It was the bottom of the fifth inning and Oxford was down 6-2 against Grand Blanc Saturday afternoon.
The Cats had the bases loaded when a heavy-hitter named Mother Nature stepped up to the plate.
With a mighty swing, she cleared the bases and ended the game. Nobody scored, nobody won, but everybody took cover as she wrecked the Cats? field of dreams.
Saturday’s thunderstorms with their wind gusts in excess of 70 miles per hour did quite number on high school’s baseball field.
‘I’ve been a coach in the game for quite a while. That was by far the worst thing I’ve ever been involved in,? said Jeff Willis, Oxford’s varsity baseball coach. ‘It was like a tornado just blew through. I’ve never been in a tornado, I don’t know what it’s like and I hope I never do.?
The ferocious winds blew down the backstop, caused the outfield fence to fan outward at a 45-degree angle and slammed the bleachers into the backstop.
‘If you were sitting on the bleachers, your head would have been against the fence,? Willis said. ?(The wind) didn’t just slide them against it. It picked them up and pinned them against the fence.?
Everything started when the umpire told everybody to take a break because he heard some thunder.
‘I get in the dugout and the athletic trainer pulls the (weather) radar up on her iPhone and shows it to me,? Willis said. ‘It’s just solid red, north to south.?
Red indicates not only heavy rain, but also thunderstorms, hail, strong winds or even tornadoes.
In light of the weather situation, Willis told the Grand Blanc coach to quickly gather his team and hit the road.
Willis? girlfriend left at the same time as Grand Blanc with the Yorkshire terrier she was dog-sitting for a friend. As she was running, she got quite a surprise.
‘The leash was tight and she went to pull him, as if he wasn’t keeping up with her, and when she turned around to look, she said he was suspended in the air probably a foot-and-a-half to two feet off the ground,? Willis said. ‘She’s like thank God I had the leash on him or else he could have been swept away.?
Once the heavy rain and high winds got rolling, Oxford’s players and coaches took shelter in the two dugouts, while the spectators took cover in the concessions/maintenance building.
‘The rain was so intense we could hardly see from the first base dugout to the third base dugout,? Willis said. ‘I had a kid whose glasses flew off his hat and he made the mistake of running to go get them. He got stuck in the middle of it and he couldn’t get back to the dugout, so he just laid down in the middle of the outfield.?
From the dugout, Willis watched his backstop become scrap metal.
?(The wind) basically bent it at the halfway point, and then, probably 15 seconds later, the bleachers crashed into it and it just snapped,? he said. ‘To do that kind of damage, that fast, it was just crazy.?
While Willis and four players took cover in the first base (or visitors) dugout, the rest of the team took shelter in the third-base dugout’s equipment room, which was described as a small, enclosed cinder-block square with a door.
‘I still don’t how they all crammed in there, but they did,? Willis said. ‘It was terrifying for some of those kids.?
Once the storm was over, Willis said senior Nick Tombrella told him, ‘Coach, I swear to God, I thought I was spending the last moments of my life in the visitors? dugout with you.?
Until the school district sorts out all the insurance and repair issues related to the field’s damage, the Cats upcoming home games have become away games.
‘It puts us on the road until I don’t know when,? Willis said.