CDO Little League joined a growing number of Little League organizations from Southern Arizona when it announced the cancellation of its spring/summer season on Wednesday:
“We are continuing to monitor and adjust to the changes to our lives caused by COVID-19. Through many discussions of protocols necessary to ensure the safety of all our players, coaches and parents, CDO Little League has determined that we cannot continue the summer 2020 season. The Board asked for your input last week when we sent out the survey for participation in the Summer season. We appreciate all the responses we received. We did lose around half our registrations through the survey. We still were exploring options for kids who wanted to participate to give them the chance to play baseball this Summer season.
Unfortunately, we still had a few hurdles to overcome. Youth activities are prohibited in phase one, which we are currently in. We would have to wait for phase two to open before opening the season. We also cannot reserve any of our fields for either practices or games at this time. All parks and recreations agreed to wait until the City of Tucson releases more restrictions, which will not be decided until June 9th.
The other issue is most leagues have already decided to cancel their seasons. Only one of our divisions could have played in house, others needed to play other leagues. We would have had no opponents.”
Little League International cancelled all regional tournaments and national tournaments on April 30 but the organization left the door open for state and local organizations to hold competition under the direction and guidelines set forth by national, state and local health directives.
“Phase One” of the set health plan to combat COVID-19 forbids the use of facilities and fields for youth sports activities and the City of Tucson extended measures through June 8 and Pima County is operating under similar rules.
CDO Little League is the “farm system” for Canyon del Oro High School with six former Little Leaguers from CDO going on to play in the MLB and four went on to win MLB World Series championships.
In all, former CDO Little League All-Stars helped Canyon del Oro reach 15 state semifinals, 11 championship appearances with eight state championships to go along with the four MLB championships. It has been estimated that athletes participating in CDO Little League have a slightly better chance of making the MLB but slightly better of almost 0% is still statistically 0%.
CDO LITTLE LEAGUE TO THE MLB
Brian Anderson
Chris Duncan
Shelley Duncan
Ian Kinsler
Colin Porter
Jason Stanford
NOTE: Scott Hairston moved to Canyon del Oro High School as a senior.
FOLLOW @ANDYMORALES8 ON TWITTER
Andy Morales was recognized by the AIA as the top high school reporter in 2014, he was awarded the Ray McNally Award in 2017, a 2019 AZ Education News award winner and he has been a youth, high school and college coach for over 30 years. He was the first in Arizona to write about high school beach volleyball and high school girls wrestling. His own children have won multiple state high school championships and were named to all-state teams. Competing in hockey, basketball, baseball and track & field in high school, his unique perspective can only be found here and on AZPreps365.com. Andy is the Southern Arizona voting member of the Ed Doherty Award, recognizing the top football player in Arizona, and he was named a Local Hero by the Tucson Weekly for 2016. Andy was named an Honorary Flowing Wells Caballero in 2019. Contact Andy Morales at amoralesmytucson@yahoo.com
Recommended for you
