WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. _ As the Allegheny foothills that frame Williamsport turned green this April, the COVID-19 outbreak sparked an unrelated anxiety, one that spread quickly through the aging mansions of Millionaires Row, the turreted minor-league ballpark alongside Lycoming Creek, the hilltop fortress of Little League baseball.
That unease, as raw as the wind that throughout this unusually cold spring swept off the Susquehanna River and whistled eerily through a suddenly deserted downtown, could be condensed into a single question:
What if there's no baseball in Williamsport this summer?
With May's arrival, the city, whose historic connection to the summer game has provided civic balm during its long winter of economic and population decline, may soon find out.
On Thursday, expressing concern for the safety of players and spectators, Little League officials canceled August's World Series. "This is a heartbreaking decision for everyone," said Stephen Keener, the organization's president and CEO
Major League Baseball responded by calling off its Little League Classic, a nationally televised Red Sox-Orioles game that was to be played Aug. 23 at historic Bowman Field here.
If that weren't sobering enough, the pandemic could cause baseball to red-line the 2020 season of Williamsport's Crosscutters, the Phillies' single-A short-season affiliate which since 1994 has provided summer diversion at Bowman, the nation's second-oldest minor-league park.
And even if, as seems increasingly unlikely, the Cutters' season is somehow salvaged, they might no longer exist in 2021.
The coronavirus hasn't hit north-central Pennsylvania nearly as hard. There have been just 68 confirmed cases in Lycoming County, and no related deaths. But the bad baseball news has been a profound punch in the gut for a city that, maybe more than anyplace but Cooperstown, N.Y., has its identity and economy wound around the game.
"The reality is nobody knows about Williamsport other than baseball," said Mitch Rupert, a Williamsport Sun-Gazette sportswriter. "That's the brand. Everything here is tied to baseball. To not have that identity for a summer, I don't know what that would look like. I do know it would be devastating economically."
