Coronavirus Victim Will Throw Out A's Opener's First Pitch, Whenever It Happens
The planning for baseball’s opening day is mostly on hold, but the A’s have already one arm ready to go.
Longtime A’s fan Justin Wilhite has been asked if he’d be willing to throw out the first pitch for the 2020 A’s Coliseum opener, whenever that might occur and whoever the opponent might be.
Right now, the opponent is COVID-19, the coronavirus that has put baseball, all of sports and most of the United States on hold.
Wilhite should know. He came down with COVID-19 a week or so ago and on March 16 tweeted a picture of himself on a respirator. He was wearing a pulldown A’s cap at the time, and the posting went viral. A’s president Dave Kaval was one of the more than 16 million to see the post
Kaval tweeted back to Wilhite, asking him if he’d like to throw out the first pitch whenever the 2020 season gets going.
“It’s been really crazy, and hard to get my head around,” Wilhite told SI.com from his suburban Sacramento home. “There’s been lots of media and I only have so much energy.”
Wilhite is thrilled at the thought of first-pitch duty, and says his wife and kids, also huge A’s fans, “will be on cloud nine” at the opener, whenever that is.
Truth be told, he’s glad the opener isn’t this week, because in his current state, the ball “might not make it off the mound.” While he recovers at home, it can be “a real workout getting out of bed and doing the normal things you need to do.”
He says he’s not sure how he came down with the coronavirus, and wonders if it has something to do with a severe onset of the flu he had about a month ago. He’d rather look forward, though, and caution anyone who will listen on the importance of taking care of friends and family in a time of pandemic, staying home and avoiding crowds.
I have it. Don’t sleep on this thing people. I’m a very healthy type I diabetic. My body is fighting it very well but it’s kicking my ass. Don’t be a moron. Stay home! pic.twitter.com/X0Lb2FYE6z
— J. Michael Wilhite (@jwdaddy80) March 17, 2020
“My recommendation is to do your best to not breathe in air,” he said with a laugh punctuated by a bout of coughing. “Seriously, everyone should do what they can to not get the coronavirus. I rarely get sick, but I’ve got all the symptoms, a headache that won’t go away and lots of lung pain. When you have it, you feel every bit as sick as can be, but you don’t look sick. You just look tired.
“The headache and lung pain won’t go away, and it’s hard to shake that dry, annoying cough.”
Wilhite, who was a casual A’s fan for a long time until he and his family made the leap to rabid fandom in 2011, said the twitter experience and the A’s response “are the craziest things ever.”
“I’m at the point where 16 million people have read the post; it’s the most incredible thing I have ever experienced,” he said. “I literally had about 50 followers, and most of them were Russian bots. I posted just for friends and family.
“I was thinking about not posting at all, but at some point, I thought it might be helpful for family and friends. I was talking to my wife about whether or not to do it, and I said `Let’s make it real for them.’ I was in the hospital when I posted. When I got home, there were 2,500 likes and 30,000 had read it. Then it just caught fire.
“I never expected Dave Kaval to know who I was or that 16 million people would be reading this. The most interactions I’d had before this was about 30.”
Wilhite, who is an A’s all-access fan who has access to about 44 games a season, is sorry baseball isn’t on his TV or radio today. But he believes it will come back, and when it does, it will be great.
“Even if the season is only a month long when it comes back,” he said, “it’ll be the best month ever.”
