DEDHAM — A stinging single up the middle by John Harrington brought home Paul Gurley with the first run of Tuesday night’s Massachusetts Independent Baseball League opener between Braintree and Dedham at Memorial Park, and with it, perhaps a tiny bit of normalcy to the summer of 2020.
Braintree was a 6-5 winner in nine innings in the contest, the first of three MIBL games played Tuesday. But the result was overshadowed by the simple fact that baseball was back.
“It feels good because everything I worked for was kind of swept away from me, so it was good to show that I can still do what I love to do,” said recent Braintree High graduate Kyle Roche, who pitched two perfect innings. “We all thank (Braintree coach Cam Fox) a lot for putting this together. It took a lot of work, but it feels great just to be back out playing with everyone.”
The league was born out of unfortunate necessity. After a spring without sports, including baseball, for high school teams due to COVID-19, the American Legion National Organization followed suit on May 11, cancelling regional and national tournaments and withdrawing sponsorship to all programs for the 2020 season, making it only the second summer since 1926 without Legion action.
With that news, Fox and Steve Maze, manager of the Morrisette Post 294 program and the Quincy MIBL team, went to work trying to provide local baseball players an alternative to fill the void, organizing the MIBL. It consists of 16 teams in the senior division, 13 of them from towns in American Legion District 6 (Braintree, Canton, Dedham, Franklin, Hyde Park, Medfield, Milton, Natick, Needham, Norwood, Quincy, Walpole, Westwood and Weymouth) along with Ashland and Natick out of District 5 and Kingston from District 10.
“You could tell the kids were really happy to be out here, both sides,” said Fox. “(Dedham manager) Mike (Nosky) did great job with the field tonight running the parameters with the social distancing. It was exciting. We had two and a half months to put a league together, which is unheard of, and every coach put their work in with their towns.”
On Monday, the MIBL and other similar leagues that have emerged officially got the green light when Gov. Charlie Baker moved Massachusetts to Phase 3 of the reopening, classifying baseball as “Moderate Risk” in Step 1 under its youth sports guidelines. The MIBL will play a 15-game regular season, facing every team once, that will conclude on Aug. 2, with playoffs to follow. There is also an eight-team junior division.
Tied at 4-4 entering the ninth, Braintree pushed two runs across after drawing back-to-back walks to start the inning, both crossing when the ball got away on failed squeeze attempts. Dedham got one back in the bottom half as Griffin Moulton scored after a one-out triple, but Tucker Erdody closed out his second inning of relief for the win.
Both starters were sharp as Roche, who is headed to play for Franklin Pierce, struck out five of the six batters he faced and counterpart Scott Nosky, who like Roche was robbed of his senior season, allowed two runs over four innings. But overall, the play was expectedly erratic as players shook the rust off and both teams used their bench liberally.
“It wasn’t the best baseball out there tonight, but it was just fun seeing them out there having fun,” said Fox.
Signs were posted all around Memorial Park requiring masks and social distancing from fans, and those in attendance appeared to adhere to at least one or the other for the most part, with much of the crowd spread out in the large area of foul ground along the right field line.
After the final out, the teams skipped the traditional handshake line for tips of the hat from their respective baselines, one of the many guidelines put in place to ensure player safety.
“They’re easy rules to follow — mask on, six feet apart, hand sanitizer,” said Roche. “It’s easy to adjust to.”
