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The Sumter County Recreation and Parks Department is still trying to keep hope alive for youth sports this summer, but the season is still up in the air.
"Well, we haven't cancelled it; we've kind of suspended it," said Phil Parnell, the department director. "We're hoping to do something middle of June or July, hopefully, but you just don't know as long as it's still spreading pretty good. It's just hard to know right now."
Parnell said the plan was originally to have the season start at the beginning of June, but that doesn't seem plausible at this point.
"We really don't have one," said Parnell on a potential starting date. "There's no reason to have one right now, because if you do all you're going to do is have to postpone it. We were hoping June 1, but that's not looking positive."
If the season is able to start,
the plan is to have a full regular season. Dixie Youth Baseball has cancelled its postseason and the World Series, but Parnell still hopes to have a full regular season of youth baseball and softball in Sumter.
"Dixie Youth cancelled the state tournament and the World Series, but we don't have to have all-stars. All we're worried about is playing our regular season," said Parnell. "You can do that in a 6-to-7-week time frame. As long as we have time to finish before our fall sports start, if they start. If we get in that window where we can't have a regular season before fall is scheduled to start, we'd have to cancel."
Parnell said there's no point to playing an abbreviated season, so the plan is to get in a full regular season before fall leagues are scheduled to start. That would make the beginning of July the latest the season could start. Parnell said a decision would have to be made by the middle of June for that to take place.
"If I had to say right now, the first week in July. If we can't start by then, we'll probably have to cancel," said Parnell. "We wouldn't want to go out there and play two weeks and call it quits. If we don't have a time frame where we can play a full season, we don't want to halfway do something."
Of course, travel baseball and softball is also very popular. Parnell doesn't expect Sumter to host any tournaments for that any time soon either, because if Sumter kids can't play he doesn't see how hosting weekend tournaments could be justified.
"We've got dates we've cancelled," said Parnell. "As of right now, if we can't open the ball fields up for our kids, how can we open the ballfields up for travel teams?"
At the end of the day, the decision will be made based on the safety of the kids. Parnell doesn't want a sloppy season that will turn kids away from the sport or put their health at risk.
"When you live in a county that's had almost 300 cases and they're still having cases, it's hard to put people into that situation," said Parnell. "Most people understand that and if we're going to error, we're going to error on the side of the safety and the side of the kids. No one wants to have a season more than we do, but we have to make sure we're safe and the kids have a positive experience.
"We don't want kids to go out there and not have a good time, not enjoy it because maybe it's their first time playing and if they don't have a positive experience because the rules are so different, they may never pick up a baseball or softball again."
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Sumter not cancelling youth sports yet; season still up in the air - Sumter Item
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