{"id":347446,"date":"2021-07-07T06:06:55","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T20:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=347446"},"modified":"2021-07-07T06:06:55","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T20:06:55","slug":"sbl-scraps-2021-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/sbl-scraps-2021-season\/","title":{"rendered":"SBL scraps 2021 season"},"content":{"rendered":"
In this 2019 file photo, the Chalan Kanoa Bears\u2019 Jose Lizama delivers a pitch, while the Mariners\u2019 Eli Augenbaugh gets ready to sprint to third base during Game 2 of their finals series in the Saipan Baseball League at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d Palacios Ballfield. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fresh from celebrating the country\u2019s 245th birthday, the Saipan Baseball League has scrapped the 2021 season of America\u2019s favorite pastime due to pending renovations at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d M. Palacios Baseball Field.<\/p>\n

SBL president Jay Santos last Friday delivered the unfortunate news that the local baseball federation has decided to cancel this year\u2019s men\u2019s baseball league.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2021 season has been scuttled. There will be no baseball this year. We\u2019ve hoped to start up the season at least a mini-season last May, but there are some pending renovations happening at the field,\u201d he said in an interview with Saipan Tribune. <\/p>\n

Santos said the Northern Marianas Sports Association, the islands\u2019 umbrella sports organization, told SBL about the unavailability of the Palacios baseball field, which has not been the same since Super Typhoon Yutu wrought havoc on the facilities in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were advised by NMSA that we wouldn\u2019t be allowed to use the field because those renovations are happening soon. I wasn\u2019t able to get an update on when the renovations will start but I was hoping it would be sooner than later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santos said that before SBL decided to ultimately pull the plug on the 2021 season, a number of teams were raring and gearing to bring baseball back to the islands. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the board members estimated from five to eight teams were still looking to start the 2021 season. I know there\u2019s a lot of interest for baseball to get going again from a lot of players but sadly we couldn\u2019t get that going because of the field,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While the 2021 season is now a lost cause, Santos is crossing his fingers that the SBL could start the 2022 season by January next year so they can adequately prepare the CNMI national baseball team for the 2022 Pacific Mini Games that will be played in home soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, the best-case scenario is they start construction and hopefully the renovations would be completed before the end of the year and we start a league in January and field a national team that can compete versus other SBL teams. Because the biggest thing in baseball is repetition, its competition, it\u2019s the need for these guys to hit the field and compete against each other. If we don\u2019t get that before the Mini Games next year then it\u2019s going to be a huge challenge for our national team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

NMSA executive director Carline Sablan gave Santos and SBL a glimmer of hope when she told Saipan Tribune that the group\u2019s timeline has renovations for the baseball field completed before the end of 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We expect that] all needed repairs will be completed by December this year,\u201d she said in a social media message.<\/p>\n

While NMASA doesn\u2019t have estimates on the total cost of the renovations for the \u201cTan Ko\u201d field, Sablan said Federal Emergency Management Agency funds will be used for the repairs necessary to successfully host the baseball event for the Mini Games next year with other improvements to be taken out from $21.2-million grant to rebuild the Oleai Sports Complex awarded by the Economic Development Administration.<\/p>\n

She added that in particular parts of the centrally located baseball field that need repairs include the press box, lighting, fencing, scoreboard, in-field repairs, dugouts, restrooms, shortening of sidelines, warning tracks in the outfield, covering or awning for spectator seating, bullpen, and the installation of artificial turf or a hybrid like Palau\u2019s baseball field, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fresh from celebrating the country\u2019s 245th birthday, the Saipan Baseball League has scrapped the 2021…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":347453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[731],"class_list":["post-347446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-sbl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347446","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=347446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}