Despite COVID-19, Highland Legion baseball makes plans for summer season in St. Louis
COVID-19 has wiped out the 2020 American Legion baseball season in Illinois.
In a few weeks, however, the Highland Post 439 Legion baseball program and its three teams will be playing baseball this summer.
Post 439, like the rest of American Legion teams in Illinois, was dealt a devastating blow when the Illinois State Legion Association canceled the 2020 season May 7 due to COVID-19 concerns for health and player safety.
Highland held an organizational meeting May 13 and the decision was made unanimously to play all three teams this summer as independent clubs.
“What looks like is going to happen is that the three coaches that we have had for American Legion sign-ups (this winter) are going to take their respective teams individually and play some baseball,” said Post 439 program assistant and former manager Harry Painter. “So now, they are going to be playing independent with no affiliation with American Legion and they will be playing independent against several teams from the St. Louis area.”
Painter said, after several weeks of speculation about whether or not there would be an American Legion season and then getting the bad news about the cancellation of the campaign, that for the players and coaches, getting to play independent baseball is a big shot in the arm for the program.
“I think they’re (the players) pretty excited,” Painter said. “The kids are excited, the coaches are excited to get started and there’s way more interest than I thought there was going to be.”
Painter said they have 50 players in the program committed to playing on the Senior Legion team as well as the Junior Legion 1 club and Junior Legion 2 club.
Kyle Schmitt, who took over for Painter at the end of the last summer, will run the Post 439 senior team this summer. Jed Eddering will handle the Junior Legion 1 team as skipper, and Jeremy Willis will manage the Junior Legion 2 club for Highland.
Highland will face a couple notable drawbacks in that the players will have to pay their own way to play independently. Additionally — at least at the start of the season — Highland will go to St. Louis for all its games due to the COVID-19 situation making Optimist Field unavailable for home games.
“It’s kind of sad for the community and the funding (of the program) with concessions, but it is what it is, so we’ll pick up and head across to Missouri,” Painter said.
Summer campaign set to kick off in mid-June for Highland
Highland’s season is tentatively slated to start June 15.
Painter is glad the program will have a chance to play meaningful games this summer.
“I’m so happy and I’m actually proud of these coaches to step up and give these kids an opportunity to play and just get them outside and doing the thing they love, “ Painter said.