At the Carlyle City Council meeting on Monday, May 26, 2020, it was decided to cancel the regular city league t-ball, baseball and softball programs due to the COVID-19 pandemic and state restrictions on safety guidelines and gathering sizes. This came on the heels of Mid-County Youth League canceling last week. It was not an easy decision to make, but we felt it was the only option we had at this time. Our t-ball, baseball and softball seasons would typically be ending in the third week of July with soccer starting shortly afterwards in August. With Phase 4 estimated to begin around July 1st, that would only leave us with three short weeks for practices and games with strict gathering limits. Please see the message from the MCYL regarding the season’s cancellation:
“Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the guidelines/restrictions outlined in the Restore Illinois plan, the Mid-County Youth Baseball/Softball League (MCYL) coordinators voted unanimously to CANCEL the 2020 season. League Coordinator, Galen Mahle of the Clinton County YMCA, stated that the league waited as long as possible to make this decision, in hopes that we could salvage part of a season. However, new restrictions would have made it impossible to start practices or games until the State moves into Phase 4 of the plan, which isn’t projected until close to the end of June. We want to Thank all of the communities and participants for bearing with us while we worked towards a decision. We look forward to the 2021 season so that the children of Clinton County can once again “Play Ball”.”
The safety of our participants, volunteer coaches and their families and the quality of our programs is extremely important to us. I want to sincerely thank everyone for their patience and understanding as to why we had to make this difficult decision. Although we will be canceling our regular summer leagues and issuing refunds, we are hopeful that we will be able to offer some smaller-scale, “pick up”-type sports programming in July that will fall within the state guidelines. The City Council also voted to open the pool as soon as the state allows in Phase 4 and continue with smaller-scale versions of our summer camps in Phase 4. We are hopeful that we will be able to have our regular soccer leagues starting in August as well. We will keep you informed of any programming that is made available.
For your registration fees for city league, you have two options. You can either leave your balance in Blue Sombrero and use the money towards future registrations such as soccer or basketball, or we can send out a refund check to your address. If you left your balance open at the time of registration, your registration will simply be canceled.
If you had a child signed up to play please email parkdirector@carlylelake.com with what you would like done with your registration fees. Please be detailed in your response so I know how you would like to handle it. For example, something like: “Leave my balance in my account for future registrations” or “Please send the refund check for “NAME(S)” to “YOUR ADDRESS”. We will issue the refund checks as soon as we can process all of the requests and have the checks approved.
Thank you again for your patience and understanding,
Andy Brackett
City of Carlyle
