FIRST PITCH GAME PROGRAM
FROM A CHAMPIONSHIP IN '19 TO COVID-19 THE STORY OF THE COVID SHUTDOWN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE SOUTH BEND CUBS By: Josh Sperber
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ix hundred and one days. That is how long it was between game two of the Midwest League Championship, the last game in South Bend in 2019, and Opening Night of the 2021 season. It seems like just yesterday that Cole Roederer scored on a wild pitch to end the 2019 home slate on the highest possible note. Two days later the Cubs would capture their fourth Midwest League Championship, first as a Chicago Cubs Affiliate. Six months later the club was preparing to defend their league title and readying the stadium for the best fans in Minor League Baseball. Then, everything stopped. “Going into Spring Training, I was ready for a full year. Everybody was amped up, especially coming off a championship… When it got shut down, we were all kind of bummed, but there was nothing you could really do about it, everybody was going through the same struggles,” said Cubs top outfield prospect Brennen Davis. All of a sudden, the excitement of a new season came to a grinding halt. Everyone had questions, but no one had answers. Public gatherings of any kind, including professional sports were canceled. “I’d be lying to tell you the first month wasn’t really tough, not really knowing what I was going to do, after that, you know, we got everything canceled and didn’t know when
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we were going to play again,” said South Bend Cubs outfielder Cole Roederer. While plans were forming to bring back other major sports leagues without fans or in a bubble, no such plans were coming for Minor League Baseball. A minor league season was not financially viable and couldn’t be sustained without fans in the stands. As a response, minor league organizations at every level were forced to furlough some of their staff, a difficult decision that was not lost on Team President, Joe Hart. “These were colleagues of yours, friends of yours, people that you worked with. And it was no fault of their own, we were just letting them know that this is what we had to do. Really the harder part was just not having answers… we just didn’t know how long it was going to last.” It was the uncertainty that surrounded this entire period which forced the hands of front offices around the country to find ways to survive until baseball returned.
While normally buzzing with baseball excitement, Four Winds Field would sit dormant in April and May of 2020. The only choice was to move forward and think creatively about ways to maintain the team’s role in the South Bend community without baseball. It began by posting supportive messages on social media, encouraging the community that everyone would get through this difficult time together and ensuring them that they would be back in the stands soon. Continued on page 10...
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