SAIPAN Baseball League President Jay Santos said they are working to bring back the island’s favorite sport next year.
For the SBL 2023 season, Santos said they are going to start a league for the men’s division and organize tournaments for the U18 and U15 players as well.
“We just want to get the word out to the community that they should get started in organizing their teams,” said Santos. “We will be completely organizing the field, including field maintenance, umpires and scorekeepers, and work with the Northern Marianas Sports Association on the lights. This will be a very organized league that we are already putting together.”
In addition, Santos said he wants to work with Public School System’s athletics program director, Nick Gross, in organizing a high school youth baseball league.
“Nick is a very busy man but I’m hoping to connect with him soon to see if that would be the best route,” Santos said. “We are also hoping that a lot of our national baseball players that won the gold medal in the Pacific Mini Games would consider coaching teams. We need them to come out. The youth need all the support and can learn all the things that the national team players have done to win a gold medal.”
Santos added, “l really want to bring baseball back to the forefront and also get organized and get going next year so we can have active baseball on the field here in Susupe.”
He plans to start the season in January or by the end of February.
He noted that SBL will be able to use all the new equipment utilized in the Mini Games which were held on island in June.
“There’s no question — I think everybody will agree that the Mini Games, and the fact that our men won the gold medal in baseball, have been a great springboard,” Santos said.
“It’s been a tough stretch, it’s been challenging and we can talk about typhoons, the pandemic and stuff like that, but those things are behind us now and that’s why I’m really hoping that between the Saipan Baseball League and Saipan Little League Baseball organizations, we’ll get baseball going,” he added.
The Little League has been in a slump as well, Santos said. “So I’m asking anybody and everybody out there for the love of baseball and for the love of baseball on our island to please consider volunteering your time to help our players.”
Jay Santos
