Image credit: ayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
The date is March 12, 2020, and I was sitting in the sun-baked seats behind home plate at Roger Dean Stadium. As a Marlins employee, I had free access to this premium spring training vista for any of our home games. The faded blue plastic seats were so unforgiving that my back usually began cramping around the fourth inning. But I made a point to get out there and enjoy the game anyway.
I knew it was going to be the last game.
Less than 24 hours earlier, the NBA had officially postponed the remainder of their season. Everyone in the Marlins front office had a queasy, certain feeling we were next. So even before the word became official, I knew I wanted to catch one more game, my back be damned.
I remember it being unpleasantly hot (which is standard Jupiter, FL weather). And someone over my shoulder two or three rows back had a cough. Even when the man tried to stifle the cough, his wheezing hek-hek-hek reverberated around the anxious stadium.
“Thank you for attending today’s spring training game,” the PA announcer said after the game concluded. “The remainder of the spring training season has been cancelled.”
It was a surreal announcement. Knifing through the subdued crowds, I walked back to my office on numb legs. A dazed, anxious helplessness boiled in my stomach, like what you get when you’ve strapped into a rollercoaster and it clacks away from the platform. No amount of screaming now will get the teenager behind the levers to stop this thing. You’re along for the ride, the whole ride—the ups, the downs, and the wild-haired photo at the end.
According to my calendar, my four-year-old son had swimming lessons that evening. If I recall correctly, we took him that one last time. But his tee-ball game on Saturday? He would never play that first game, or any game, for the JTAA Giants.
I left the complex, saying goodbye in person for the last time to several coworkers. I didn’t know I would never see some of these people again. But it felt like by the time I got home, all the interns were fired. Scouts and most coaches were furloughed—many to never return. The executives, generously and to their credit, agreed to take no salary that year. Apparently the folks making the most money needed it the least. Funny how it works out that way sometimes literally constantly throughout human history.
And then there were the minor leaguers.
