Experts identify safest sports, recreational activities at this point in the pandemic

Trunks slam shut and wagons wheels squeak. Metal cleats crunch on asphalt as a catcher’s glove pops with a perfect pitch. Parents socialize for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. They sit under pop-up tents to escape the heat of the sun before 8 a.m. games even start.

It felt like the summer of 2019 — before the coronavirus outbreak. Some things were different at the 3&2 Baseball fields, even if at first glance it didn’t seem like it.

No umpires were behind the catchers. Instead, they stood behind the mound and called the pitches from there. Crews came through the dugouts with backpack blowers. Instead of air or water, a sanitizing solution was sprayed on all parts of the fence and benches.

Baseball is one of many sports that have returned in the Kansas City Metro area. While contact is limited on the field and equipment can be sanitized, it is difficult to keep teams socially distanced in the dugouts, 3&2 executive director Jeff Chalk said. This contact makes baseball a medium-risk sport, said Dr. Sarah Boyd, an infectious diseases physician with the Saint Luke’s Health System.

As more leagues and recreational sports pick up, some sports are riskier than others due to close contact.

Red: high-risk sports

High-risk sports are any that involve long periods of close contact between athletes and/or anyone involved with the team, especially if the sport is played indoors. Wrestling, football, rugby and basketball qualify as high-risk sports.

“I think it’s that frequency of the closeness — how long you’re in close contact with the other team members or the other team if you’re competing,” Boyd said. “A sport where you come into close contact for just a few seconds and then you’re past each other, that would be lower risk.”

Any sport can climb into the red category if social distancing and sanitation guidelines are not followed. Dr. David Smith, a sports medicine specialist with The University of Kansas Health System, said cheerleading can jump into the red category if “stunting,” which requires participants to steady and catch each other, is done. On the other hand, if cheerleaders stay 6 feet apart and avoid practicing or competing indoors, the risk drops the sport down into the green category.

While basketball may seem less risky than football or rugby, Smith, who is also an advisory committee member for the Kansas State High School Activities Association, said it is impossible to stay 6 feet apart from your opponents and still play the game effectively. The indoor aspect of the game also contributes to its high-risk classification.

“Any time you bring people indoors, the air exchange is not as good as outdoors,” Smith said.

Yellow: Medium-risk sports

Because of that indoor air exchange, Smith denotes volleyball as a yellow, medium-risk sport along with baseball, softball, volleyball and competitive individual sports like running, biking and swimming. Generally, all of these sports are more spread out but have periods in which participants are more compact.

If competitive runners and cyclists competed on a course virtually — this is how the Boston Marathon is being done in September, for instance — the risk of spread is minimal and drops participants into the green, low-risk category. Dr. Chadwick Byle, a family medicine physician with Saint Luke’s, said distance running for high schoolers could see changes because of this. Instead of allowing hundreds of student athletes from across the Metro to compete, a couple of teams could run the course each week and then the times could be compared.

Baseball, softball and volleyball are medium-risk sports because of the quick periods of contact or closeness involved. However, it is easier to sanitize equipment between innings or points with these sports.

“That kind of extra cleaning, extra attention to those shared surfaces, is definitely a good thing,” Boyd said.

Green: Low-risk sports

Sports that are already naturally spaced out fall into the green, low-risk category. Golf, tennis, skateboarding, pickleball, ice skating, diving, track and field and swimming are examples in this category ... but each can easily move up the ladder of risk.

While only one person swings a club on a particular hole at a given time, or one person rides a skateboard, the possibility for exposure increases during the social aspects of these sports.

“It’s so easy to stand 6 feet apart, but we are social creatures. We want to be close to one another,” Smith said. “We want to laugh together, we want to cheer for each other, so yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard to watch because potentially they’re transmitting the virus.”

Swimming is an individual sport, but if swim teams allow several people into a lane at once during practice, the risk increases.

“To our knowledge, this virus does not survive in chlorinated or bromine-cleaned water,” Smith said. “However, if you’re in a group playing a game, splashing one another and then talking, and so forth, then that increases the risk.”

Decreasing the risk

Boyd said the sanitizing of equipment in any sport can greatly decrease the risk of contracting the virus. For example, if two gymnasts compete on the parallel bars, wiping down the bars between uses and having them wash their hands before and after competing decreases the risk of spreading the virus.

The sanitation blower at 3&2 is an effective way of lowering the risks inherent at youth baseball tournaments, Boyd said. While the athletes and team personnel may be safer, spectators that do not social distance or wear a mask — even if they are outside — are increasing their risk of exposure.

“It’s the more cautious and safer thing to keep that distance,” said Dr. Amol Purandare, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor at Children’s Mercy. “I think people are thinking, ‘Oh, I’m out in the open, there’s less of a chance.’ If you’re still clustered together and still giving high-fives, hugging, things like that, there’s still that increased risk.”

Will Rogers is a tournament director for Senior Softball USA. He ran a two-weekend tournament that started June 4 in Columbia, Missouri. He said he struggled with people not social distancing until they were reminded of the rules.

“You’re finding groups that are getting closer and closer as we’ve gone through the first couple of weeks,” Chalk said after hosting three tournaments at the 3&2 Baseball Lenexa and Shawnee locations.

The most important recommendation from all three doctors is to find ways to limit exposure. This includes social distancing at practices or strength-training, limiting the number of people involved in each practice or game, decreasing the time of exposure between athletes, avoiding sharing equipment — and if it must be shared, making sure it is sanitized — and avoiding longer-distance travel for games.

“There’s things that can be done to let people practice or begin to play, whether that’s inter-team playing at the beginning, kind of limiting your group or keeping it at a regional level,” Boyd said.

Byle said he wants everyone, from athletes to coaches, to keep guidelines and recommendations in mind so that sports can continue even if a second wave of cases hits the Kansas City area.

“That’s really what we should focus on,” Byle said. “We want everybody to get out and play sports, staying active. It also helps families as stress and anxiety builds up around everything.

“Sports give athletes and parents and communities something to look forward to, but if you don’t do it correctly, then it could easily cause more frustration.”