Edwin Boison put on his custom jersey, the same one he puts on every summer, and made his familiar commute southeast to Queens.

It was July 24, the latest the Bronx native had ever reported for his Opening Day duties at Citi Field, but at least he was going. At least games were finally happening.

When he got there, a new fence had been constructed to cordon off the stadium from any fans trying to get too close. It probably felt like a breach of property -- who had put a barrier around his home and not told him about it?

After milling around for a bit, he found a spot next to the big, red apple -- the old one from Shea, the ballpark his dad used to take him to as a kid -- and he decided he'd do it there. Yes, this was the perfect place to do it.

He raised his cowbell in one hand, lifted the mallet in the other and let it ring as loud as he could toward the empty stadium's front entrance.

"Yeah!" Boison, better known as Cowbell Man, told MLB.com. "I had to get everyone's attention. There weren't too many people there, but still ..."

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There are fans and then there are Superfans: Men and women who devote their lives, fork over their bank accounts and change their identities to cheer for the team they love. There's Nav Batia, a man who's been to every Toronto Raptors game in franchise history. There's Ronnie Woo Woo Wickers, who's been "wooing" at Cubs games since the 1950s. There's Fireman Ed, who led "J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!" cheers at New York Jets games -- but then vowed never to return after Mark Sanchez's infamous butt fumble game (and now is back again after a change of heart in 2015).

Only this year, due to COVID-19, they can't go to games. The place where they feel most at home, the place where they've made some of their closest friends, the place where they spend more time than anywhere else in the world is now, inexplicably, off-limits. We tracked down three of baseball's biggest Superfans to see how it's affected them and what they're doing instead this season. Here's how they're holding up.

Edwin Boison, Cowbell Man

Boison has been a Mets fan since 1963 and has been ringing his cowbell at Mets games since the early 1980s. But why a cowbell?

"Well, let me tell you, the real story to that is that I live in the Bronx," Boison tells me over the phone from New York. "I used to hang out with friends and we'd play Latin songs in the street. I would bring my cowbell and we would sing songs. So one Saturday, I just decided to bring my cowbell to Shea Stadium and I decided to start practicing some tunes. And while I was practicing, the DiamondVision played a version of 'Let's Go Mets.' So during the time I was practicing my own tunes, I decided to do a couple versions of 'Let's Go Mets.' People started clapping along and that's how it got started."

And the legend of Cowbell Man was born.

Boison has been a season- or partial-season ticket holder since the Mets' last championship in '86. After the bell caught on, he created his own "CowBellMan" jersey, saying he needed an "identity" as he wandered around the park. Something every superhero and, I guess, Superfan needs.

Boison has mostly resigned himself to watching Mets games on TV at his home alone this year (he still rings the cowbell for anybody who will listen), but he did gather with a group of diehards on Opening Day at a hotel restaurant across from Citi Field. Right after he let out those couple of rings near the old Shea apple.

"It's been kinda sad, it's been strange," Boison says, regretfully. "This is what we've always done, year after year, we always live for Opening Day. We do our pregame rituals, we do the tailgating. It's all different. It's so different now.

It's not really the baseball games themselves -- it's more the crowd, the atmosphere, the lifelong friendships that Boison's made over the years he misses most. He's become close with the Mets' super fan group The 7 Line Army. Season-ticket holders in Section 424 have become like family to him over the last 10-15 years. His sightings have become almost celebrity-like.

"Baseball's a great game," Boison says. "It's just unfortunate for what it's become right now."

Amy Williams, Front Row Amy

"Miller Park is my church. I love it there," Williams says from her home in Oshkosh, Wis. "I love seeing pitches from behind home plate. I love the atmosphere. I love feeling that connection with the team and the fans that one can only experience at the ballpark."

Williams, who can generally be found in her front-row seat 50-60 games per year, first found out about the Brewers in the local OshKosh Northwestern newspaper back in 2007. There was a feature write-up on the team that season -- the young, second-place team featuring Prince Fielder, Corey Hart and current manager Craig Counsell -- and she thought they sounded fun. She started watching the games on TV with her husband and fell in love with the game and the Brewers right away.

Even though she's about an hour-and-a-half drive from Miller Park, she tries to get to as many games as possible. You can see her here next to Marlins Man during the 2018 NLCS.

She's even had some, um, flattering (?) imitators. A sure sign of Superfan success.

And now, well, she's back at home watching the games with her husband and sometimes her daughter (who she admits, is not a diehard like her mom).

"I feel a real lack of connection this season, especially with the new players," Williams says. "It's hard to form a bond when I can only watch them in two dimensions. Also, I can't see the entire field on TV. It drives me nuts."

Williams admitted that back in March, she went through a deep, almost grieving process about not being able to go to Miller Park. She had to settle for "reluctant acceptance."

At home, she does still make noise like she would at a game, although she's stopped a timeless gameday pastime since she's left her stadium perch.

"Yes, I talk, cheer, and yell at the TV during games," Williams says. "I don't keep score at home though -- too many interruptions."

Bryan Johansen, The Kingpin

The Oakland A's have some of the biggest, loudest fans in baseball. They bang drums like their lives depend on it, but they also have a sensitive side -- swaying carelessly to hitter walk-up songs from the right-field bleachers.

"You pretty much have like three different groups," Johansen tells me over the phone. "You got right-field bleachers, that's the one you always see on TV with drums and stuff like that. Where you find all the GIFs. In left field, we have two different sections. There's left field and left-center. My little area is the left-field bleachers, like [Section] 138. I've been sitting there since about 2010."

Bryan Johansen, better known as The Kingpin, has been an A's fan longer than he can remember. He holds up banners and has a cowbell, but his biggest superpower is the vest he wears: It holds about 600 different A's pins and patches. He goes to about 40-50 games per year at the Coliseum and checks the concourse before every single one to see if there's a new one he's missing. He's also developed a fun relationship with Oakland center fielder Ramon Laureano -- tweeting "Ramooooonnnn" whenever he does something and even getting follows from Laureano's parents on social media.

"It's just a whole persona I keep up," Johansen says, reassuring me he's a pretty normal guy in real life.

Since the pandemic hit and baseball games went fan-less, Johansen has definitely struggled only being able to watch the A's on TV (decked out in A's gear, unfortunately no vest). But he keeps things in perspective.

"In the grand scheme of things, not having baseball is small compared to people losing their lives to this disease," he says. "But just speaking on baseball only, it sucks not being able to go. You ever watch the movie Fever Pitch? That was my life in a nutshell. It's every bit of who I am, outside of having my family."

The A's did allow Johansen, along with some other A's diehards, to come in before Opening Day and put up banners around the stadium. But he misses the gameday rituals, and his will make you miss yours, too.

"When I'm there, it might sound boring, but I love just watching the game itself," Johansen reminisces. "I have a whole ritual. I leave work early. I get to the stadium early. I'm first in line to run and get my seats in the bleachers. I set up my banners, I go get something to eat right away ... And then literally when the game starts, I might go get a refill on soda, but other than that, I'm there from first pitch to last pitch. I don't leave my seat."

He also can't get the kind of atmosphere fans he gets inside of a ballpark -- chatting with people who are just as passionate about the game as he is.

"Yeah, I sit with a little bit of an older group," Johansen tells me. "We talk about all the lore that baseball has, from generations on. We're talking just baseball, man. It's stuff you can't get at home or with your friends or coworkers. Baseball fans just talking baseball -- that's what it's all about."