Senior baseball returns to the Port City on Thursday night after a one-year break due to COVID-19.
The Saint John Alpines are set to welcome the Moncton Fishercats to Memorial Field at 7:30 p.m.
General manager Terre Hunter said the team is excited to be back on the field.
“You don’t know what you have until you don’t have it and last year we didn’t have baseball,” said Hunter.
“That’s the first time for me and for a lot of the fans in many, many years there was no senior baseball in the city.”
The New Brunswick Senior Baseball League will have just three teams this year: Saint John, Moncton, and the Charlottetown Islanders.
Hunter said the Fredericton Royals and Chatham Ironmen have decided to take a one-year leave of absence.
The preliminary 10-game schedule will see Saint John and Moncton play each other, he said.
“Until the bubble opens up, P.E.I. won’t be able to travel and we won’t be able to go over there,” said Hunter.
Fan attendance will also be limited to 50 people per game at the start of the season to meet Public Health guidelines.
But Hunter said he is optimistic those guidelines will be loosened once New Brunswick enters Phase 1 of the province’s “Path to Green.”
That is expected to happen on June 7, provided at least 75 per cent of eligible New Brunswickers have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
According to New Brunswick’s path to reopening, Phase 1 would allow “maximum capacity possible with distancing and an operational plan” at all outdoor formal gatherings
Games and competitions would be restricted to players and teams based in P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador, along with Avignon and Témiscouata in Québec.
2021 Schedule https://t.co/lEoUUky1vM
— Saint John Alpines (@SJAlpines) June 1, 2021
