With the return of summer comes the return of baseball to Russell E. Diethrick Jr. Park on Jamestown’s east side.

Over the course of many decades, various baseball teams calling Jamestown home have taken the field there.

For one game, the television show Candid Camera came. No one in the stands and hardly anyone on the field knew what was up. What happened was classic Candid Camera. It was just hilarious.

There was another “game” at Diethrick Park when no one on one team or in the stands knew what was up before the “game.”

It was an exhibition “game” before the real game began.

The one team had several of us from The Post-Journal newsroom, editors and reporters all.

The opposing team had members of the Buffalo Jills, the then-cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills.

The Post-Journal team, not knowing what was up, figured this would be an easy win.

Those of us who had played something other than football or boys’ basketball in local high schools – and therefore in those years were never featured prominently in the sports section – were finally going to have one day in the limelight on the sports pages.

Yes, photos and all.

What we didn’t know before the “game” was that the joke was on us: The whole “game” was fixed. And not in our favor.

That the fix was in became apparent soon after our side came to bat.

Pitching wasn’t really in the wheelhouse of the Jills’ “pitcher.” Of course, pitching well probably isn’t in the wheelhouse of anyone who isn’t really a pitcher. These pitches, however, were far from good.

One pitch rolled along the ground toward the batter. If you didn’t know better, you’d have thought this was croquet, not baseball.

Another pitch bounced multiple times on its way to the plate, which the pitch never did reach.

The home-plate umpire, who was among the chief conspirators in the fix, fulfilled his duty.

“Sttteeeeee-rike,” came the call both times.

That’s when we knew we were in for it, and the situation didn’t improve when we took the field.

At one point, the newspaper’s education reporter, who played third base that evening, thought of having a little fun of his own. The short-lived idea was – after the next absurd call – to run from third base to the home-plate umpire, quietly tell the umpire that he’d argue with him about the calls, and ask the umpire to throw him out when he touched the umpire’s chest protector.

Quickly came the realization, though, that this was a bad idea.

Can you imagine the guffaws when the education reporter – the education reporter, no less – next walked into local school-board meetings after having been ejected from the “game” for unsportsmanlike conduct?

Just picture that one.

No, thanks.

That would have been worse than “losing” to the Jills.

And guess what? The “loss” to the Jills somehow didn’t make the newspaper the next day. Or any day.

No story. No photos. Nothing. Not even in agate type.

Not in the sports section. Certainly not on page one. Not even in the classifieds.

It must have been an “oversight.”

By contrast, one local radio station ran the story the entire next day – all day long – reporting only that the Jills had defeated The Post-Journal without mentioning the “game” was fixed. Another “oversight.”

The radio station delivered this as if it were a straight story. But those at the station knew, and we at The Post-Journal knew, it was a good-natured jab.

To those of us at the newspaper who knew what had happened, the broadcast might as well have said, “The Post-Jourrrrrrnnnalll was defeated by the Buffalo Jiiilllllls. Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah.”

And after the “loss” to the Jills, no scouts from major-league baseball called any of us. Not even from the nearby Toronto Blue Jays, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, or Pittsburgh Pirates.

The phones were silent.

Imagine that.

Must have been another “oversight.”

Before going to law school, Randy Elf was The Post-Journal’s reporter for education and for federal and state affairs, and he wasn’t thrown out of the “game.”

COPYRIGHT ç 2022 BY RANDY ELF