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co-owner Becky Whipp, who adds that overall 2020 was not as bad as it could have been. She has a positive outlook for this year, "unless the state of Florida has a big shutdown." Local youth baseball programs had an abbre- viated season in Whipp's territory, while high school teams played about a dozen games before their seasons were abruptly halted in March. But local travel baseball teams never really stopped playing. Two other categories that kept the doors open were local adult and senior (age 55-plus) teams. "The adult leagues started playing again last fall and the senior league teams started in January," says Whipp. "Clearly, baseball is our busiest sport — 12 months a year." The Mid-Atlantic Plays Ball, Sort Of For Al's Sporting Goods in Wilmington, DE, whose clients come from four states – Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey – the challenge was that each state had implemented its own rules on playing sports, which impacted their buying decisions. For owner Bob Hart, it was not easy keeping track of each state's ever-changing policies. Most recreation leagues and travel teams started late, while the local high school teams in the four states had a week of practice before the season came to a grinding halt. "Even with a late start, only half of our Little League teams played last year," says Hart. "And we had no high school teams playing baseball games at all." During a normal sales cycles, Hart sells base- balls, T-shirts, hats, pants, socks and belts to local youth programs. Hart's sales of cleats from Under Armour, Nike and Adidas were down as well. Another negative residual of COVID-19 was the much-smaller amount of baseball business Al's did at Christmas. "We didn't sell nearly as many bats during the holidays as we normally do," adds Hart. "It was either a case of last year's bat was not used or there is uncertainty about the baseball season being played in 2021." Battling in the Midwest At Jack Pearl's Sports Center in Battle Creek, MI, owner Keith Manning is optimistic that high school baseball and other spring sports will start on schedule in Michigan. "They are trying to keep our spring sports on track and start them on time," says Manning. "The high school baseball season should be 12 to 14 games this year." It's important for Manning's bottom line that high school baseball is played this year since it represents half of his baseball revenue. "I sell head-to-toe in baseball with the exception of cleats," he says. He does sell a few bats, but the bat category is "hit or miss." No pun intended. Outside of high school baseball, 35 percent of Manning's revenue is from travel ball, while recreation baseball accounts for the remaining 15 percent. Unfortunately, rec baseball programs in the greater Battle Creek area have been shuttered since last March and their immediate future remains unknown. "Rec baseball for this year is still up in the air in our area," admits Manning. In Lima, OH, the baseball sales were "slim pickings" for Lima Sporting Goods, according to owner Dan Kirian. High school and junior high school baseball seasons were cancelled first and then the local recreation leagues followed suit. Later in the summer, some local high school teams decided to play a few games against one another, but nothing was sanctioned by the state. "Some area travel teams did play games by traveling to Indiana to play in tournaments," adds Kirian. "We sold them some gear and equipment." He remains cautiously optimistic that baseball will be played in Ohio in 2021. Out in the western states, 2020 was not a pretty picture for Jerry Ocuda, owner of Turf Sporting Goods, Las Vegas, NV. "We are so glad that 2020 is over and we are optimistic that 2021 will be better," he says. High school baseball just never really got started in Nevada last spring, which is impacting business this year. "High school baseball had two or three pre-season games and then everything got cancelled," says Ocuda. "We delivered the order for Little League and, fortunately, got paid for it." Local travel teams in Las Vegas played games, but they had to travel to Arizona and Utah to find open fields and opponents since they were not allowed to play games in Nevada. "Selling to travel teams really helped us get through the pandemic," says Ocuda. Baseball Is A Survivor At the beginning of 2020, the world of base- ball looked fine. Less than three months later the bottom dropped out. But perhaps it takes the perspective of a major supplier to the baseball business to give a final viewpoint on the upcoming season. "The timing of the COVID-19 crisis was a per- fect storm for the baseball industry," says Pat Ryan, global product director for the Baseball/ Softball Division of Wilson Sporting Goods, who points out that baseball equipment's busiest shipping quarter is the first quarter. "Just after we shipped a good majority of our sell-in for 2020 products, the baseball world stopped," he recalls. "Baseball ceased at all levels before it really started and essentially an entire year of play by the majority of players was lost. Our largest customers shuttered their doors for weeks at a minimum, while others closed for the season or permanently." The baseball world was heartened when Major League Baseball did begin play again in an abbreviated season and some stores gradu- ally reopened, but play was uneven across the country. Travel ball was played more, while recreation ball was a huge challenge and many communities did not play at all due to the local pandemic-related rules. But despite the obvious difficulties, 2020 was not a total loss. "We saw strong consumer demand for new, innovative products, as well as strong overall demand in online sales," Ryan says. There's no doubt about the level of interest in getting back to playing baseball in 2021. "We can say definitively that there is a strong desire to play and to resume full baseball play," says Ryan, who thinks that there is a lot of pent-up demand for new products and for people to get back to doing the things they love to do. "Throughout history, baseball as a sport and as a business has survived pandemics, wars, economic recessions and depressions," Ryan adds. "Nobody knows the exact timing of a full recovery, but we do expect to bounce back above 2020 business levels in 2021. The challenge and goal will be to get back to pre-pan- demic levels of 2019, as soon as possible." n TEAM / BASEBALL

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