Rant #2,458: Optical Illusion

As a long-time baseball fan, I look forward to the Major League Baseball season each and every year, with all of its twists and turns in a 162-game regular season schedule played out over 180 days.

And then we got the coronavirus, and our lives were thrown into turmoil.

We had to figure out what we had to do to survive this, and maybe beat this thing, and sports were kind of pushed to the background.

We did what we had to do, some places more successfully than others, and for better or worse, we did not let this scourge stop us from living our lives, certainly not to the fullest, but at least to some extent of the current reality.

Sports tried to get back into our lives, too, and through many ups and downs, baseball, and soon basketball, hockey and football, will enter our lives during the coronavirus era.

But just like in our normal lives, you can take every possible precaution, and it simply isn't enough to keep things pandemic-safe, and that is what happened in Major League Baseball yesterday.

The Miami Marlines had just finished a road series with the Philadelphia Phillies, and after taking two of the three games in Philadelphia, and feeling good about themselves, they received the ultimate rain on their parade: tests found that 14 Marlins players and personnel had tested positive for the virus, and it threw a tizzy not only into the team, but into other teams around the league.

The Marlins were supposed to play the Baltimore Orioles in their home opener, and that game was postponed, and also, the New York Yankees were supposed to play the Phillies in Philadelphia, but that game was also postponed, what with the visiting clubhouse just having been used by the infected Marlins.

In fact, today's Orioles-Marlins game has already been postponed, and no one would be surprised if the Yankees-Phillies tilt is also postponed.

You just can't be too careful.

Or can you?

I watched a few games over the weekend, and while I did see most coronavirus protocols being employed, a lot of them weren't.

I saw high-fives, I saw low-fives, I saw hugging and hand slaps on the head and I definitely did not see social distancing being practiced in the dugouts.

And what about what I didn't see?

Not to cast aspersions on the young Marlins team, but were all protocols being followed when they were off the field? Did someone desire different food than was being served, and ventured outside when they told not too? How about the need for ... companionship. Did anyone venture outside looking for a hookup?

Don't laugh. These incidents have already been documented to have happened in the National Basketball Association's "bubble" complex in Orlando, Florida, on a few occasions, so why couldn't it have happened to the Marlins, too?

Again, the term "boys will be boys" has taken on a new, even more nefarious meaning during the pandemic, and while I am not saying conclusively that the Marlins were following that mantra, the outbreak suggests that maybe they did, but just as easily, maybe they didn't.

Look, this was bound to happen anyway, even though we treat our sports stars like they are some kind of gods dropped off from heaven, with their ability to do things on the court or field that we can only dream about doing.

During the pandemic, we are seeing, maybe for the first time ever, that these players are people just like we are. They put on their pants the same way we do, and yes, they can get the coronavirus just like we can.

They are truly no different than we are, and maybe that is the good byproduct of the pandemic, that we are all in the same boat living with this thing swirling around, although media and politicians refute that, saying some groups are more susceptible than others.

They are right when talking about people with pre-existing conditions, but they are wrong when talking about relatively healthy human beings, and what happened to the Marlins certainly put an exclamation point on that fact.

Even young, healthy people can get this thing, a scourge which does not discriminate about who it is going to infect.

The hope now is that one of the infected Marlins get it really bad,and that they will all be back to doing their jobs in two weeks or so.

The hope is that none of the Phillies picked up the disease, and that their locker rooms and stadiums don't have an residue from the virus.

And the hope is that this will be the only ourbreak in MLB, and that they can move on and learn from this one ... although if I were a betting man, I would put down my money on the second such occurrence, and the third such occurrence, and so forth.

It will happen again, no matter what precautions are taken to ensure that it does not happen again.

The coronavirus is a stubborn virus, and while most of us are doing all we can to prevent us and loved ones and friends from getting it, it still hangs around, waiting for its next victims.

It isn't going away as fast as it came, that's for sure, and we can only hope that our scientists around the world can develop something that will at least mitigate its effects.

The real hope is for a cure, but that might be far off or not far off, depending on who you listen to.

We can only hope that what happened to the Marlins is nothing but an optical illusion, a little dent in our collective armor, but somehow, I don't think that it is.

What is happening in Texas, in Florida and in Arizona tells me that it is a bit more than a dent in our armor, but let's see what happens.