Softball Game in San Quentin Prison

Earlier today I played a softball game with a local team I'm on against the prisoners in San Quentin Prison, we had been scheduled to play two weeks ago but there was a lockdown that prevented that from happening.

Our team gathered at a nearby park a few hours before the game and it was obvious we were nervous because of all the off-color prison jokes we were making to clearly conceal the fear that stereotypes and probably some reality had created in our minds. Also we were told we "didn't want to use the San Quentin shitter" so we all took turns pushing our hardest in the park's porta-potty.

Our usual pre-game huddles are all about hitting line drives and calling balls in the air.


This one consisted of our captain telling us the rules the volunteer San Quentin coach told him:

1. Do not ask anyone what they were in for.
2. Don't make conversation with inmates in cells if we walk down a block.
3. If you hear a siren take a knee immediately.

With that, the jokes subsided and we talked a little about observing the conditions in there, just being able to see what it's like for the inmates and went into a discussion about how some people think it's fucked up to provide an afternoon of fun for people who mostly are in for life for violent crimes. I tend to disagree, thinking that if you reform yourself and behave well, you might be in for life, and having that freedom 100% taken away is shitty enough, you might as well get some perks here or there. It's a poor man's restorative justice but I'm probably never going to be in a position to influence incarcerative law so here we went.

After driving into the visitor's parking lot it was very somber, lots of well dressed people, families, going surely to visit friends or relatives, Sunday is visiting day. We met the volunteer coach for the San Quentin Pirates outside and he was a sweet old Jewish guy but didn't seem to have any sympathy or feeling for his team. He informed us of the hostage policy (no help for us if shit goes down) and then in we went wearing goofball matching "Little Lebowski Urban Achiever" t-shirts.

I was totally shocked at how light all the security seemed. We brought nothing in as we were told but were not searched once or put through a metal detector and the guards seemed to not give a shit at all. It was weird, if we had a vendetta against anyone in there for whatever reason it seemed we could have brought anything in we wanted. Then we went through the gates and were in. It was Sunday and a lot of prisoners were coming out of the churches they had near the front. They all greeted us, pale-faced no doubt, wished us luck, said "God bless" and carried on.

We got to the field, a really nice field, as nice as any city-maintained field complete with a scoreboard in the outfield that said "San Quentin Field of Dreams". We were also all shocked to find NO GUARDS visible on the yard with about 100 or so prisoners milling around, lifting weights, hitting punching bags, shooting hoops. One of the saddest things were the older prisoners in their 60's and 70's it appeared, just sitting or slowly walking on the yard, completely alone. The prisoners were mostly racially segregated and waaaay older than we would have thought. The umps were inmates and they greeted us and got the game going, telling us that since San Quentin is maximum security and has death row and the execution chamber that this was the last stop for a lot of guys and they weren't really threats anymore and this was a "soft" prison compared to some of the other ones with younger, Latin American gang inmates in on shorter sentences. This was reassuring. There was no outfield fence, the grass just ended and there was more of the yard, inmates sitting there watching. The team we played had uniforms and gear donated from the SF Giants and we later found out the field was from the SF 49ers.

All the players on the other team had to have been on good behavior for at least three years and I think once they get on the team and are physically okay they can stay on because it's a huge privilege so the average age was around 40 and they weren't the buffed up stereotype (most of them) that we thought. We had some pre-game jitters and came out shitty in the first few innings, going down by a few runs. I was in the outfield as usual and getting some Grade A heckling from the inmates milling around behind me. One guy hit a huge blast over my head and I had to decide between diving into the crowd to get it or letting it go. I'd like to say I went headfirst into a lifer but I let it go. Another one later went over me into their outdoor urinal so there was some good fun being had at my expense but I answered back with one of the biggest (and luckiest) shots of my career, a drive to right that also cleared the field but their OF was a little friendlier with the fans so he went and got it as I came into third for a triple.

A really humorous moment came when we hear noise over the loudspeaker and remembering our instructions, dropped to a knee in about .2 seconds. The inmates throughout the yard quickly starting laughing their asses off and it turned out it was just an announcement about something over the PA system. Later an alarm did go off but the inmates grumbled to us that is happens about 8 times a day whenever a guard has to go to the bathroom or something to keep people down on the ground, waiting.

The game carried on and we relaxed a lot after realizing how nice and grateful all the guys were, slapping five to us and asking to borrow our bats and chew some sunflower seeds and the crowd we quickly realized was rooting for us for no apparent reason. We pulled ahead toward the 7th inning which we thought would be the last one but we had extra time so we went a full 9, getting a late rally and winning 10-7. At first we had been afraid of what would happen if we won, but these guys clearly wanted us to go 100% and stayed and chatted for a little bit as we packed up. They thanked us for coming out and made a number of jokes about their predicament which we all laughed a little nervously at and told us to come back and play again because "we'll be here and still have the home field advantage." We agreed to come back and took off.

One guy told us as we were leaving, "You know, inside or outside doesn't matter, just a beautiful day and everyone likes playing ball." And that was really the sentiment of the day, I didn't need to know who was in for what crimes, in fact I really didn't want to know, because they just seemed like normal guys. Who knows what you can do 20 years ago messed up on a lot of drugs, crazy. The informality and intimacy really surprised me as did the general population, so it was a very interesting and ultimately, enjoyable afternoon. When I get some more pics I'll post them.