And the United States is not a functioning society.

On March 11^th there was supposed to be a regular-season basketball game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz. Fans were in the stands. The players were walking onto the floor for their warmup, and suddenly the game was called off. One of the Jazz players, Rudy Gobert, had tested positive and the game was cancelled.

Later that night, the NBA postponed all games indefinitely, and Major League Baseball followed suit.

Four months later, we have not had sports for the obvious reason that you cannot have a crowd, not to mention competing athletes, all together during a pandemic.

But Major League Baseball, the NHL, the NBA and the NFL and all other sports leagues have a lot of money on the line. And they have a lot of money to spend, so with every financial incentive, and with the means, they all figured out a way to play and broadcast their sports.

The NBA announced a plan to resume their season in an isolated zone in Orlando, called the bubble and the National Hockey League is pulling out a similar plan. MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred, said in the New York Times, we cannot be the ones that “doesn’t figure out how to play.” 

The league created all sorts of protocols to make it work. It cut down on travel, tests the players every other day, because they can afford to buy the tests, and outlawed spitting in the dugout, just to name a few. There are of course no fans in the stands. Who would want to go?

To make it palatable to watch, Fox is inserting a CGI virtual crowd in its broadcasts. Many teams have these fan silhouettes in the camera view. And the league sent every club a soundboard with built-in fan sounds to sort of give you the sense that people are cheering.

Watching our first game last night together, Leslie said, “Who’s cheering?” So, it works I guess.

Most importantly they’ve been testing and they’re getting results within two days, unlike the rest of America where it’s often taking two weeks. The League has nearly limitless resources and every single incentive to figure out how to play safely and give fans sitting at home a product they can make money off.

Then, less than a week in, the Athletic reported the Miami Marlins played a game in Philadelphia against the Phillies despite having three players testing positive on Sunday. Two days later a dozen more players and staff tested positive. And then earlier today the Marlins learned at least seven more players and two coaches tested positive. So now their team is stuck in Philadelphia in quarantine.

It’s actually worse than it sounds. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that with some players just having tested positive and with some waiting for their test results, the players decided to vote by group text message to play the next day.

The league wasn’t involved. Nor were team officials. The players, whom I suspect are not epidemiologists in their off-seasons, decided.

And this is a perfect snapshot of just how screwed the US is. This is a business that has everything going for it and every resource that it needs to open safely and their plan and basically did not survive first contact with the virus.

A billion-dollar industry, where the players are tested every other day, and they couldn’t control it. Yet, they want to open schools in just a few weeks. School systems with umpteen times as many potential virus candidates, and a fraction of the money or resources to deal with it.

Obviously, it is impossible to contain the virus. Pretty much every country has done a much better job.

But it is not possible to ignore the virus and then come out with some plan to get out there and play ball.

Here’s what Washington Nationals pitchers Sean Doolittle said about just this a few weeks ago:

“We’re trying to bring baseball during a pandemic that’s killed 130,000 people. And we are way worse off in a country than where when in March we shut this thing down. And like look where other developed countries are in their response. We haven’t done any other things and other countries have done to bring sports back.

Sports are like the reward of a functioning society.”

There are 900+ players in Major League Baseball. Another 400+ staff including coaches & trainers plus all the crews on the ground in stadiums around the US. (Not in Canada of course as we wouldn’t allow any American’s into our country.)

Covid-19 is a deadly disease with a 1% fatality rate. These players are young and healthy, sure, but the managers? The coaches? Not so much. And it’s not like all these players, like most of the Miami Marlins, will fully recover.

Eduardo Rodriguez is a starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who is out because of Covid. He’s on injured reserve because of the ongoing trauma he suffered from having Covid and he’s 27-years old.

All these thousands of people are there, risking their lives, and their long-term health to “entertain” us.

I for one am not entertained. Baseball and all other sports should pull the plug.