The magazine articles outline the impact of coronavirus on Major League Baseball's spring training, and summer college baseball's efforts to weather the storm.
Mark Cryan recently published a new article in the online magazine Ballpark Digest about summer college baseball and the Covid-19 pandemic. This follows his article from March reporting from Arizona on the shutdown of Major League Baseball’s spring training due to coronavirus.
Cryan, an assistant professor in Elon’s Sport Management Department, also visited Thomasville, North Carolina, and Martinsville, Virginia, this summer, where he attended Coastal Plain League baseball games and spoke with team officials, MLB scouts, and fans about this unusual season.
While the pandemic has shut down much of the sport industry until recent weeks, the summer collegiate Coastal Plain League had seven of their 15 teams elect to play a modified schedule with limited travel and some local non-league opponents. Cryan’s article focused on the northern grouping of North Carolina and Viriginia teams.
One of the North Carolina teams, the Wilson Tobs, wound up shutting down during the season due to a virus outbreak, but several of the teams were able to complete their seasons. The Virginia teams were also able to open their games to spectators, while the North Carolina teams were limited by more restrictive state guidelines and were capped at 25 fans per game.
In March, Cryan was on hand in Surprise, Arizona, when Major League Baseball pulled the plug on spring training. The Kansas City Royals spring training game was cancelled even after the gates had been opened and tickets sold. His article on that closure also appeared in Ballpark Digest.
Cryan has taught at Elon since 2007, originally working as an adjunct professor, and joining the faculty full-time in 2012. Cryan is a former general manager of the Burlington Indians, the Cleveland minor league baseball affiliate in the Appalachian League, and was one of the founders of the Coastal Plain League.
Cryan’s scholarly interests include professional baseball at all levels, including minor league baseball and international baseball. He leads a Winter Term class each year that visits the Dominican Republic with a focus on the baseball and tourism industries, which has been a key experiental learning class for many alum who now work in Major League Baseball.
He is also the author of “Cradle of the Game; Baseball and Ballparks in North Carolina,” considered the definitive book on baseball in North Carolina. The second edition was published in 2014. A third, completely updated edition was scheduled for publication in 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic. That book is now scheduled for publication in 2021, and will include a comprehensive look at major changes in the state’s baseball landscape.