have advertising that is affordable. Little League may be making a generic PSA that you can attach your name and numbers to for Local League advertising… and run that before movies… The league on the west side that played this summer (yes during COVID), got a lot of good response using theater advertising.

Use Facebook advertising, Twitter, local “Shopper” or Weekly classified papers, or even Craigslist (Free!) to promote your League.

District Travel Teams

District can now incorporate “Travel Teams” into regular season play. Little League for the upcoming year will authorize District Level “Travel Teams” during regular season play, and because I sit over both District 5 and District 13 I am going to institute this for all play divisions that would like to create “Select Little League Teams”… the rules are attached, but essentially because we can combine District 5 and 13, we now can play “Travel Ball” with “Select” teams drawn from Little League Rosters. And I will issue waivers for all levels of play across both districts…SO Teams from Walla Walla are free to play in Spokane or Clarkston, or Othello, or wherever our League Boundaries are. I MAY consider creating these teams from multiple leagues… (So Clarkston and Pomeroy for example could put together a travel team to go play in Spokane, Or West Plains and BI-County could make a team to play in Othello…) See attached rules…

If you have any questions, or need help in getting fired up, please contact me ASAP….

Thanks for all your hard work…remember, it is for your kids, the families, and now your community and Little League is more important than EVER!

Regards

District Administrator

Washington State Little League