The Day The Game Went Away | EXCLUSIVE

The Day The Game Went Away

Witnessing the end of amateur sports in California.

Win, lose or draw the season ended today.

Not a soul didn’t know it.

The writing had been etched into the wall during our forty-five-minute transit from the shoreline to the hips of the South Bay.

March Madness, and all its money-making glory, was actively folding the tent.

Professional leagues would definitely return, but everyone else would be stuck watching digitally going forward.

Now it wasn’t a question of if the California Community College Athletic Association was going to call for a suspension of play, just when.

For this game to get underway, it had to happen quickly and with the consent of all involved, including umpires and support staff.

It came down to two men meeting at home plate.

Passing each other lineup cards.

Shaking hands and leaning in for a final private exchange.

The future held a dark chapter in American history, one fraught with division, manipulation and bullying.

People were going to die. 

Families were going to be divided.

Fear was on the menu.

But first, there was one last game of baseball to be played.

Memories of that fateful crisp and clear Wednesday in March, year of some’s lord 2020, resonates today as again I find myself watching from the front row while amateur sports in California agonizingly asphyxiate.

As people around the world watched the wave of Fear build, a junior college baseball game in California didn’t satiate their need to tune out and tune in.

Random spatterings of people, locals out for bike rides or teachers who arrived to an empty campus, watched on from sun-baked metal bleachers above the outfield.

A few older gentlemen, spread loosely behind home plate, provided closed-circuit commentary.

Not quite Kruk and Kipe, certainly not safe for a 21st-century digital broadcast, but riveting.

Spoken at just above a whisper, masks were not the fashion yet, only audible when the wind shifted just right.

A recursive island of ideas.

Edged by the Fear.

There was no talk of what was to come.

Those waves had yet to stand upon the reef, reveling their true height and mass.

I wonder if they re-watch that game in their dreams as I do.

Just returning to this memory causes my eyes to water and throat to close off.

The most beautiful and horrifying game I have ever attended.

Just as the season was heating up, with conference play still in its infancy.

Cut down in its prime.

Multiple future professional players, all of whose careers would be irreversibly impacted by what was to come, put on a show.

Fly balls to left-center aided by the stiff breeze coming off the South Bay still register that satisfy snap as they found a home in oiled hides.

I can still feel the spring pollen in my lunges, the promise of a summer set to be so sweat.

Everyone’s swings were just starting to look right.

Pitchers’ stuff had just started working.

Make it count, boys.

27 outs apiece.

Every cut had a little something extra.

Each at-bat was a little more intense.

While the Fear built around us, the game played on.

Defiant.

Proud.

Fully aware but only partially accepted.

Ground balls turned into double plays.

Past balls became free bases.

The cracks were showing as these young men buckled under an overwhelming burden.

But on they played, buoyed by benches that beat back the Fear.

As the innings drew thin, the intensity on the diamond built to a crescendo.

Early errors became late web gems.

Routine plays morphed into infield singles 

It was a moment of harmonic convergence.

Obscuring the Fear.

Until the outs ran dry.

Then reality came crashing in, like the sea burst through a hole below the waterline.

We listed home.

There has not been a game since.

After documenting most Cabrillo College Athletics events over the previous year and a half with a combination of words, photos, and live streams the moment was not lost on me.

70 viewers turned in live on Facebook, none saw it through to the final pitch.

Roughly 20 gigabytes worth of RAW photos should have accompanied the streaming coverage on the schools athletic site.

Stories played out, life-changing moments were experienced and captured digitally.

Editorial control has its privileges.

Some moments are only for those who lived them.

Like seeing the Tippecanoe’s number 1-9 through your bull nose.