You can’t measure the strength of a community until it’s truly needed—and the Long Beach baseball community has been showing up in impressive fashion for the Reed family after the tragic passing of longtime local youth baseball coach Scott Reed.
Scott’s unexpected and shocking passing left an immeasurable hole in the city’s baseball world, as he was a volunteer coach and boardmember at Long Beach Little League for the last decade. But it left an even more impossible hole in the lives of his family: wife Jessica, and children Peyton, Winston and Langston. While nothing can fill the hole left by a loved one’s passing, the sports and school communities of Long Beach have rallied together to support the Reeds.
Within two weeks of Scott’s passing, more than $50,000 was donated via a GoFundMe campaign to help the family with funeral expenses and cost of living. Long Beach Little League is hosting a public memorial for Scott on October 3 at 4pm—after the memorial, the league will host a pickup baseball game on its main field.
In addition to coaching, Scott was a dedicated volunteer on the sideline with the Long Beach Poly football team, working with his alma mater as part of the tight-knit chain gang. It was fitting that the school honored Scott with an extended moment of silence at their first home game after the passing, with his family on hand.
Now, those are the ways that the community has publicly supported the Reed family—they are meaningful and significant. Because my family knows the Reeds, I’ve also seen the more private ways the community has shown up, which to me speak to the true strength of this city: its people, and the love they have for each other.
The private show of community has come in a number of forms. It’s been Long Beach Little League baseball moms immediately setting up a meal train for the family and checking in to make sure that everyone’s eating and healthy.
It’s been the Tedesco brothers, two other well-respected youth baseball coaches in the city, showing up to Poly’s frosh/soph baseball tryout to support Scott’s son Winston trying out for the team just a few days after his dad’s passing. It was the way the community posted on the team’s social media announcement of the roster, congratulating and supporting Winston for making the team under unimaginable circumstances.
It was the way the teachers at Poly opened their doors to Scott and Jessica’s kids, and the way assistant principal Thurman Ashley gave their youngest son Langston his camera to use on the sideline of Poly’s football game at SoFi Stadium last Friday night.
It was the way that Andrew Ramos set the family up with tickets to an Angels game last weekend, where Scott was recognized on the scoreboard at the one of the many stadiums he loved taking his family.
On stage and behind the scenes, the community has shown up. When I texted Ramos about it, he sent back a simple message that really resonated with me: “I’m just doing what my people would do for my family if it ever happened to me.”
We all love our Long Beach community, and the special tight-knit corners of our big city. It’s not a surprise to anyone that the baseball community has shown up to support the Reeds the way they have, and I wish that this test of its strength had not been needed. All of these touching moments don’t add up to what it would mean to Scott’s family or to any of us to get to joke around with him one more time. But as painful as it is when a community is needed, it’s a sharp, poignant beauty to see it in action as well.
