As the world gradually starts to come out of the lockdown, the British Baseball Federation is assessing options to start the 2020 baseball season if and when the government gives clearance for league games to restart. Further easing of restrictions is likely to be considered in July and the BBF is currently looking at game scheduling scenarios.

As part of that process, they have asked teams from the four leagues to confirm if the impact from Covid-19 has affected their ability to participate.  We understand that several teams including Bournemouth Bears and Oxford Kings have already withdrawn themselves from the league.

Over the last few weeks Herts Baseball Club has been asking its members if they have been affected in a way which would prevent them from playing league games this year. Players have been trying to delay that decision for as long as possible but some have reported that they will not be able to play until health and economic risks reduce further. This has affected the club’s NBL, Triple-A and Double-A rosters in particular.

Yesterday, the Herts executive board had to make the difficult decision of withdrawing one of its five teams from the 2020 league season. That team was the club’s Triple-A League team. Players who were previously on the Triple-A roster are most likely to be assigned to the club’s NBL and Double-A teams. The rebalancing of the rosters has also prompted the club to move its Double-A team from Basing Hill Ballpark to Grovehill Ballpark.

The Herts Eagles remain in the Single-A League but for the remainder of the 2020 season they will adopt the Herts Londoners’ name as the club’s primary team in north west London.  Most of the players who were previously on the Double-A roster will most likely be assigned to either the Herts Londoners Single-A roster or the Herts Hawks Double-A roster if they have indicated that they can travel to Hemel Hempstead for home games. The precise changes to the Herts rosters will be announced in due course, depending on whether and when the BBF league season will go ahead.

The adjusted league entries of the four remaining Herts teams are as follows:

TEAM	LEAGUE	HOME BALLPARK
Herts Falcons	National Baseball League	Grovehill Ballpark, Hemel Hempstead
Herts Hawks	Double-A League	Grovehill Ballpark, Hemel Hempstead
Herts Raptors	Single-A League	Grovehill Ballpark, Hemel Hempstead
Herts Londoners	Single-A League	Basing Hill Ballpark, London

The club will continue to monitor the status of its players and teams in the event that any further adjustments become necessary.

Herts Falcons manager, Cris Hiche, emphasised that ‘the measures that are being taken are temporary and that everyone at the club looks forward to having all players and teams back to full capacity next season when we hope the pandemic will be behind us’. He added that ‘this year the priority is to stay active, healthy, and enjoy some sense of normality which baseball can bring at a difficult time for everyone’.

Herts players resumed training two weeks ago working in groups of up to six people, in accordance with government guidelines. The club continues to receive enquiries from new players interested to try baseball. They are able to book a place for one of these sessions to help them decide if they would like to join Herts. They can book their place for the next session by contacting the club,

Last Sunday would have been the Opening Day of the 2020 British baseball season. For now, the hundreds of baseball players around the country can only stay at home, follow advice about coronavirus and wait for the moment when the government gives the leagues an approval to start the season.

Leagues around the world, from the English Premier League to MLB, suspended their seasons last month and the British Baseball Federation (BBF) was one of them. The suspension came just as the BBF was about to announce the 2020 league lineup and schedules for the four league tiers.

The details are now published on the BBF website and provide fans with a preview of what they can expect when the season begins.

NATIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE

Essex Arrows Herts Falcons London Capitals London Mets

There are no changes in the NBL. The four teams from last year are back to battle it out. Each team will play a regular season of 28 games (14 doubleheaders).

View the NBL schedule

 

TRIPLE-A LEAGUE

POOL A East London Latin Boys Essex Redbacks Herts Hawks Kent Buccaneers London Mammoths London Marauders

POOL B Bournemouth Bears Oxford Kings Oxford Lightning Richmond Knights The Rebels

The Triple-A League has expanded from seven to eleven teams.  They have been divided into two pools based on their geographic location. The expansion teams are Bournemouth Bears who have been promoted after winning the Double-A League last year. Herts Hawks and London Marauders are two other teams promoted from the Double-A League. Herts Hawks move up a league after switching places with Herts Londoners who move down to Double-A. Oxford Lightning is a newly formed club which we understand will draw most of its players from the Oxford University baseball programme. The last expansion team is The Rebels. They are based in Taunton. There is no confirmation but this appears to be a rebirth of the Taunton Tigers who were disqualified from the league in 2018. If this is the case, this news would appear to suggest that they have now served the penalties which were imposed on them.

Herts Hawks will play 26 regular season games (13 doubleheaders).

View the Triple-A schedule Pool A and Pool B

 

DOUBLE-A LEAGUE

Birmingham Bandits Birmingham Outlaws Bournemouth Bears (AA) Brighton Brewers Bristol Badgers Bristol Vetra Cambridge Monarchs Croydon Pirates East London Latin Boys (AA) Guildford Mavericks Herts Londoners Leicester Blue Sox London Musketeers London Sidewinders Long Eaton 2 Long Eaton Storm Milton Keynes Bucks Norwich Iceni Richmond Dragons South Coast Pirates

The Double-A League appears to have undergone a major revamp. It was previously divided into three pools. In 2020 all 20 teams will instead be competing in one pool. Ordinarily, with such a vast number of teams, the league would take advantage and divide them geographically into several pools. From the games schedule it appears that the BBF has tried to schedule games between teams which are located relatively close to each other so that may address the important issue of minimizing travel to some extent. However, that still leaves the issue of an unbalanced schedule as teams will not be able to face each of their 19 opponents in the league.

Despite two of last year’s teams moving up to the Triple-A, the Double-A League has expanded considerably. Six teams from the Central Division have now merged into this combined league including the two Birmingham teams, Cambridge Monarchs, Leicester, Long Eaton Storm and a second team from Long Eaton which has been formed this year.

Bournemouth Bears and East London Latin Boys have teams in the Triple-A League and they have also unveiled two new teams which have entered the Double-A League.

Another new club on the British baseball map is Bristol Vetra.  We have very little information about them but we understand that they are predominantly made up of players originating from Lithuania.

It is good to see that baseball is back in Croydon after the club disappeared from the league several years ago.  They are back not with one but two Pirates teams. There was a real concern that the two diamonds in Croydon will be lost with no teams using them so the resurrection of the club is a major cause for celebration for British baseball.

The London Musketeers and South Coast Pirates have been promoted from Single-A to complete the lineup.

Herts Londoners will have a regular season of 23 games (11 doubleheaders and 1 single).

View the Double-A schedule

 

SINGLE-A LEAGUE

POOL A Bracknell Inferno Essex Archers Forest Glade Redbacks Herts Eagles Herts Raptors London Minotaurs London Mustangs Richmond Dukes. POOL B Teams TBC

At the time of publishing this article the BBF website displays only one of the two Single-A pools so we will update this article when Pool B is confirmed.

The only change in Pool A is the addition of the London Minotaurs – the latest in the long list of London teams. They take the place of the London Musketeers who have been elevated to the Double-A League this year.

Teams will play a regular season of 28 games (14 doubleheaders), including four games between the Herts Raptors and Herts Eagles. Two of these games are to be played on the last day of the regular season.  Could these games determine who qualifies for the Postseason?

View the Single-A schedule – Pool A

 

POSTSEASON

The postseason format and schedule has not been announced so it will be interesting to see what the playoffs will look like.

Of course, the regular season and postseason schedules will be affected by coronavirus and the BBF will have the important task of finding the best solution when the planet starts to return to normality after coronavirus.

Until then, there is one very important thing which British baseball players and fans can do to help – Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives.

Note: This article aims to analyse the changes to the league lineup compared to last year, however last year’s standings and scoreboards are not currently available on the BBF site so the comparison is done using only the information available to us about 2019.