The Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League will not play this summer because of health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the league announced Monday night.
The league, made up of 10 teams in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas, announced Monday night in an email that its board of directors voted unanimously to cancel the season after looking at “health official guidance, regional trends as well as state and local directives.”
“Sadly, given the facts associated with COVID-19, we simply cannot jeopardize the health and safety of those affiliated with the CRCBL as well as the local communities we call home,” league President Brad Rifkin wrote.
The Cal Ripken League is a wooden bat summer league for college baseball players after their school season ends. There are four Montgomery County teams in the league, including the Bethesda Big Train, which plays its games at Shirley Povich Field on Westlake Drive.
The season had initially been scheduled to start in June, but the league delayed the start date to July 1 due to the pandemic. The league said at the time that it would decide at a later date whether to cancel the entire season.
Bethesda Big Train founder Bruce Adams, an emeritus member of the league’s board, said in an interview Tuesday morning that he understood the decision to cancel the season and thought it was inevitable.
“We want to make sure we’re not doing anything to endanger these players who would have to fly here from all over the country,” he said.
Adams said teams were scheduled to play 36 games this year, then compete in playoffs. But summer leagues across the country have started canceling their seasons. In early April, the Valley Baseball League in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia canceled its season, and two weeks ago, the Cape Cod Baseball League in Massachusetts pulled the plug on its season.
Adams said canceling the season was a difficult decision for the players and coaches.
“It’s sad. The players want to play and the coaches want to coach, believe me. The [players] lost most of their college season [due to COVID-19]. Their college coaches are dying for them to play,” he said.
Adams said that no baseball this year means Major League Baseball scouts can’t observe players this summer.
“Their scouts have not been able to see these players this spring, and they were hoping they could seem them in the summer,” he said.
Despite the disappointment, Adams said there was never any doubt about whether canceling was the right thing to do.
“The question in my mind was never, are we gonna play in 2020? The question was, are we gonna do the right thing in 2020, so we can play in 2021?” he said.
Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@moco360.media
