BOSTON - Shutdown, isolate, wash-your-hands, social-distance, phase one, open-up, wear a mask, small groups, half capacity, sit outdoors, test, test, test.
Back to work?
Not so fast.
Lay-offs and furloughs devastate thousands. Restaurants, bars and legendary nightclubs are closing every other day, many of them forever.
Will the schools open?
Yes they will. No they won’t.
Worse than that are the daily cases and number of deaths being recorded, state-by-state, as the executive branch ignores the truth and constantly pretends and panders to the non-informed.
We’ve heard it all since March when the NBA’s Commissioner Adam Silver and the Ivy League were the first to pull the plug on our sports world. Later, fatigue turned to angst to frustration then to a realization we’re all in this for a much longer haul than we would have imagined. The mixed messages coming from every corner of government and public health administrators surely drives us batty.
The singer-songwriter for a generation, Bruce Springsteen, describes it well, “One Step Up and Two Steps Back.”
Bruce Springsteen
In April, Major League Baseball headlines frustrated us long before the first ball was batted this past summer. Management and Union wasted precious time arguing over money, contracts and player safety all while logistical planning and scheduling were the sands running through the hourglass. The delays cost MLB a solid month and the sports-loving USA was forced to watch NBA stars play H-O-R-S-E, or Tampa QB Tom Brady, Phil Mickelson, NFL retiree Peyton Manning and Tiger Woods play a round of golf in the rain. The real psych-out was awaking early to watch live Korean baseball on ESPN. Nice idea, but please NEVER AGAIN (for all three of those television properties).
Thus far, it’s worked out pretty well for baseball, albeit with the Toronto Blue Jays having played their entire “home” season in Buffalo, NY before bowing out to the Tampa Bay Rays in a 2-0 wild card sweep. The decision to play in Buffalo was made after Pittsburgh, PA said, “No thanks Canada,” right as the 60-game (not 162-game) “regular season was underway. It resulted in the longest road trip in baseball history.
Baseball somehow skirted an abundance of COVID-19 positive test results during training camp and in-season but the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals experienced mini-clusters of virus permeating their clubhouses. In Atlanta, star first baseman Freddie Freeman tested positive and was down for the count in camp, but miraculously returned to (possible) MVP form when the games counted. Here in Boston, Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez didn't fare well and sat out the entire season because of his complicated battle versus the virus but, thankfully, his prognosis is good for next season.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was up next and he laid out ice hockey’s bold plans to stage the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He did so without 100-percent knowledge of how and where they would play, facing the very difficult logistical issue of USA-Canada border limitations.
The NHL chose wisely and moved their operation to pseudo-bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton and then eventually folding the tent in Ontario for a formidable but Nielsen-tv ratings challenged Stanley Cup Final between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars.
One must give credit to the NHL and the WNBA, the two professional leagues to first crown worthy champions during this challenging Year of the Virus.
As of this writing, the NBA is one game away from proclaiming LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers 2020 NBA champs. A second after the final buzzer, players, executives and referees will depart the NBA’s Orlando-based bubble - a facility which cost the league a reported $180 million to stage - with high marks for organization, and overall intensity of play. There’s been less wear-and-tear and travel fatigue (jet-lag) on players from the single, neutral site bearing terrific game-like (but fake) crowd noise and theatrics. They even made it look like past President Barack Obama was at a game.
In fact, the NBA was one Lou Williams chicken-wing stop away from a perfect season in their strictly enforced Walt Disney World bubble where mask-wearing team personnel and media were kept at a distance from the teams/players at all times. Only for the Conference Finals and NBA Finals were a limited number of immediate family members allowed on the pristine campus, all submitting to 10+ day quarantines and carefully planned protocols. Williams, the LA Clippers sixth man extraordinaire, gave the league an early scare when he stopped for some delicacies at an Atlanta strip club after leaving the bubble with an excused absence for a relative’s funeral.
You couldn’t make it up for a bad motion picture screenplay.
That brings us back to MLB as they work through an October full of baseball, at least at a time of year we’re used to seeing baseball playoffs. The absence of jacket-wearing crowds and tension-filled TV cut-a-ways provides us with that empty feeling of missing the best parts of the games, but at least there’s some live games, today from 2pm to Midnight, at least.
After baseball, all we’ll have is some sporadic College Football action, a November to remember at The Masters in Augusta, and the NFL, a league facing the precipice of a scheduling and player health nightmare as the Tennessee Titans and New England Patriots battle break-outs of the virus this week and last.
Sooner or later, the glut of live sporting action we’ve enjoyed this summer will come to a screeching halt. We’ll be left with Cornhole and Drone-racing, horse racing and more re-runs. If we’re lucky, College Basketball might fill the void for a few winter months before the NBA and NHL dare start-up once more. There’ll be no NBA on Christmas Day, that is certain.
That’s part of a constant reminder of this god-awful year of 2020, with the ever-present threat of COVID-19 lurking around each corner jumper for all of us - young and old - everywhere on the face of the earth.