{"id":342326,"date":"2021-04-16T06:04:59","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T20:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=342326"},"modified":"2021-04-16T06:04:59","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T20:04:59","slug":"little-league-season-to-start-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/little-league-season-to-start-in-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Little League season to start in May"},"content":{"rendered":"
Saipan Little League president Mike Borja leads last Saturday\u2019s Saipan Little League meeting at the Department of Public Works\u2019 Grounds and Transportation office in Lower Base. (Mark Rabago)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Saipan Little League scrapped its 2020 season but with the availability of vaccines and with no local transmission on island, Little League president Mike Borja said he\u2019s giving the go-signal to start the 2021 season next month.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s only one catch though, as according to Borja, this year\u2019s Little League season will only be CNMI-wide as champion teams will not have the opportunity to represent the islands in either the regionals\u2014or if they make it that far\u2014even the World Series in the U.S. Mainland. <\/p>\n

\u201cSaipan Little League will open its season in May and it will only go all the way to the regular season and district tournament. When you say district tournament it consists of the CNMI Little League made up of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota,\u201d he said following last Saturday\u2019s Saipan Little League meeting held at the Department of Public Works\u2019 Grounds and Transportation office in Lower Base. <\/p>\n

He said the pandemic has made a mess of the Little League\u2019s calendar and there\u2019 still no clarity if the Little League in the U.S. would even commence because of the high rates of COVID-19 there. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the time now it\u2019s April already. Normally district tournaments start in June and regionals starts in July\u2026 Little League International president Stephen D. Keener has also formed a committee that will come out with a recommendation with regards to opening the Little League season because we\u2019re talking about the new norm now. COVID-19 will not just go away and it will take time and a lot of medical experts\u2019 recommendations [before they open up in the States].\u201d <\/p>\n

In addition, Borja said according to Keener there will be no waiver on the age bracket for Major, Junior, and Senior leagues. It was the hope of some players, parents, and coaches that due to the pandemic, players who have aged out of their division would be given a waiver to rejoin their teams following the off-year brought about by COVID-19. <\/p>\n

At the end of the day, Borja said he\u2019s just happy that Saipan has this golden opportunity to restart its Little League program, unlike other parts of the world that are still in lockdown or activities are limited due to the pandemic. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re lucky that our task force was able to contain COVID-19 and we only have a few local transmissions that was quickly quelled,\u201d he said, adding that they will coordinate closely with the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force on how to go about opening the 2021 season of the Saipan Little League. <\/p>\n

As of now, Borja is expecting 16 teams will take part in the opening day parade of the 2021 season. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Hopefully] we will gave four teams in the minors, four in the majors, four in the junior league, and four in the senior league,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Before the new Little League season unfurls, however, Borja said he wants to mandate all coaches and managers to get vaccinated. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt Saipan Little League we\u2019re dealing with kids from 6 years old to 16 years old and there\u2019s still no vaccine for kids. We\u2019re dealing with kids so we have to be very, very careful. We will come out with a requirement that all coaches and managers should be vaccinated for the 2021 season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Borja said he\u2019s very optimistic that Saipan will have a Little League season this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne year is already very long not to have a Little League especially next year we will be hosting the Mini Games. We have to revive the Commonwealth\u2019s favorite pastime. Baseball is still the CNMI\u2019s No. 1 sport. We have to adapt for the kids. We need this type of return to normalcy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Saipan Little League scrapped its 2020 season but with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":342327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1301],"class_list":["post-342326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-little-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}