Swarzak’s ‘scary’ day

PORT ST. LUCIE — Like the rest of us, Anthony Swarzak first learned of the South Florida high school shooting Wednesday when the news flashed on his phone.

Unlike most of us, the Mets reliever spent the rest of the day using his phone getting firsthand information from his hometown community under siege.

Swarzak has an older sister and two younger cousins who graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, he said Thursday morning.

“I think that when stuff like this happens, you think, ‘It’s never going to happen here.’ Unfortunately, we’re in a day and age of a lot of conspiracy stuff and nobody knows what’s real or fake, or blah blah blah,” Swarzak, who grew up in Broward County and attended Nova High School in Davie, Fla., said at First Data Field. “But when it happens so close to home and your phone is getting text messages and phone calls of people actually involved and affected by this, it’s a scary, scary thing.”

While he didn’t know any of the 17 victims, Swarzak said, he had heard of football coach Aaron Feis, who was shot and killed while shielding students.

“From what I heard, he was one of those coaches that really did everything he could for every person he came across,” Swarzak said. “Every student he tried to mentor and tried to help grow as an adult and as a man. It’s not a coincidence that that type of guy is the person that pays the ultimate sacrifice because clearly, they’ve been willing to sacrifice their time and their effort to try to make everybody better. When that type of situation happens, it’s those types of people that are running towards the action.

“I just want his family to know that we’re all thinking about them and if there’s anything that anybody needs to reach out, absolutely.”