Sports

The club's platform tennis membership "has quadrupled," Scott Rubenstein, E.H.I.T.'s managing partner, said, which is to say there are about 60 now playing the outdoor winter sport there — paddle, as it is known, being one of the few sports, like golf and tennis, deemed reasonably safe to play during the coronavirus pandemic.

If all goes according to plan, four of the club's Har-Tru courts will be under an outdoor 85-by-200-foot National Hockey League-size ice rink and open for business as of Saturday, marking the beginning of the Buckskill Winter Club's 16th season.

Section XI, the governing body for public high school sports in Suffolk County, on Friday postponed “until authorization is provided” the “high-risk” sports — boys and girls basketball, wrestling, and cheerleading — from the winter schedule that is slated to begin Jan. 4.

Having tested the waters in August and September, the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s closely-monitored Hurricanes are once again in the swim, according to the youth team’s head coach, Tom Cohill, who in March 2019 dubbed them “the strongest Y team in the state pound for pound.”

Golfers in the know already know the East End has several gems among its greens, but Golf magazine has made it official once again.

There's still a touch of summer in the East Hampton air, which is a fitting backdrop to the summer-style, off-season sports workouts that will resume this coming week in the East Hampton School District.

All programs are subject to health screenings and other Covid-19 precautions.

Until Friday, when news of the postponement was publicized by Section XI, school sports were to have started on Sept. 21. Each "lower-risk" team, including tennis, soccer, swimming, golf, and cross-country, was to have an abbreviated season with 10 to 12 games each instead of 16 games. Football, cheerleading, and volleyball had not yet been given the green light, and now the light is red for all sports until January.

As of Tuesday, with the daily Covid-19 infection rate on Long Island hovering around 1.5 percent, school sports are still a go starting on Sept. 21. On Wednesday, the New York State Department of Health released further guidelines governing each sport, clarifying that football, volleyball, rugby, and now cheerleading will not start until March 1, 2021.

The Y.M.C.A. of Long Island has announced that it will open the doors of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter on Tuesday.

Already an elite-hitting first baseman for the East Hampton High School varsity baseball team, Colin Ruddy was chosen to pitch for the Area Code national travel team earlier this summer.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said game on for "lower-risk" school sports starting Sept. 21.

To take advantage of the extra cross-training opportunity that otherwise might not have worked with preseason scheduling, Kevin Barry entered a few athletes from his East Hampton High School boys cross-country team.

Customers at bowling alleys and gyms will soon be rolling and lifting again now that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has deemed conditions in New York safe enough that places like these can reopen.

Thanks to Covid-19, the two teams competed online, instead of at East Hampton's Herrick Park, to see who could raise more money for local nonprofit organizations.

The decade-old Wounded Warrior Project's Solider Ride, for which East Enders come together every July, will look different this summer in light of Covid-19, but the tradition itself will soldier on.

Truth Training is hosting an online kettlebell-swinging challenge to benefit Project Most starting Aug. 3.

Covid-19 has struck out the 2020 East Hampton Artists and Writers Softball Game, originally scheduled for Aug. 15 at Herrick Park. The charity game's organizers have decided it is not yet safe enough to play, but will continue to raise money for the four nonprofits the game supports.

The New York State Public High School Athletic Association postponed the start of fall sports for high schoolers by about a month, from Aug. 24 to Sept. 21, and canceled regional and state championship events.

Sam O'Hara, a 15-year-old who lives in Rye, N.Y., and East Hampton, and who plays golf at the Maidstone Club, and Mia Sessa, a 16-year-old who plays at the East Hampton Golf Club, won the Long Island Boys and Girls Championship at the Smithtown Landing Golf Club on June 24.   

"The Father of Baseball," Henry Chadwick, whose retirement house in Noyac, not far west of Trout Pond, still stands, is to be among those inducted into the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 1.   

There are plans to play the big charity softball game in Herrick Park on Aug. 15, but it is by no means a sure thing. Leading up to it, the two sides will engage in an online competition to see which team can raise the most money for the game's beneficiaries.

​​​​​​​Rather than traverse the accustomed Montauk Firehouse to Lions Field route along Edgemere Road, this year's Montauk Mile participants were asked to run, jog, or walk the distance wherever they wanted over a two-week period, and to submit their times to the race's sponsor, the Old Montauk Athletic Club.

Many businesses have struggled to survive during the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic shutdown, but one niche industry is witnessing solid sales. Bait and tackle shops around Long Island have seen a significant uptick in business as more people take up fishing as a social distancing pastime.

Ally Friedman, who for the past three years at the Ross School in East Hampton has been using tennis as a vehicle through which to boost her 7 through 12-year-old female students' self-esteem, health, and resilience, is one of seven young people from across the country to have won a Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award, which includes a $10,000 scholarship.

Tony Caramanico of Montauk was recently inducted into the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame for "having made the most significant contributions to the sport, thereby preserving their historical significance and the sport's cultural lore for future generations." He was one of 10 singled out for this honor from a list of 200.

When Vinny Alversa, East Hampton High's baseball coach, was asked if he would be interested in entering his team in a high school tournament in Brookhaven between July 8 and July 12, the answer was an immediate yes.

As if we didn't have enough to be concerned about these days, Mother Nature has been in a rather ornery mood of late. I'm not sure what's ticked her off, but her unpredictable exploits have left a mark in many parts of the world, including our area.

Add sailing to the short list of competitive outdoor sports, including golf and tennis, that have made comebacks in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown.

A month later than usual, the Breakwater Yacht Club's Wednesday evening Summer Series of large boat races got underway in Shelter Island Sound on June 3, windward-leeward practice runs that attracted four entrants - three J/70s and Caminos, Don Filippelli's 36-foot J/109 out of the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett, a boat that has a North American championship to its credit.

I-Tri brings an online youth triathlon Saturday morning and a revived Turbo Tri for adults and children for July, while the Montauk Mile extends its virtual competition.