The MLB season remains in limbo. While the NFL insists its season is all systems go, MLB must lead by example – no games until everyone is safe.
The MLB season in 2020 is under severe duress. So far, the league and team owners are staying in step with the recommendations of the National Center For Disease Control (CDC).
Except for injury-riddled rehabbing players, all team facilities are closed and the season is on hold.
Revenue is at a standstill, and the drumbeat is getting louder for play to resume. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who is hired and subject to dismissal by the owners, hears the call loud and clear.
He’s listening to proposals for a timeline and content of a season that is resumed. None of which are gaining any traction, but he refuses to commit to anything at this point. Good for him.
Meanwhile, the National Football League (NFL), spewing spit as greed, is going ahead with its draft, fully intent on a healthy start to its season on September 10.
God help us all if that happens.
In a column written for the New York Daily News, Mike Lupica makes a strong argument insisting that without a vaccine, there should be no sports in America. Considering that a vaccine is not expected for twelve to eighteen months, his appeal might be overboard.
But I suspect Lupica is only attempting to make a more relevant point, which is that we are getting way ahead of ourselves. We miss baseball with each passing day. But so what?
MLB Common Sense vs. The NFL Suicide Mission
NFL players are viewed as gladiators, and maybe that’s why a portion of fans relish the idea of a big pileup of players rushing in to recover a fumble – hand to hand, sweat pouring through their glands – grunts spewing spit to get to the ball.
God help us all.
Let the NFL go its way, but let’s hope MLB leads the way in not trying to contrive ways and means to play games just for the sake of playing games.
The stakes are too high, and life is too precious. If not this year, MLB will host a World Series next year.
Logistics Defy The Odds
President Trump wants to see the nation “get going again.” But is he going to be the umpire or catcher six inches apart 250 times during a game? Is he going to be a player, member of the media, with other team personnel on a cross-country flight with make-believe air pumped in?
Is he volunteering to stay in a room at a team hotel that may or may not have been adequately de-sanitized from the previous stay? How many MLB games will he attend in a crowded ballpark to support what he says – “the cure can be worse than the disease”?
Will Trump sign autographs with a pen handed to him by a fan? Safely ensconced in the White House, there’s no freakin’ way.
MLB: Stay The Course – Fans Will Reward You
MLB was silent for ten days following the 9/11 attacks. It returned with President Bush firing a strike to Mike Piazza, who, in turn, hit the shot heard around the country, sending the Mets to a dramatic win.
These are different times, and we are talking months, not days before baseball can safely be played again.
The Yankees, for one, are putting $240 million on the field every time a game is played. That is real money.
Not to mention the value of the lives of fans in the stands.
I’ll be there when it’s safe, and I’ll bring my family along too. But I will listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci first before I do so.
My faith is with MLB to do the right thing. So far, so good.
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
