By Mike Flanagan
Hometown Weekly Sports Editor
The sports world continues to take hits every day due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On Monday, it was announced that the state of Massachusetts has cancelled the 2020 summer American Legion baseball season, effective immediately. Legion coaches were notified via email on Monday.
The news was first reported by Mike Moran of the Daily Hampshire Gazette and confirmed on Twitter by Braintree Post 86 (run by coach Cam Fox).
Legion Baseball was one of the final glimmers of hope for some type of organized high school athletics until fall season rolls around. Players from Walpole (Post 104), Medfield (Post 110), Needham (Post 14) and Westwood (Post 320), as well as the various players from Wellesley who play for Needham, will now be forced to go an entire six months (March-August), at least, without playing organized baseball.
This pandemic is going to have lasting effects on the sports industry, but especially for spring sports like baseball. Winter sports like hockey and basketball, at least at the high school level, were able to play nearly a full season, despite the state championship games being cancelled. Fall sports obviously are not currently in season, so outside of athletes not being able to stay in their normal off-season routines, high school sports such as football, field hockey and soccer have yet to be hit all that hard.
The total opposite is happening to spring sports. Multi-sport athletes who play baseball, as well as a fall and/or winter sport, could begin to just forget about baseball and instead focus on hockey, football, basketball or soccer. Legion baseball being cancelled adds to this problem. For local sports fans, watching all of this happen before our eyes is painful, to say the least.
For funny and incisive sports analysis as well as game highlights, follow Mike Flanagan on his personal Twitter and Instagram @flano0.
