In early March 2020, the Paris Optimist Club was sitting pretty. The club’s Annual Baseball Bash and Auction had been a success allowing further improvements to their ballpark, including a new scoreboard, and funding seven college scholarships for Lamar County youth. The organization had received a large grant from the First Federal Community Foundation to upgrade the backstop and fencing for the ozone league field. The Club had been the successful bidder to host the DYB Ozone Division 1 and Division 2 regional tournaments. Registration for the spring season of baseball had been the highest in several years at around 850 players, including the Buddy Baseball program. And then COVID-19 shut everything down.
“As an organization, we decided to not give up on getting to have some sort of baseball season for the youth of the community. Instead of canceling the season, we put everything on hold to see what Governor Abbott’s guidance would allow for youth sports,” said Baseball Chair Bill Sanders. “We felt it was important to give the boys and girls some sort of physical activity if we were allowed to play, and we feel that baseball also teaches great life lessons and skills, such as teamwork, dedication, and responsibilities to others, that are very important for youth.”
When the governor announced that youth sports could resume in Texas, the Club followed the recommended guidelines in order to help protect players, coaches, and spectators. The season opened on June 15 providing almost as many games as usual in both DYB and Buddy Baseball. Although there were families who opted to not play, the club still served about 650 players this year by combining players onto fewer teams and with fewer players per team, which gave all players more on-field playing time.
Although the DYB world series was canceled, Texas DYB still provided non-sanctioned post-season all-star play. Because so many Texas programs did not have a season this year Paris Optimist was given the opportunity to host three additional regional tournaments at the Charles Taylor Youth Baseball Complex at Woodall Field.
“It was really a unique opportunity for us to showcase our facility and to help the local economy,” said tournament host and Club President Angela Rember. “Instead of hosting 16 teams, we hosted 38 teams. Thirty-two of the teams were from outside of Paris, and 22 teams told us they stayed in Paris lodging facilities. We estimate that over 300 room nights were purchased during the July 31 to August 3 tournaments. That really makes us happy because it’s important for us to give back to the Paris community and businesses that sponsor our baseball program and support our fundraising efforts every year. We also received many compliments on our facility.”
Paris sent both a 12U and 10U team to the Texas Super Series finals where the 12U team placed third and the 10U team won the Texas Super Series State Championship.
“This year was certainly a roller coaster but we’re really proud that we hung in there and were able to finally let the kids play. Because the season ended so late, we won’t have fall ball this year. We’re already looking ahead to 2021 and have more facility upgrades planned. Hopefully, 2021 will be a more normal season, but we’re confident we’ll make the best of whatever is thrown at us. We’re Optimists after all,” concluded Rember.
