Even mighty NFL can’t guarantee future
Uncertainty swirls around sports’ return, driven by doses of good news, bad news
One of our best national holidays came and went Thursday night. There aren’t many better days on the sports calendar than the release date of the NFL schedule. Steelers-Giants on Sept. 14 at MetLife Stadium? On Monday night? Ben Roethlisberger’s comeback game?
I’m already counting the minutes. SteelersBrowns on Jan. 3 in Cleveland? What a wonderful way to end the regular season. I won’t even complain about Steelers-Ravens on Thanksgiving night at Heinz Field. Not this season. Not in these pandemic times.
It was an especially good sports week in the South. Eight Southeastern Conference schools announced they will open their campuses to students in August. Fox Sports Radio national host Clay Travis, based in Nashville, Tenn., couldn’t contain his glee on Twitter: “SEC is playing football this fall, y’all.”
Can you blame Travis for his enthusiasm?
It was terrific to get lost in thoughts, even for just a few moments, of SteelersRavens and AlabamaAuburn. It almost made me forget about, you know ...
That damn COVID-19 keeps bringing me back to reality.
I imagine you can appreciate that awful feeling.
I’m trying really hard to be encouraged about the possible resumption of sports. Some good things are starting to happen. At least baby steps are being taken in the right direction.
There is talk of MLB starting spring training 2.0 in mid-June with the season starting in early July. How cool would it be if they’re playing ball on the Fourth? Even without fans in the stands?
There already is baseball in Korea and Taiwan. The Taiwanese even planned to allow 1,000 fans into its stadiums for games beginning Friday. The fans will wear masks and practice social distancing, of course.
Soccer players in Spain returned to their training headquarters Wednesday. Three NBA teams opened their training facilities for players Friday. Germany’s Bundesliga is even further down that road and is planning on restarting its season Saturday.
NASCAR is scheduled to resume racing next Sunday at Darlington Raceway. The PGA Tour is scheduled to return June 11-14 with the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. A charity two-man team skins game, featuring Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson against Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff, is scheduled for next Sunday at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla. Progress, right? Who doesn’t love to see progress?
I’m so desperate for live sports that I’ll probably watch the Champions for Charity golf event May 24 at Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Fla. Normally, I would laugh at the idea of Peyton Manning and Tiger Woods taking on Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson. But now? I’ll be in front of my television with my pizza and beer. Baby steps. Unfortunately, it seems, at least to me, that every time we take a step forward, we take one or two back.
The latest blow came Thursday when Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced large gatherings in the state for sporting events and concerts “should either be canceled or significantly modified” through September. They might be playing ball in the fall in the SEC, but the start of the Pac-12 season would appear to be in jeopardy.
I want hockey to return as much as anyone and would love to see Sidney Crosby and the Penguins compete for another Stanley Cup. But the NHL faces the biggest challenge of all the North American sports leagues. Part of it is that its players already haven’t been able to skate for two months and will need every bit of a month to get back into playing shape. An even bigger part might be getting its European players back to North America. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said any players coming into the country would have to be quarantined as long as the Canadian border is closed because of the pandemic.
I wonder how many players are going to refuse to play out of fear for their and their family’s health. “I just think for us it doesn’t make sense to play any games unless it is completely, 100% safe for us to go out there,” Denver Broncos safety Kareem Jackson told the Denver media in a Zoom call. “If there is any threat to us being able to contract COVID in any way and spread it to our families or anybody else that we’re around, it just doesn’t make sense.”
Is Jackson the exception, or are there other athletes thinking the same thing?
Good luck with that 100% safety thing, by the way.
What about 19-time Grand Slam tennis champion Rafael Nadal? “2020, I see it as practically lost,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais Tuesday. “Unfortunately, I would sign up to be ready for 2021 — hopefully.” Hopefully?
In 2021?
Is the thought of this pandemic carrying over into next year frightening or what?
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has those fears. Warning: What he told SiriusXM Big 12 radio late last month is about as depressing as it gets when it comes to sports.
“I worry more about the end of the [football] season and the postseason than I do the beginning parts of the season. We will be very, very lucky to start on Labor Day weekend and get through a football season without disruptions. If the virus comes roaring back in the traditional flu and virus season in November, December, through March, I wonder if we’re going to get basketball season in. I wonder if we’re going to get the [College Football Playoff] in. I wonder if we’re going to get the NCAA tournament in.”
Then, there was this last week from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most famous immunologist on the planet, on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” about the rush to get our world back to normal:
“If you start to leapfrog [social distancing recommendations], you’re inviting rebound and rebound is going to give you spikes . ... If you pull back prematurely, you’re going to get a rebound of cases. It is tempting rebound when you do something prematurely.”
I don’t know how many more of these emotional swings I can take.
This pandemic thing hit me really hard for the first time last week during a trip to Giant Eagle. I walked in with my mask and saw everyone else in a mask. It was like a scene from “Walking Dead,” as if we all were zombies walking around in slow motion. I looked at the sad faces behind the masks and saw the same thing in all of them. Disbelief.
This can’t be real, right? How can it possibly be real?