I hope all of you have been staying safe.

I am pleased to announce that we are a week away from the opening of CMBA baseball! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Thanks to the improving situation in the state of Illinois and Chicago, there will be organized baseball, even if it is only our minor league. The Hounds will start their 2020 campaign with a game against the Orioles at Walther Lutheran, June 28th at 10 AM. The season will feature 26 contests, concluding with a finale against the K’s Dugout rival Electrons on August 23rd 2020. The playoffs, certainly featuring the Hounds, will take place during the month of September. You can find our schedule here.

The game will be familiar but with some minor changes for player, staff, and fan safety. The umpires will be adjudicating games from behind the pitcher, making schmoozing much more challenging for your humble catcher. Other adjustments include more mindfulness around person-person contact such as elimination of “greatest tradition in sports” post-game handshakes, dugout bench player limits, and wearing masks during pregame ground rules discussions. It also stands to reason that manager-umpire disagreements will also require facemasks.

I ask that our spectators also mind the CDC guidelines for visiting parks and recreational facilities in order to best keeps us as well as other park visitors as healthy as possible.

The Hounds spent a laborious 4-hours on Saturday in order to bring Winnemac to a more playable shape in feverish anticipation of the upcoming season. The Hounds Winnemac debut is marked for July 7th at 5:50 PM vs. the Aviators. We also visited sponsor K’s Dugout for the first time in a while and did verify their buckets are still cold. We are also planning on visiting our other sponsor, El Catrin, this Friday for a team dinner.

I look forward to seeing all of you soon.