Rant #2,388: Love Is Like a Baseball Game

Well, not quite, but aren't even non-fans getting the itch to watch some professional sports on television?

Whether it is baseball or basketball or football or hockey, don't even casual fans look forward to having pro sports on TV again?

Seeing pro sports on TV would signal that maybe, just maybe, we are getting back to normal in our world, whatever the word "normal" means right now.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top expert on infectious diseases, has himself become something of a superstar on the coronavirus front. This unassuming doctor, a New York Yankees fan from Brooklyn, New York (how can that be; it's almost an oxymoron to be from Brooklyn and rooting for the Yankees if you are a certain age), has become the true face of the fight against this dreaded scourge, and he has been crowned as the go-to person for everything related to this fight.

Yesterday, he pretty much spoke about the possibility that pro sports can begin again. He didn't give a tacit approval for this to happen--he is way too smart to do that--but he did lay out a groundwork for the leagues to get going again, and in particular, baseball, which during a normal year would be a few weeks into the season at this point.

And to say what he did yesterday, on what would have been Jackie Robinson Day in Major League Baseball, speaks volumes about this guy.

Yes, he is a doctor, he is the medical voice of reason in all of this, but heck, he is a Yankees and sports fan, and he wants to see baseball and all of the sports get going as soon as possible--but with the understanding that this can only happen under the most severe of controlled conditions.

That means no fans in the stands, placement of athletes in large hotels not far away from stadiums in certain areas, and constant testing. If even one player or team personnel member gets this bug, the whole thing shuts down. And I mean, the whole thing.

But why do athletes get preference over first responders and those in the field--like grocery workers and bank tellers--when it comes to testing?

They don't. The whole thing comes down to testing, and without a safe, good reliable test that is widely available, the sports scenario cannot happen.

You have hospital workers dealing directly with patients who are very sick. They, not athletes, should be tested on a daily, maybe even twice-a-day basis. Those working on the front lines should be tested at least once a day, so people like supermarket employees and bank employees and people who cart away our garbage and police and firemen should get the tests first, too.

Not athletes, so even Dr. Fauci knows that what he is saying is simply in the realm of possibility, something that cannot possibly happen if we do not have tests widely available--and reliable tests, too.

Funny, sportswriters and others constantly bring up the situation in South Korea as the "gold standard" in what should be happening here, and as I pointed out in a previous Rant, that is the most heinous apples to oranges comparison I have ever seen.

When at least talking about sports, they also bring up the South Korean baseball league, and how they are proceeding with their season, but again, it is an apples and oranges comparison.

That entire country has to be prepared for the worst at all times, it has dealt with disease in the recent past, and it has a fraction of the people living there that live here.

You simply cannot compare the U.S. and South Korea in any way related to combating this disease, but people almost jealously say that we should have been as vigilant as they were in ripping this thing out at the roots. It is all so stupid and argument, but it goes on.

When talking about sports, it would be better for sportswriters to look at what is happening with the WWE. Yes, I have said this before, and I am going to say it again: say what you will about professional wrestling, but if sports want to see how to handle this matter, just look at how the WWE is doing it.

The WWE is obligated to put at least six hours of programming on the air each and every week, not including other ancillary programming that they put on their own network, such as pay-per-view events.

So they could go the ESPN route, by showing replays of classic matches or having wrestlers talk about these matches or whatever related to pro wrestling.

Instead, what they have done--and yes, they have been widely criticized for doing this--is that in the lax atmosphere of Florida, they somehow got a waiver to perform as "entertainment necessities" (my own description), like newscasters get, and therefore, they skirt the laws legally by being thought as important to the well-being of the populace.

Only in Florida, so they have pretty much shifted their base of operations from Connecticut to Florida during this period.

Anyway, they also have the benefit of having their own arena--the Performance Center--where they have everything set up to have training and put on live shows.

So during WWE Raw on Mondays, NXT on Wednesdays and WWE Smackdown on Fridays, they have actually put on fresh, live shows, without an audience and with a bare minimum of people in attendance to get the show going.

And remember, not only is this hand-to-hand combat we are talking about, but the WWE's shows are broadcast globally, not just in the U.S.

Some wrestlers with pre-existing conditions--including one of their biggest stars, Roman Reigns, who went through a highly publicized bout with leukemia just recently--have bowed out, and only a handful of wrestlers feel safe enough to participate.

They even ran their yearly extravaganza, Wrestlemania, in this way, and using some tricks of the trade, it made for one of the most interesting and exciting wrestling shows I have ever seen.

Anyway, at what cost are they doing this?

With athletes and other WWE personnel being constantly tested, they have one coronavirus positive ... just one, which is one too many. But being that they are listed as an "entertainment" concern more than a "sports" concern, the show must go on, and it does.

The other cost is that since the WWE is performing before thousands of fans each night, they have had to lay off numerous personnel, including some high-profile wrestlers.

Such is the cost of doing business in a coronavirus-riddled world.

But using the WWE as a touchstone, the other leagues could reopen for business sometime down the line. It is a more valid "gold standard" than using South Korea or its baseball league as a comparison, as far as I am concerned.

So it isn't quite "play ball" yet, but some months from now, we might have sports going again, and I am not talking about golf or NASCAR or bowling or things like that.

I am talking about baseball, football, basketball and hockey, the sports that people really care about on the professional level.

But again, before we do that, let Dr. Fauci be the last word on it, whether it be sports or opening up businesses and getting back to work.

He appears to be the voice of reason here. We do not want to jump the gun, because if we do, the gun of the coronavirus will be pointed right at our heads, and heaven knows what could, or will, ensue.