***Fall Baseball and COVID-19***

To all of our fall baseball teams, players, parents, vendors, and partners -

         I hope this finds you and your families well. It goes without saying, if you are reading this you have been affected one way or the other by the pandemic over the last few months, and unfortunately the Jeffco Coop fall baseball program is no different. Based on current circumstances and information recently obtained we are up against a few very real challenges. I hope to take a moment of your time to be open and honest with all of you with what I currently know surrounding our chances of getting to play baseball this fall. 

         First being field availability. In efforts to keep the public at large safe, parks and field use and availability are currently being limited by Jefferson County. The total number of people currently allowed at any one complex is 125. Without risking overcrowding our typically used sports complexes and putting people at risk this effectively limits us to 2 ball fields at most locations, maybe 3 at some if we restrict all spectators. For an example, last season on game days our program was playing on 25 to 30 fields all over the Littleton and Lakewood areas. With the number of fields currently estimated to be released for our use we are expecting to have half of our fields at best.

       Another challenge and concern is the overall interest in youth sports this fall. Speaking for South Jeffco Sports only, we’ve seen a dropout rate from spring sports participation in the 20-30% range, for various reason, but mostly related to concerns over the pandemic. Additionally, the fact that our season overlaps with other fall sports, competing leagues, the changing tournament baseball landscape, along with concern about the uncertainty of COVID-19 moving forward, we are worried about how many people will be registering to play anyway. When combining these issues, the right combination of fields, players and conditions to produce a viable season may or may not happen.

         So to parents, coaches and GM’s. The decision has been made to open registration with no upfront registration fee. REGISTRATIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY JULY 3rd.  After this time the decision will be made to continue with the fall baseball paid registration and season or cancel based on the number of registrations, updates on field availability, crowd limits, Jefferson County and the state of Colorado guidelines and other factors.

         As quickly as things are changing these days we hope in a week this is all old, outdated information and we have a clearer path to fall ball. Please understand we are doing the best we can with the information currently available to us so be patient with us.

         With that said, if you have any interest in playing this with us this fall please register your team or player without delay - links below!! Strong registrations numbers is about all we can control and the more interest we see the more likely we’ll get to play some baseball this fall. No payment will be expected until we are certain we will have a season.

Stay safe everyone!

Sincerely,

Jeff Cox