The Tribune

AFTER spending the past few years as the president of the English Speaking Caribbean Softball Confederation, Burkett Dorsett is expected to be rewarded with a new position on the board of the WBSC Americas Softball, formerly known as the Pan Am Softball.

Dorsett will be travelling along with Bahamas Softball Federation president Ted Miller to the 16th session conclave of the congress that will take place in Panama City, Panama, October 14-17 when the election of officers will also take place for countries from Canada to Argentina.

It’s expected that Dorsett will tender his resignation as president of ECAST to be appointed to the board of the Technical Board for Rules, Regulations and Competition and Facilities.

He’s expected to be one of four persons assigned to the board.

“We will be responsible for the entire region,” said Dorsett, who is expected to be replaced by Godfrey Bain from the Turks and Caicos Islands - the current first vice president of ECAST - until new elections are held.

“I will still serve on the board of ECAST as the immediate past president. But I won’t be able to concentrate on the two.”

Dorsett, a former president of both the Bahamas Government Departmental Softball Association and the New Providence Softball Association, said he’s looking forward to the challenge to serve at the international level, just as he did at the local level.

“The new body will encompass some 38 countries, as opposed to just the ten English-speaking countries in ECAST,” he said.

“So it’s going to be more challenging because whenever these countries want to hold their championships and any sort of competition, they will send their information to us and we will go ahead and regularise it.

“We will have to make sure that it is the right size for the competition, especially when they are inviting teams from other countries to participate.

“We have to also ensure that the rules and regulations are applied to the mandate of the World Baseball/Softball Confederation when it comes down to the sanctioning of these events.”

Looking ahead to the meeting, the fact that they can get to travel instead of just having zoom meetings is a step in the right direction to the return of softball competition at the international level prior to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

“We’re planning the way forward for softball for the next four years,” Dorsett said.

“This pandemic has put a null in softball, not only in the English-speaking Caribbean, but throughout the world.

“Even though we had ladies’ softball in the Olympics, we haven’t had any other regional competition,”he said.

“Hopefully through this congress, we will be looking at how we can plan the next four years for softball.”

Miller, whose federation is also expected to hold elections which have been postponed from February, said he’s excited to be able to join Dorsett in travelling to the congress to discuss the way forward for the sport.

“We’ve been in constant communications, but there wasn’t a whole lot we could have done, so that is the reason for us coming together in person for the congress,” he pointed out.

“Everything was limited because of the pandemic, but they are opening things up again.”

No doubt, Miller said their aim is to hear the call for “let’s play ball” at the international and national levels again.