More than 30-second timeout

Props to Bill Plaschke for his realistic view that sports might not be played again in 2020. We survived without any pro football in Los Angeles for 20 years, so I have no doubt that we can survive without an MLB or NBA champion this year. We should be more concerned with the local retailer who may or may not be able to reopen a business when we are given the thumbs-up to resume some sense of normalcy.

Rick Leserman

Hermosa Beach ::

Finally a sports journalist, Bill Plaschke, tells it like it is, and writes about the hard truth. No sports in 2020. He becomes the voice of reason and common sense, unlike commissioners and owners who continue to float these alternative realities on how we can salvage the season.

I understand why America loves and needs its sports for myriad reasons, but really, we are living in a pandemic whose season is longer than 162 games and bigger than the Super Bowl. Rick Magnante

Encino

Not surprisingly, Plaschke chimes in about not restarting our sports seasons. As so many journalists are inclined to do, he resorts to using his Rolodex to find those that share his opinions; it’s called confirmation bias, hardly based on appropriate analysis.

As for testing athletes first, millions of Americans probably will support that in order to give us a beloved staple of stability and live entertainment in our chaos. Sports have helped us through wars and post-9/11.

Reading Plaschke one is reminded of Lord Melbourne’s comment about Tom Macaulay: “I wish I was as cocksure about anything as [he] is about everything.” Kip Dellinger

Santa Monica

I think it was commendable that the Lakers executives will take a 20% pay cut to help the lower salaried workers.

I wonder if they’ve considered asking the players to do the same? Since many of them make more than $10 million a year, I would bet a 20% savings on their salaries would be in the vicinity of about $50 million total, and can you imagine if that money went to our healthcare workers?

Wouldn’t that be something! I think that would be a much better gesture than simply seeing tweets of their workouts at home. Drew Pomerance

Woodland Hills

Here’s a way to allow the NBA fans to participate in a sequestered playoff series. Set up a fan communication system so the fans can funnel all of their cheering from their cellphones into a central on-site sound system amplified in the playoff arena.

Jeanie, would you mind giving Adam Silver a call on this? Jim Gallaher

Fullerton

Would’ve loved to be in the room when someone suggested that all MLB teams gather in a bubble in Arizona and play games there. I wouldn’t have just fallen out of my chair laughing, they would’ve had to give me a sedative because I wouldn’t have stopped laughing. Enough of this absolute stupid talk. It’s not going to happen. Geno Apicella

Placentia

Arizona will freeze over before 30 MLB teams play regular-season games there outside in triple-digit heat.

Mike Saunders

Agoura Hills

One group that stands to benefit from the COVID-19 crisis are the cheaters from Houston. Much of the anger and vitriol that would have been directed the Astros’ way has now been greatly diffused by the shortened (and possibly canceled) season and the wider concerns about the pandemic. Their ride will be much softer now.

James Patrick

Los Angeles

I noticed that Spectrum was replaying Game 1 of the 1988 World Series: the “Kirk Gibson Affair.” Because I’m riding out the pandemic in a foreign country, some 10 hours ahead in time from Los Angeles, it will show here at 4 a.m.

Even though I’ve watched this game countless times and I’m reasonably sure I remember the ending, after reading Uncle Bill’s latest gloom-and-doom predictions for the current and upcoming major sports seasons (OK, he may have a point this time), I’ve already set my alarm. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Allan Kandel

Los Angeles/Jerusalem

Good old days

Thanks for the flashback to the 1995 UCLA championship team. I enjoyed Bob Myers referencing the Tulsa game. I remember watching UCLA’s awful performance against Tulsa in the dive bar down the street from where I worked downtown, and thinking that if it sparked a championship run the next year it would be worth it. I felt so strongly that the ’94-’95 team would do something special that I saved ticket stubs from every game that year … for the first time in my life. I’ve still got ’em.

Richard Brisacher

Mar Vista

Chris Smith had one great game and 30 average games for UCLA last season. He had a supremely underwhelming three-year career as a collegian and now he thinks he will be a successful NBA player?

Who on earth is advising these delusional kids into thinking that they are ready for professional basketball?

It could not possibly be Mick Cronin, who by coaching him last year, would have pulled out all of his hair if he had any. Allowing a shaky and underdeveloped kid like this to be thrown to the wolves of professional sports is, at the very least, an act of parental malpractice. William David Stone

Beverly Hills

New Frontier?

As a longtime Dodgers fan, I was very excited when I saw DirecTV would be showing their games, should the season begin. So I immediately called Frontier, my cable supplier. No, they had no plans to carry the Dodgers. Not only that, they chose yesterday to announce that MLB-TV was now too expensive to carry.

As Frontier drops one entertainment source after another, surely they would be reducing their fees. No, but they helpfully gave me the link where I could watch MLB games on my computer. William Legler

Manhattan Beach

If The Times insists on mentioning each day what Dodgers games would have been played, then let me be the first to complain about how Dave Roberts would have used, misused or not used Kenley Jansen in those games. I would have been outraged. Mike Eberts

Los Feliz

See ewe later?

Todd Gurley? Brandin Cooks? Has Jared Goff has spoken to his Realtor lately?

Iconic

Biggest icon in L.A. sports history? No matter the outcome of the vote, this lifetime L.A. sports fan will always see Eric Dickerson as an Indianapolis Colt and Steve Garvey as a San Diego Padre. Ron Tom

Pasadena

Holy moly

How can we connect the facts of having no sports to report on while many are in the midst of celebrating two religious holidays? I suggest a column about Moses Malone and Luke Easter.

Richard Katz

Los Angeles

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