Pandemic can help improve sports

No, we’re not there yet. But as life starts to open again, it’s safe to start imagining the next chapter of sports after the coronavirus pandemic.

And, let be honest, the immediate one of games without fans sounds like a swimming pool without water. Fans give a game context. They provide a texture for playing.

But who knows? Maybe this will be a short bridge to an improved sports world. Maybe change will accelerate when sport does return to its next normal.

Just think of the ways things could be better in the post-pandemic world:

1. No more spitting. Baseball will become family viewing again. No more TV close-ups of a batter serial spitting between pitches. No more TV shots of an outfielder spraying sunflower-seeds spittle. Spitting will be outlawed under baseball’s proposal to return this summer, and maybe it’s the first step toward not treating a ballpark like a spittoon.

2. No more handshakes. Think of what Dr. Anthony Fauci said: “We may never shake hands again.” Football coaches won’t have to do the silly dance of trying to find each other at midfield amid dozens of cameras waiting to get their millisec

ond handshake. Also, no more watching a free-throw shooter wait for teammates to slap palms with him before taking a second free throw. Of course, with every improvement there’s a loss: No more NHL players lining up after a playoff series to shake hands in one sport’s better traditions.

3. No more record salaries. Hey, I’m all for everyone getting the most they can. But it’s good to see sports reflecting the times of 33 million people out of work and most others taking a pay cut. Oh, Philadelphia Phillies’ Bryce Harper complained about his reduced, $300 million contract. The Los Angeles Lakers took a $4.6 million governmental relief loan until called out on it. But the larger story is sports is writing smaller checks from front offices to NBA players making 25 percent less than their average $6.9 million salary. How is that reflection on where we are not a healthy thing?

4. No more rushing the field or court after a big win. Once this was a fun, collegiate concept simply because that’s how often it happened. Once. Now it’s a cliché. Any win comes with a threat of students storming the field. When the crowds return, this idea shouldn’t unless N95 masks are handed out as people enter the field.

5. No more dinosaur technology in games. Isn’t it time football replaced its first-down measurements from a chain gang running on the field to a computer chip in a ball? Or the computer strike zone over the umpire’s unsteady calls? In these and a dozen other ways it’s a perfect time for sports to have fewer people, less contact and better calls.

6. No more missing a quarter of the game in a food line. Now more than ever this won’t work. It’s a problem when fans return to games that can can be solved by a simple app to take orders. Or maybe it’s not so simple for a Dolphins crowd of 70,000. But for a Heat game? And certainly a Panthers or Marlins crowd? In-seat delivery can’t take longer than standing in line.

7. You finally get to see if players perform better without being shouted at or heckled. Everyone makes fun of golf for its archaic, no-noise rule. But for a while coming up, every sport will have quiet. Will free-throw percentages increase? Communication between players improve? It will be a study in silence by sports psychologist. And to that end …

8. No more shouts of, “You da man!” at golf matches. No more “Ref you suck,” chants at basketball games. Instead, if TV has its microphones properly placed, you’ll get to hear what players say to each other in a way you never have. Art least until the fans return.

9. No more pretending the MAA fighters don’t risk more than any sane person would. It’s one thing to be choked near to death.

But to swim in an opponents’ sweat after all we’ve learned by social distancing? No wonder Roman gladiators battled at spear’s length.

10. No more taking sports too seriously. Come on. Who wouldn’t appreciate going to see a Marlins loss right now? Or the Heat getting knocked out of the playoffs? You shouldn’t need a pandemic to see sports as fun and games. But it has focused the view of how they’re still the most important thing that means nothing.

Dave Hyde