By: Bruce Karnick

Imagine, it is your senior year of high school. You are surrounded by your classmates all year, your best friends, your favorite teachers, classes you love, school dances, plays, concerts, and sports. January of 2020 hits and you start hearing about this virus. A virus that might make its way here or might not, you don’t know and, to be honest, you don’t really give it a second thought. Why? Because you are 18 years old and you are invincible! You are not quite an adult in your head, you are having your last hurrahs with all your pals, people you have grown up with, life does not get any better than this. Out of nowhere, March looks at you and says, “Hold my pop and watch this.” Winter sports were at their peak when things started shutting down. We lost most of the State High School League winter tournaments and soon after, we would lose the spring sports completely. How did it affect the players that thought they had “one more year” to end it like they wanted too? I sat down with two of Hastings most recent graduating class’s Jay Swanson and Alex Otto to _nd out.

For high schools, spring sports almost overlap winter sports tournaments.

“I think it starts the week before spring break every year.” Otto explained. “That’s arm care week, and then tryouts over spring break, and then we get into actual practices the week after spring break.” March 11th is when 2020 sports would change forever, a few weeks before Hastings normally has spring break. The _rst

major sports athlete tests positive for COVID. Shortly after that test, high school sports schedules were put on hold. When did Swanson and Otto learn of their senior baseball seasons fate?

Otto continues, “Geez, it was really late actually because they kept giving us hope.”

“I think it was right after school got moved to online for the rest of the year that they called it.” Swanson added. In fact, that hope was there until late April by Coach Taylor Pagel and his Zoom practices. As of April 3rd, the hope was to resume play by May 4th. Then April 23rd there was a report the season had been cancelled. When asked about the summer season and their fear of no summer baseball you could tell emotions were coming back for both of them.

Otto said, “I was pretty worried, just because of the fact that I wouldn’t get to play with these guys again, like this is the last year.” It’s hard not to feel the emotion from them when they talk about their seasons being cancelled. He would never admit it, but hearing him say that his last chance to play with his friends was almost taken from him and that hurt he was feeling was certainly in his tone.

Swanson echoed the tone, “I was concerned about summer ball just cause,” a brief pause to maintain his composure, “I dunno, I see this as my last my last opportunity to play.”

The high school team was slated to have 3 graduating seniors, Tommy Ritt, Alex Otto and Ryan Kasel before the season was shut down. Jay Swanson was planning on playing as part of the school team, a decision that almost cost him a chance to play summer ball. The summer ball teams for 18u in this area are sponsored by Legions and VFWs. The Legion team is generally the Varsity players and VFW is generally the JV players. That league was soon cancelled, and the guys were upset.

“I was thinking hey, I won’t get to play with this group of guys I’ve been playing with my whole life. I know every single one of them like a brother. Even sadly this guy too.” As he elbows Swanson and gets a smile.

Not long after the Legion/VFW season was cancelled, a coach from East Ridge decided to put together and Hastings was one of them. High schools have a 6-week window starting after the 4th of July where they can have contact with players of various sports, so baseball took advantage. This is where Swanson’s decision to not play for the school team almost bit him in the rear. “I actually didn’t _nd out until a couple

weeks later,” Swanson says as Otto starts laughing. “Because (coach) Stoffel got all the contact information from the high school teams.” And he was not on that list. “So he,” points to Otto, “called me one afternoon and goes ‘Hey! You goin’ to practice?’ I had no idea what he was talking about.” And they both laugh.

How has summer ball been? “Fun” was the simple reply from Swanson, which also gave Otto a chance to pick on him more after the interview ended. Otto, who claims to be camera shy, had more to offer. “It’s been great! I’ve loved every second of it.” Playing or not, it’s clear that both of these guys love being around their teammates, and each other. Before the interview started, Alex told Jay he was doing the interview with him. It was a ‘Hey, I ain’t doin’ this without you’ kind of thing.

What has it meant to both young men to have that ‘one last time’ with their buddies playing a game they love? “I got another shot to make this what I want it to be.” Was Otto’s response and he continued “ending last year I was thinking I got another year, who cares?” Swanson is simply trying to make the most of it, “Having as much fun as I can.”

In the Fall, Swanson will be attending St. Paul College for electrical technology and Otto will be a Tommy for engineering. When asked about their baseball futures, Swanson seemed to imply this was it for him. Otto brought up St. Thomas moving to D1 for baseball so college ball for him was out, but he hinted that he may try to continue by going the town ball route. A future Hawk perhaps? Either way, it was a pleasure to sit down for 5 minutes and chat with both Jay Swanson and Alex Otto. Unfortunately for us, Tommy Ritt is on a family vacation, so he was not able to join in the conversation.