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COVID-19 strikes local umpires hard

File photo by Jeremy Behnke Myron Fluegge, a longtime local umpire, is among several umpires and officials in the area who has been affected by not being able to umpire and officiate this spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

NEW ULM — Over a month ago, Terry Helget was getting ready for another season of Division I baseball umpiring before season came to a halt.

Helget, who umpires games in the Big Ten, Summit League, Horizon Conference and Missouri Valley Conference, saw his season end just six games into his season after the COVID-19 pandemic ended Division I spring sports before they could really get going.

He usually umpires anywhere from 45-50 Division I games per year and it will definitely be a hit financially for him.

“For me, the biggest thing this time of year is the Division I stuff where I padded my bank account pretty well,” he said. “I got six games in total before everything came to a crashing halt around March 12, then just like that, everything was done. That was going to be my first weekend in Nebraska and first weekend of 11 in a row that I had. You could just see the dominoes fall and at the time, nobody knew.”

He wasn’t totally shocked when the Minnesota State High School League ended the winter season in March. At that point, professional and college leagues were pulling the plug on the season.

“Yes at first, but then no,” Helget said. “First the NBA did it, then the Big Ten tournament did it the next day. That’s about when I had my last game, I did the Gophers [baseball] game against Creighton at US Bank Stadium. There was starting to be some rumblings that Harvard was going to shut down their spring baseball season and another team out east was doing similar, and we thought it was an overaction. But one of the umpires I was with who happens to be a coordinator with the NCAA Division III tournament, he could see the severity of it right away. When his eyes got big, I could see that this was something that was going to snowball and sure enough, it was done.”

Helget also umpires a number of amateur and legion baseball games during the summer. He is hoping that there will be a summer sports season and he said that he feels safe doing it still if he and everyone else is able to follow the social distancing guidelines that will probably be put in place.

Another longtime local umpire, Myron Fluegge, recently retired from spring sports but he still umpires summer softball. Financially, it’s not a big deal for him but he does miss the aspect of being out and doing something he loves, along with playing on his over-70 softball team.

“I am missing not being out on the field, umpiring softball and baseball,” Fluegge said. “That’s probably the biggest thing right now, there might even be some season yet this spring. I’m already signed up for some games this summer for girls’ fastpitch and some VFW baseball.

“As far as the financial aspect, this doesn’t impact me as much just because this is just extra bonus money for me,” Fluegge said. “As a softball player, I’m probably more concerned about that because my 70-and-over team was supposed to our first tournament May 7 and 8 in Waterloo and that one is postponed. Our next one is June in the cities. I’m missing not being out there.”

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