Menu
One week after cancellation, Griffons go their separate ways
Seven days after the sudden end of their season, the Nevada Griffons have all left town.
The last remaining members of the 2021 squad — head coach Jason Jacome and assistant coach Brian Daly — hit the road to return home on Wednesday, less than one week after a player tested positive for COVID-19 and forced the Griffons Board of Directors, citing Vernon County Health Department protocols, to cancel their remaining two weeks of baseball. Some of the players drove. Most of them flew.
According to Griffons treasurer Colleen Haberkorn, many players had purchased their return tickets ahead of the season based on the scheduled MINK League playoffs (which will begin without Nevada on Monday), and so have had to request date changes or book new tickets altogether.
Others, meanwhile, aren’t bound for home at all.
“Matthew Leong drove in with Richard Kiel, but because Richard went to Duluth, Matt had to fly home,” said Haberkorn, who confirmed that, after his time with the Griffons ended, Australian pitcher Kiel joined the roster of the Duluth Huskies in the Northwoods League.
Haberkorn added that while other players were also trying to find new teams, some of them were looking for their next college program.
Jesse Fonteboa, for example, had been hoping to use his accomplishments in the MINK League to attract the attention of college coaches for the fall, since his time at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley was over. Instead of stepping into the batter’s box for his next dinger, the league leader in home runs is now on a recruiting trip in Oklahoma City before a previously scheduled trip home to Las Vegas to visit family.
The good news, according to Haberkorn, was that she had not heard of any other players testing positive for COVID-19 in the days following the season cancellation — nor any reports of exposure from host families, some of whom have children under 12 who have been unable to get vaccinated.
“It’s been pretty quiet,” said Haberkorn, who has begun conducting her end-of-season duties (storing uniforms, cataloging inventory, finalizing financial statements) two weeks ahead of schedule. “We’ll be pulling together numbers to show how much losing these last two weeks may have hurt us. We’ll save some money in balance because we’re not having to pay umpires and those kinds of things, but we’ve lost concession income, gate income, team store income, plus things like White Ember Night, the memorabilia auction, and the ice cream social. Those are not just fun events for our friends, families, and fans, but also income generators. We lost those.”
The board will be meeting soon to discuss this season and next, and after deciding on their plans for the coaching staff (skipper contracts are offered on an annual basis), Haberkorn, General Manager Greg O’Dell, President Dan Keller, and the other board members will have another major topic to discuss: how to handle the COVID-19 situation next summer.
“The board will be reviewing everything that happened during the season. I hope and pray that COVID is not an issue, but if it’s still with us we’ll be looking at the whole issue of vaccinated players in perhaps a different light based on what happened to us this year,” said Haberkorn, whose team had eight fully vaccinated players at the time of the positive test, which, after the unvaccinated players were advised to quarantine for 14 days, left the Griffons without enough players to field a team for the remainder of the schedule. “More than anything else, it was sad. It’s always hard when players leave at the end of the season because we get attached. It’s hard to see them go, but even more so when it’s such an abrupt ending, when you really don’t have any closure.”