Kirkwood Athletic Association

ATTENTION ALL KAA TEAMS, FAMILIES AND FRIENDS; Never in our 60 years of continuous operations has Kirkwood Athletic Association faced the challenges we have in 2020. Like many families and small businesses, the pandemic has created an extraordinary and unforeseen operational and financial situation for KAA. The headwinds we have faced in 2020, as well as losses incurred due to flooding in 2019, have combined as a one, two punch. After significant contemplation, debate and ad...vice from numerous subject matter experts, the KAA board of directors has been forced to make the very difficult decision to pause park operations effective Friday, August 14th at 6 pm. Unlike several local youth sports organizations that have opted to shutter completely, KAA is NOT closing. We are merely regrouping to make plans for what is ahead this fall and in 2021. As a result of this difficult decision, the park will no longer be available for league team practices. However, in very limited and special circumstances KAA will allow access to the park for some high school age teams. If you have any questions or concerns, you can call the office at 314-822-3686 and leave a message. A board member will respond as soon as possible. You can also leave a message on our website. Please find useful information below: - If you have a team with a league or tournament credit, we are working on a refund/credit plan for 2021. - If you are a high school coach or athletic director, in need of practice or game space, please contact KAA's board president, Eric Eickmeyer at 314-707-0018. Assuming St. Louis County restrictions are lifted and the weather allows, the plan is to resume 2020 summer baseball league and younger softball league games this fall. Further, we will partner with USA Softball to play at least 1 tournament at the park this fall. Finally, we will make the park available to any St. Louis County high schools which may need additional fields to finish their respective softball seasons. We greatly appreciate everyone’s support during these difficult times. Your messages of encouragement have been especially appreciated by our office staff, field crew and concession stand workers. KAA has been around longer than nearly every local youth organization in St. Louis. We intend to continue a tradition of carrying out our principle goal to provide your child with an opportunity to participate in a team sport and develop both athletic and social skills that they will be able to use throughout the rest of their lives. We will continue to keep the KAA community apprised of relevant updates through the fall, and hope that St. Louis County moves into phase 3 which will permit your athletics to restart. Until then, keep the faith, stay safe, and here's to seeing you on a ball field soon. Very Sincerely, KAA Board of Directors

Dear 2020 Feeder League Teams: As you all know, all too well, 2020 has been a challenging year to put it mildly. In order to try and keep the 2020 season as convenient as possible, KAA has tried its best to keep the Feeder League at KAA this season. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 virus has other plans. STLCO on Monday August 10th moved youth sports into phase II. For softball that means no games at all and no practices with more than 20 players plus 2 coaches. The EARLIEST we an...ticipate getting to Phase IV, which is what we need to play tourneys is now September 28th, if then. Unfortunately that makes a league at KAA impractical. As St. Charles County is not under any restrictions at the present time, we have negotiated with New Melle and they have graciously agreed to take ALL KAA teams! If you have already registered with KAA, but not paid, your registration will be transferred to New Melle and you will make your payment to them ASAP. If your team has registered AND paid all or part of your fees already to KAA, your registration AND your league fees will be transferred to New Melle by the 14th. As such, New Melle will be responsible for scheduling games and running the league this year. We apologize to the teams for which playing in New Melle is more logistically challenging, but given the limited locations and the size of the league, New Melle was by far the best option. Your contact at New Melle is John Hecei. His email is [email protected]. We encourage your teams to reach out to him ASAP to secure a spot in their league for 2020. Again, we apologize for the late venue change, we tried our best to make 2020 as near to normal as we could, unfortunately 2020 had other ideas. Good luck in 2020 and we’ll see you back at the park in 2021! KAA Board of Directors

As you’ve probably heard by now, based on a reported surge in Covid-19 cases linked to youth sports, STLCO announced that effective Monday July 20th, youth sports is being rolled back to phase I. What this means is that we can no longer hold league games and any groups at the park should be 10 or less. We will be discussing options for field rentals and update everyone soon. Right now you know as much as we do. We are hopeful this is only a temporary setback. We encourage ev...eryone who reads this to follow our 3 W’s: WEAR a mask; WASH your hands frequently and WATCH where you stand, by keeping socially distanced at all times. If we ALL do this then hopefully we can move back in to phase II just as soon as possible. As we find out more, we’ll let you know. KAA Board of Directors

7/15 4:30pm: All games for this evening are canceled due to wet field conditions

7/8 3:45pm: Fields 11 and 12 are canceled for today. At this time, all other fields will play as scheduled. If conditions change, messages will be updated.

7/8 3pm: We took some heavy rain this afternoon, but at this time, all games will play as scheduled this evening. If conditions change, messages will be updated.