Surf Cat

Finally, it’s here.

After months of speculation and negotiations between team owners and city and county health officials, after months of uncertainty and after months of creative scenarios were deployed by the Northwoods League to play as safely as possible, the Kenosha Kingfish will begin their 2020 season tonight at Simmons Field.

And they’re bringing friends.

The Kingfish will open their unprecedented 26-game Kenosha Series against the K-Town Bobbers at 6:05 p.m. The Bobbers were created by bringing in players from other NWL franchises and other summer collegiate leagues that won’t play this summer. The two Kenosha teams will face each other, exclusively on Wednesdays through Sundays, until Aug. 22.

It’s a unique scenario, and players, coaches and fans will be subject to a lengthy list of safety procedures, which are outlined in a COVID-19 Readiness Plan on kingfishbaseball.com. But, it’s still baseball.

“I’ll be relieved once the first pitch is thrown (tonight), that’s for sure,” first-year Kingfish manager Mike Porcaro said. “Just to finally have the talks of, when is the season going to begin, are we going to have a season — all that being behind us, trying to track everybody down on your team and seeing where they’re at.

“… All that stuff. It’ll just be a big sigh of relief after the first pitch is thrown (tonight), and then we can just focus on baseball.”

Managing the Bobbers is veteran skipper Donnie Scott, who comes over from the Madison Mallards of the NWL. The Mallards are owned by Big Top Baseball, the parent company that also owns the Kingfish, and aren’t playing this summer.

While the Kingfish and Bobbers may be playing an unorthodox series of games in the pod format that’s been adopted around the NWL to reduce travel and presumably lessen the risk of spreading COVID-19, Scott said once everyone takes the field, he expects the competition to be as fierce as ever.

“It’s not going to change for me, and I’m sure the players are going to feel that, too,” Scott said in an interview posted on the Kingfish Twitter feed. “I know the Kingfish are going to come out there and compete, too. It’s going to happen, regardless of what. We might start out with the intent of, ‘Hey, let’s get our at-bats and let’s get our innings in,’ but that’s going to change fast. I know it will, and that’s the good part about this. It’s going to happen, there’s going to be competitive baseball.

“I don’t want anything crazy to happen, because this is an experiment, so to speak. Twenty-six straight games against each other, I don’t want it to turn into where they feel like they’re the Harlem Globetrotters and we’re the Generals, by no stretch of the imagination. I think it’s going to be very competitive. I don’t think one team’s going to dominate the other. I think it’s going to be competitive every night.”

One thing the two rosters won’t be short on is talent.

With top college players around the country scrambling to find places to play, the NWL teams that are playing will be concentrated with high-level players.

The Cape Cod League in Massachusetts, for example, is generally regarded as the top summer league in terms of talent and won’t be playing this summer. The NWL always features a wealth of talent in its own right, so that talent will be spread among fewer teams this summer.

For instance, the Bobbers feature reigning league MVP Justice Bigbie, a senior-to-be at Western Carolina who played with the Mallards last summer.

“Even though it’s the same two teams, it’s two rosters that have a lot of talent compiled on them,” Porcaro said. “They have the league MVP from last year on their roster. We have a lot of guys that aren’t necessarily known on the national spotlight yet, because we have a lot of freshmen. A lot of guys, they were just starting their college careers and only had like 15, 16 games, but from what I’ve seen at practice the last couple days, I think there’s a lot of talent on our roster, and I think a lot of people will be happy to watch them all summer.”

While the general rules and structure of the game won’t change, fans going to Simmons Field — which will have a limited seating capacity of about 25 percent to start — will have to get used to some alterations.

Mound meetings, for example, will look strange with social distancing. And if you enjoy when the infielders whip the ball around the horn following a strikeout, you’ll have to be OK with not seeing that.

Porcaro said the majority of the Kingfish roster got to town on Thursday, and they held their first practice on Sunday. He also said he’s been able to work out with some of his players who live in the area once state COVID-19 restrictions were loosened and some diamonds were available for use.

Additionally, Porcaro said, the teams were slated to meet with NWL officials on Tuesday to go over rules and regulations. It’ll take some getting used to.

“In our simulated innings, we’ve been trying to make sure we’re aware of not throwing the ball around, just giving it back to the pitcher, just trying to get used to it right now,” Porcaro said. “I think some of the stuff is going to take a little bit of time to adapt to, especially just the spacing part. They want us to be six feet apart when there’s a mound visit, but catchers and pitchers are so used to just going right up there and getting right next to each other and talking.

“So I think that’s going to take some getting used to, but at some point we’re going to get used to it, and then I think it’s going to be, ‘OK, we’re just playing baseball again.’”

The players and coaches were tested for COVID-19 over the weekend, and they’ll have their temperatures checked regularly.

Among other interesting storylines for this 26-game series, the opposing managers provide an interesting contrast.

Porcaro takes over as the second manager in Kingfish history, following Duffy Dyer. A Burlington High graduate and Racine native, Porcaro was a standout player at UW-Milwaukee and is now in the early stages of his coaching career.

He’s the associate head coach/recruiting coordinator at Milwaukee School of Engineering and also played two seasons in the NWL for the Eau Claire Express from 2013-14. In 2015, he served as a bench coach with the Express.

Scott, meanwhile, has had a long coaching career and led the Mallards to the NWL playoffs in 2013, 2016, 2018 and 2019. He won NWL titles skippering the Mallards in 2013 and the Battle Creek Bombers in 2011 and has never had a losing record as an NWL manager.

Scott played parts of four major-league seasons with the Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds and coached in the Reds organization.

“I’m really happy that Donnie’s managing the Bobbers,” Porcaro said. “I’ve heard nothing but great things about him as a manager. I’ve had a lot of former teammates that played for him and never said a bad word about him. They really enjoyed playing for him.

“As much as it’s a learning experience and a development experience for the players, it’s the same thing for me, getting to work with Donnie every day and being able to talk with him and kind of pick his brain. We’ve already had a couple conversations. He’s an awesome baseball mind. He really loves the game and he’s really passionate, so I’m looking forward to working with him all summer.”

And everybody’s looking forward to baseball this summer, as abbreviated and strange as this NWL season at Simmons Field may be.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Scott said. “I want these guys to understand that we’re not just going through the motions here, and this (isn’t) about practice. We’re not practicing. We’re playing baseball games. They need this. We all need this. The fans need it.”