SEATTLE — There were at least 50 open, waiting chairs inside the media room located in a deep tunnel of Safeco Field.
Bordering the chairs was a wall lined with Seattle Mariners logos. Bordering the logos were a series of multi-colored banners that offered reminders of the brightest moments in Mariners history.
In walked Camas baseball coach Joe Hallead.
But Hallead did not take a chair. He did not even walk up to the logo-shadowed podium normally reserved for million-dollar names and million-dollar egos.
He just lowered his thick, tired legs, stretched out his exhausted feet, and plumped down on a patch of thin carpet.
Then the slow-moving Hallead slowly let go of the one object that said everything about the current and future state of Papermakers baseball. Everything about Clark County baseball. Everything about Camas, Columbia River and the Greater St. Helens League.
It was a simple, small trophy. And on clear glass, a collection of words had been etched that could never be removed. The most powerful ones: second place.
Not first place. Not state champion. Not No. 1.
And Hallead knew everything he needed to know — he knew that the difference in numbers did not matter.
Camas had just fallen to O’Dea of Seattle, 8-5, in the Class 3A state baseball championship game Saturday afternoon.
But even while Hallead and Papermakers senior Taylor Williams acknowledged that they would have preferred to come out on top, they understood that for one day, second best was just as good as first.
“I’m sitting here with the second place state trophy in my hands,” Hallead said. “The first one Camas has ever had in baseball. I am absolutely proud to no end about what the kids have done this year.”
Then Hallead ran through the accomplishments. Twenty victories. Turning around a program that, he said, had never had a winning program before he carried the reins.
But the biggest feat was more abstract. And much more real.
Wins, league titles and state playoff berths are one thing. Bringing pride to and proudly bearing the name of a region that is not exactly associated with the term “baseball powerhouse” is a whole other ball game.
Yet that’s just what Hallead’s Papermakers and Stephen Donohue’s Chieftains did Friday and Saturday on the field that Ichiro Suzuki roams and Ken Griffey Jr. once owned.
Hallead said that after Camas outlasted River, 3-2, Friday in a remarkable 11-inning semifinal contest, he wanted the Papermakers on Saturday to shine a bright light on the GSHL.
But Hallead also asked his team to move the light around.
“We just wanted to represent Clark County in this game,” Hallead said. “And we felt we did as good as we could.”
He added: “We played hard for Camas. And we played hard for our fans, and we played hard for our community.”
That community nearly blew up Hallead’s cellphone between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
After Friday’s 11-inning memory maker, Hallead said he had been deluged with 40 text messages. Three hours before game time Saturday, the number had swelled to 70.
Even Camas principal Steve Marshall thumbed away.
Hallead said Marshall sent a text that read: “I appreciate you winning, but you gave me an ulcer.”
Add in the texts that lit up Donohue’s phone, and there was nothing mixed about the messages honoring the efforts by Camas and River.
“I’ve probably had 20 people tell me … that was one of the greatest high school games they’ve ever seen,” Donohue said.
The mutual support unified Saturday.
Just before the second-place trophy was about to forever belong to Camas, an impossible-to-ignore section of red-and-black Papermakers fans stood up and stood out, giving their young heroes a standing ovation.
Hallead’s work and the journey it entailed — which he said has primarily focused on changing the mindset of Camas baseball and the community it represents — had finally paid off. The shared goals of the Papermakers and Chieftains had been unquestionably been accomplished.
Neither had won a state championship.
But both had made their hometown proud.
“I always call it the heart of the lion,” Hallead said. “And that’s what these guys have for sure.”
Brian T. Smith is a columnist for The Columbian. Contact him at 360-735-4528 or brian.smith@columbian.com.
