Denied a Season, Some Ivy League Athletes Craft a Baseball Gap Year

The Ivy League, unlike most Division I conferences, decided against spring sports. That has led some athletes, like baseball players at Brown, to find outside ways to train.

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Brown University’s baseball players returned to their Rhode Island campus in the dead of winter primarily because there was a sliver of hope for a season. Classes were remote, the athletic facilities were restricted and they had to quarantine for two weeks when they arrived in mid-January. Still, after last season was all but wiped out because of the coronavirus pandemic, the players were desperate to play and hoped a season might begin in early March. Pitchers stood mattresses up in dormitories and hurled weighted balls into them — the loud bangs eliciting warning texts from a resident adviser. Hitters followed suit, smacking baseballs off tees into their upright mattresses. The field was off limits, so on the days when it wasn’t too cold or miserable, the athletes played catch on a snow-covered green, doing their best not to strike passers-by.