Hi Kevin,
I am the District Administrator for Districts 5/13 in Washington State, which is a pretty large chunk of Eastern Washington. The site administrator for the State Little League website sent me your question regarding heat, rescheduling the tournament and so forth for the 8-10 Baseball Tournament in Othello coming up July 22nd. I appreciate your concern, and we do take note of the time/date the tournament is being played. That being said, we will play the tournament on schedule as it is part of a much larger frame work of tournaments.. Here is a statement we recently released about the Tournament and playing in the “heat”:
The organizers and tournament director for the State 8-10 division tournament are well aware of the issues related to heat, hydration, and the constraints of playing in that environment. TO that end, the schedule has been set up so games are evenly distributed in the earlier part of the day and later in the evening, leaving the “heat of the day” with no games currently scheduled. Additionally each dugout will have ample water, and managers and coaches are encouraged to bring air circulating systems that blow air from a mister or ice bucket. Managers are also encouraged to continually monitor their players for heat exhaustion and dehydration. We will brief hydration guidelines and “how to beat the heat” team management techniques during the coaches meeting the day before the tournament kicks off. Finally all players actively playing during game times will be occasionally monitored for heat exhaustion by tournament officials while their game is being played. Managers of the teams are primarily responsible for maintaining their team members hydration and heat monitoring. We ask you to keep your players out of the swimming pool at the hotel or campground during the heat of the day, and instead in stay the air conditioning, out of the sun, resting and hydrating.
Fans are encouraged to bring umbrellas, plenty to drink, “easy ups”, and camp chairs to beat the heat.
Essentially heat is an issue from June 1 here in the eastern LL districts where temperatures at game time have been as hot as 113 degrees (I still have the screen shot on my phone from that day). During one District Tournament the temperature was 108 degrees at 3:30 in the afternoon… we stopped the game at the end of an inning and turned the sprinklers on and let the players run through them for 10 minutes to cool off… while we are not perfect, we do keep an eye on things when it comes to heat.
I appreciate your concern and we will do our best to maintain a healthy and safe tournament in Othello. Hope to see you there!
Regards
JP
DA WA5/13
