By Daniel Anderson

The date was September 20th, 2020. It was quite a nice Sunday night at Keelesdale Park, although there was quite a bit of traffic on the Black Creek that night as I looked from right field to left field. It was just a normal baseball game for my team and me, but what we didn’t know was that this would be our last game of the very short season. With the weather slowly becoming colder and COVID on the uprise again, we restricted ourselves to only a couple more games that season. They would soon be cancelled because of COVID just a couple of days after the game. This game was quiet and boring in a way, but I still remember every detail: the soft dirt and green outfield, with Jane Street just beyond the outfield fence; the umpire standing behind the pitcher for a COVID-friendly pitch call; and the massive spaces between each of my teammates’ bags. Spread out about 2 metres all around the bullpen were the West Toronto crested baseball bags. Across the field, the Leaside team laid their bags along the foul line fence. Not a single player stepped foot in the dugouts–only the coaches did to ensure a COVID-safe experience.

Everyone watching or playing the game saw the recent spike of COVID in the city on the news. That being said, parents and friends watching awkwardly stood apart from each other with no mask mandates in place yet. At the beginning of the game, players lugged each of their foldable chairs out of their car and placed them behind their bags, pointed towards home plate. If you forgot your chair, well, it was going to be a long game. With no Provincials or anything this year, this game was simply for fun, but not so much for me.

As I said, this was my team, but I was not playing in this game. No, I did not get benched, and no, I’m not terrible at baseball. I started the season with nerve damage in my right throwing shoulder that could be treated with some physio and easing my way back into throwing. I never did get to that last part, unfortunately. Never did see the field that entire season. I was optimistic about next season and was really trying to stay healthy for when it wouldn’t be all for fun. Hopefully, that will come after this lockdown.

The game started out quite intensely, not because we were losing or winning, but because our coaches were furious with the way we paid more attention to the Blue Jays’ game than ours. Our head coach, Mike, was mad, but not nearly as mad as our assistant coach, John. Coach John yelled at us that game whenever he saw a single phone hanging out of a bag or pocket. We began to realize how much this game meant to our coaches because they were looking towards the future, with no baseball in sight. We put our phones away for most of the time but did check the score once in a while. Then we locked in. After that awakening, we must have scored 5 runs, and we kept going. We laid on the brakes a little in the last couple of innings and switched around the positions. I remember seeing infielders in the outfield and our right fielder at third base. Everyone was trying something new for the fun of it and had a blast. From watching on the sidelines like a parent, I gained much more respect for parents just sitting and watching. I understand that some parents enjoy the ball game, but I, for sure, am not one of those people. As I sat in the dugout for the rest of the game, I was quite naive in the sense that I had hope for indoor training that year. I was expecting a full winter of hockey and indoor baseball training, but neither of those things ever happened. I watched that game as if nothing was going to be nearly as bad from then on, like when COVID first shut down schools. I soon came to understand how naive I was.  

Spending time with family is a blessing, and I am so fortunate to have a loving and supportive one. That being said, I haven’t been to a restaurant for almost a year and am dying to get out of family dinners. I have spent more time with my family doing fun stuff than doing fun stuff with friends. I miss playing basketball or going to a movie with people my own age. It may seem like a poor statistic, but for a 16-year-old, I’d say it’s quite significant.

This game was special in a way that I could never have guessed when sitting in the bullpen as I did. As I sat in my foldable chair, which I made sure to remember, I realized that baseball is one of the most boring games to watch. However, it is incredibly fun to play, and that’s why I love the game so much. I realize now that the game that I watched so carelessly that night means so much to who I am. I am an energetic athlete who needs to scratch the itch of competition more often than most. I am someone who looks back on days like September 20^th, 2020 and misses the simplest things. From baseball practice to even the walk to school in the morning, I miss the simplest things that my day used to offer. I am someone whose most boring days got flipped to the days I would do anything to have now. I am one of many whose life has been affected by COVID-19. It’s taken away the things that used to be the source of my happiness. That may sound overly dramatic, but I see it as something that has affected all of us. I see people looking back on day-to-day things like going to the office as something they would be grateful to do now. When this all ends … I see people happy to go to a restaurant for the experience with others more than the food. I see people happy to go to the office rather than dreading the work to be done. I see kids like myself happy to play the game of baseball, no matter the outcome, a win or a loss.