March 11, 2020, is a day that no one in the United States will ever forget. That night it was revealed Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19), forcing the NBA to indefinitely suspend its season.
Many other sports followed suit shortly after, and soon enough, the entire country was essentially put on lockdown to combat the virus. No one knew how long it would be for at the time, but we are now a full year later and still in the midst of the pandemic.
For me, that period in the middle of March was extra unique considering I was at Camelback Ranch, the Spring Training home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, when everything shut down. I was making my annual Arizona trip to cover the team for DodgerBlue.com, although what I didn’t know at the time was that my trip would be cut short.
I drove down to Glendale, Arizona, on the morning of March 11, getting there just in time for the Dodgers’ game against the Milwaukee Brewers that night. With my media credential beginning the following day, I enjoyed that night’s game in the stands, where Camelback Ranch was packed with people hugging, touching and coughing on each other and not a single mask in sight.
No one knew what was about to happen.
While I was watching the game, which was started by Walker Buehler, I remember getting notifications on my phone about what was going on with Gobert and the NBA. I wasn’t the only one as whispers could be heard around the stadium about the NBA being shut down, Tom Hanks testing positive and all of the other chaos that was happening that night in addition to the baseball game going on in front of us.
Eventually, the Dodgers’ game got called due to rain, which I was totally fine with since reality was starting to set in and I was no longer comfortable sitting right next to strangers in a small stadium.
There was no word about the MLB’s spring being called due to coronavirus though, so I reported to Camelback Ranch the following morning to cover the game that day.
The Dodgers are usually very good about giving details to the media about the itinerary for the day; i.e. when players will be available to speak, when workouts begin, who’s throwing bullpens, etc. But that morning, they had nothing for us.
L.A. was scheduled for a road game that day, so most of the players were not at Camelback Ranch to begin with, and we were left completely in the dark about what was going on.
Luckily, we had the most in-tuned news breaker in the sport in the Dodgers’ media room with us in ESPN’s Jeff Passan. He was on and off the phones basically all day, and eventually was able to find out that the league planned to temporarily shut down all games, following in the NBA’s footsteps.
As we waited on official word from the Dodgers, Passan was generous enough to provide the entire media room with pizzas for lunch. After the Dodgers gave official word that the game had been cancelled, we got to talk to manager Dave Roberts and Gavin Lux.
The craziest thing about those conversations was that even to them, it was extremely unclear how long things would be shut down. There were so many unanswered questions that day. Lux had still hit in the cages earlier in the morning, Roberts stated pitchers were still throwing bullpens and that the hope was that the shutdown would only last a few days.
Boy, was everyone wrong on that.
I decided to drive home the following day, cutting my trip short since there was no baseball to be covered. I remember having to stop at four different grocery stores on the way home just to find toilet paper since I knew I didn’t have any.
When I got home, I had no way of knowing that I would remain there for essentially the next year, or that the one game I attended in Arizona would be the last live sporting event I would see to this day.
Thankfully, the Dodgers were eventually able to play a season later in the year, returning fans to a sense of normalcy. The Dodgers even won their first World Series since 1988, which brought joy to millions of people during a largely somber period in history.
Covering the Dodgers and L.A. sports as a whole, there is never a shortage of drama and interesting stories. Being at Camelback Ranch when the MLB shutdown began takes the cake as far as the craziest thing I’ve ever covered, and I look forward to hopefully getting back there one day once the pandemic is behind us.
Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel? It’s the best way to watch player interviews, exclusive coverage from events and more!
