ST. LOUIS — I can be a greedy person.
Like so many others, I'd love for a baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals to be taking place tonight at Busch Stadium. Under the lights, 80 degrees, small breeze, and a couple pennant-hopeful teams going at each other in the dusk of April baseball action.
It'd be lovely to have a Blues playoff game happening this week. First round action would be underway and the hunt for a new Stanley Cup Champion would be on. There's nothing like NHL playoff games. Every other postseason pales in comparison to two hockey teams giving 110% of their ability and energy in the quest for the sacred right of having your name on Lord Stanley's Cup.
But at some point, the greed of having no sports to watch has to meet the realistic goal of keeping everyone safe. As harsh as it sounds, no more sports in 2020, the reality could be settling in. However, it's not like leaders and owners aren’t planning initiatives to get things rolling this summer.
Last week, President Trump said the NFL season could still go on as scheduled. Whether that's completely vetted by the World Health Organization and the CDC is anyone's guess, but that's a risky endeavor. Other sports are following suit in their own way.
In a piece by ESPN MLB reporter Jeff Passan, Major League Baseball is consulting with federal health officials in a plan to get baseball going as soon as next month.
The main idea: All games would take place in Arizona, players and coaches would be isolated from their families, and there would be a computer-generated strike zone and plenty of seven inning doubleheaders.
I tweeted the other night that it was too good to be true, this rigorous effort to collect most of the 162 game season, but when you dig into it, the idea falls apart. How can you keep every player safe? A catcher and hitter have to be within three feet of each other. Do they not hold runners on base? You'd have to test the players daily and limit the people who were administering the tests. Also, players would be away from their families for months. Remember, they’re human.
The NHL is coming up with a plan to start training camp later this spring with the hopes of getting their playoffs in, but how exactly is that going to work? Hockey features several players huddled in a corner at times fighting for a puck. Players on the bench with coaches. Sweat, blood, and other things being touched and sometimes transferred. You're asking for a spread any game.
My SB Nation site manager over at St. Louis Game Time, the esteemed Laura Astorian, had a great piece yesterday on why the NHL's plan is full of holes and potentially very dangerous. As we were discussing the issues back and forth, she offered her own reasons why being safer than sorry should be the motive here.
Here's the thing. Once you are out of the woods, there are still other woods to get through. While the coronavirus has only infected a small percentage of the overall world population, people are still getting sick and you can't push a large initiative like 30 sports teams getting back to work without causing more spread. The toughest foe we face during this pandemic are our own tendencies and flaws. Can you trust teams to do the right thing, stay isolated, and play out close to 140 games ... over a few months?
Whatever plan comes forward, it'll be extremely tricky. There is no vaccine, and , testing, at least around St. Louis, isn't being offered to everyone at this point. Before you fire up sports, we're going to have to let health officials try to contain this thing.
Here's the endgame. Whether they come back or not, sports in 2020 are broken. It won't look or feel the same, and it will be a risk in some way. As I wrote yesterday, combining the late Bill Withers' lyrics and the sweet power of baseball, it is tough without that shiny distraction 5-6 days a week. I'd like sports back, but a bit of normal has to arrive first.
We're not there yet.
Thanks for reading.
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