Hoping For A 2021 PBL Season
Posted March 7, 2021
The weather is warming up and we are into March. That means it is time to get ready for the upcoming baseball season, or at least that is how it used to be. Despite the province loosening some restrictions and the feeling that the end of the Covid-19 pandemic is maybe getting near, there is still a great number of people in a holding pattern when it comes to sports and the Powerline Baseball League appears to be amongst this group.
Recently the PBL website reached out to the league's teams looking for confirmation of the teams returning for a 2021 baseball season. Only the Edmonton Expos, Tofield Braves and the Vegreville Blue Jays confirmed their return should a baseball season be normal or close to normal as it can be. The rest of the league, which was looking like a seven team league in 2020, is in radio silence this early in the spring. That leaves the returning champion Armena Royals as well as the Camrose Axemen, Camrose Roadrunners and the Rosalind Athletics as unknowns currently. It also has fans wondering if the Leduc Milleteers might find their way back into the PBL for 2021 after declaring the team would need 2020 to regroup after a 2019 season that saw numerous player availability issues.
The lack of commitment or even communication is not completely unexpected. Even in the best of times it is often difficult to get communications out to all teams and have responses. Sometimes it takes reaching out to teams individually and through multiple methods before a response is had. Social media has gone quiet across the PBL with little to no news available for the fans or teams since the end of the 2019 season.
2021 has proven to add another layer communication hardship as teams and players have had no ability to find an indoor space for indoor spring training until recently due to provincial restrictions in place for most of the winter. Not being able to gather and work the rust out of the shoulders has without a doubt dampened the level of excitement for baseball this spring. Minor baseball associations have just begun the process of evaluations, all of which are modified and hampered by slower than normal registrations as people wait for more communication about what an upcoming season might look like.
Will the PBL see a sudden spike in excitement for the upcoming season? It is hard to say, which isn't a great feeling. Teams struggling with commitment issues in 2019 have now had a year and a half with no baseball on the forefront of their minds. Will that cause the desire to get back out onto the field to jump or has it been the nail in the coffin for the these teams?
There will also be questions regarding what the 2021 season will look like. With tight restrictions affecting the actual playability of the game in 2020, the PBL and it's teams had very little desire to play. There were leagues however that opted to run a modified season with cohorted teams and a short schedule starting in July. The Foothills Major Baseball Association in Calgary and the North Central Alberta Baseball League both operated during the pandemic. Will the PBL be more flexible in laying out what a season will look like if there are still restrictions in place? Or will the league decide that taking another season off and waiting for an unrestricted return to the sport is a better option?
These are all questions that fans hope to have answered as the 88 year old PBL is likely to schedule their annual Spring meeting in late March or early April.
