Dorchester Baseball gears up for spring season; safety is key focus

Dorchester Baseball at play last summer at Savin Hill's McConnell Playground. Dan Sheehan photo

The pandemic has interrupted in-person schooling and social life for most kids in the neighborhood, but Dorchester Baseball has been working for months to ensure that it won’t upend their baseball season, too.

Following a successful summer season in 2020, the board of Dorchester Baseball, now in the fourth year of a partnership between the Babe Ruth and Little League programs, has met regularly to plan a safe spring season.

“One of the things that was reassuring to the board was that we got so we were sort of a leader on [Covid-19] over the summer,” said Charlie Maneikis, the co-president of Dorchester Little League.

Opening safely last year wasn’t cheap. Maneikis estimates that pandemic-related safety measures cost the league north of $12,000.

“One of the biggest expenses was that we had to make sure every kid had his or her own helmet, his or her own bat,” Maneikis said. “I think one of the most innovative things we did at great cost was that we had the Covid-19 Safety Umpire at each game,” and that, he said, was to ensure that the coaches could coach baseball and not be responsible for enforcing safety measures.

Samantha Ciarocco, a social worker for Boston Healthcare for the Homeless and Massachusetts General Hospital, also stepped up as the League’s Covid-19 Safety Director.

“I have, professionally, a different perspective” on the pandemic and additional education, said Ciarocco. “I was really thankful that I had that education when we were thinking through how to create a baseball season last summer.

“I was able to look at all of the reopening recommendations from Massachusetts General Hospital and the state and decipher them to make them apply to baseball.”

Laughing, she added, “It’s sometimes a little like reading IKEA instructions.”

With such careful planning, Maneikis made it clear that league prioritizes the safety of Dorchester kids and their families above all else.

“We want to make sure we execute,” he told the Reporter. “We want to make sure we do everything within reason to avoid any type of outbreak of the virus come back to any sort of deficiency on our part. We can’t control what the kids do outside the playing environment, but we want to keep the kids safe first and foremost.”

Mike Manning, co-president of Dorchester Little League, said the organization’s ability to mount a season last summer gave kids and parents a desperately needed outlet.

“Baseball and other sports provide an essential outlet for many kids,” said Manning. “We received such great and touching feedback last year when we ran an abbreviated season during the summer. We had so many parents telling us how much our program had meant to their kids’ social and emotional well-being.”

Charles Pessia, co-president of the Dorchester Babe Ruth League, emphasized the importance of the life lessons kids learn from sports.

“It’s a good blueprint for life and for future experiences the kids are going to have. Being part of a team and learning to work together and deal with adversity,” he said. “When every other sense of normality was taken away, we saw how important it was for kids to get out there, to move and socialize, and have a safe environment where they could still have some sense of normalcy.”

This upcoming season, Dorchester Baseball is excited about using the newly renovated Garvey Park in Neponset, which was officially rededicated in a small ceremony last Saturday in which Mayor Walsh cut the ribbon.

Activities are slated to begin in March or early April, pending state guidelines. The league fields programs for children aged 4-16. Families can register for the season at dorchesterlittleleague.org.

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