Written by Kayla Lammers (Sports Writer)
It’s crazy to think that we will have missed two ends of the school years. When summer starts creeping in, plans are being made, finals are coming up again. That summer feeling. The part of the cycle that is our youth. Summer, starting school, holiday holiday holiday, big stretch, almost summer, end of school, Summer; repeat. I would say it’s pretty unanimous that finals suck, but summer is great. The full freedom of summer is still in question but we’re close.
Schools have been experimenting with things to get things back to as close as normal as possible. Trying to find what works and what doesn’t. Sports have been pushed to start up for a very long time. Basically, as soon as everything was taken away we tried tryna get it back.
The first baseball games of the season were on April 17th, starting off with mandatory rules regarding masks and distance. “Well, right now it isn’t much different from any other year. I’d say at the start of the season it was hard due to masks being mandatory while we do our practices. It got hard to breathe. The only thing that is still different is that in games we are still wearing our masks up to bat. But it doesn’t really bother any of us.” As the season has gone on the comfort of being around people has taken over. Teams are free to take off their masks in the dugout and on the field. Only when they are up to bat, closest to outside players should they wear a mask.
“Yeah, but they really don’t pay attention so half of us go up without wearing it at all.” So far there have been no cancelations of games due to a team member from any school getting sick, nothing has happened where someone somewhere was infected.
The more time goes by, the more leniency is allowed. Mandatory rules have been reduced and even dropped. Most things are optional and the closest contact between teams isn’t always taken very seriously.
“No everything’s the same. Although spectators do stay 6 feet apart choosing so, isn’t mandatory. It’s getting more normal every day.”
The Claw 