(Oakland, CA) Although delayed due to Covid-19, baseball season has finally arrived and fans across the nation are stoked to finally watch their favorite teams compete in America’s pastime. From home. You see, due to the concern over social distancing and further spread of disease, fans will have to enjoy their games through their TVs rather than at the actual stadium. But, never missing a chance for something fun and innovative, the MLB has decided to Keep Calm and Carry On by replacing fans in the stands with cardboard cutouts of the fans themselves. Unfortunately, no one told Dave.


Meet Dave Billows, an avid fan of the Oakland Athletics. As someone who stoutly refuses to engage with popular culture in any form, Billows hadn’t seen the various tweets or headlines discussing this odd move by the MLB to employ cutouts of fans rather the corporeal beings themselves. So, at 7:05 last night when the first pitch was thrown, Dave was sitting in his usual seat down the third base line.


“As a season ticket holder for the last 12 years, I just show up when I show up and hope there is a game on,” Dave explained to us over Zoom this morning. “It wasn’t until a person in a hazmat suit came down from a press box to ask me what I was doing at the game that I even noticed the folks around me weren’t real.”


This was done intentionally. Along with placing them in the stands, the overhead PA at the parks was rigged to play canned crowd noise from previous seasons. This, along with Dave’s general oblivious nature lead to one very confused reporter who had been sitting alone in the press box when she noticed the real life person in section 21.


“At first I couldn’t be sure he was real, he was so still,” journalist and avid kickboxing fan Sunita Mashabi told us. “I had to get out my nocs out to get a closer look. Once I confirmed it was a real person, I put on my gear and made my way over to him. It was so surreal for me, I can only imagine what it was like for him.”


“She looked like she had just landed on Mars and I was eating a hot dog I brought from home. I nearly dropped it right on my pants!”


Since he wasn’t technically hurting anyone by being alone in the stadium, after a brief discussion about the situation for her story, the two parted ways. The As ended up losing, but Dave was satisfied.


“I can’t wait to come back tomorrow!”