COCHRAN, Ga. — UPDATE, 10 p.m.:
The baseball tournament scheduled to take place this weekend in Bleckley County has been canceled.
According to Dave Whitaker with the Bleckley Progress, Recreation Board Chair Chan Jones issued a statement saying they decided to focus on trying to get recreational ball going and would reconsider hosting tournaments in a couple of weeks.
Jones says they want to see if social distancing will go well during league games.
League baseball games will be played Saturday starting at 10 a.m.
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It's time to play ball at the Cochran Bleckley Recreation Department, but county officials are less than thrilled to host players from all around the Peach State.
"You're talking roughly 1,000 people coming into a town of roughly 5,000, in a county of about 12 or 13,000. That's a fifth of our population in Cochran," says Mayor Billy Yeomans.
The Cochran city council and sole county commissioner created a joint resolution asking the recreation board to reconsider.
Yeomans says, "The last paragraph says we strongly encourage you not to do, the city and county, does not encourage you to not to do this event, and we suggest you don't do this event but we can't stop you."
According to Yeomans, by law, the city and county can only appoint directors and furnish funds for the rec department. All other decisions rest with the recreation board.
"The county tried to stop this from happening, and as of right now, we're not trying anymore, we're not going to break the law," says Yeomans.
In a letter from the Bleckley County Recreation Committee, they stated they would follow public health protocol.
The department plans to not have players in the dugouts, and people cannot congregate in groups larger than 10.
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