Tags
baseball, Baseball without fans, MLB, The Imprtance of Sports in Our LIves, The Role of Baseball in Our Lives, The Role of Sports in Our Lives, YouTube
Photo courtesy of Boston Red Sox
With news yesterday and probably more details later today, it appears there maybe a baseball season consisting of 82 games starting in July. There are details remaining to work out, including the two biggest issues of finances for both the MLB owners and the players as well as safety concerns for the players and those who will participate in the shortened season.
At least at the beginning, there will be no fans present.
Baseball without fans?
Seriously?
Yes.
It’s happening in Korea now, since their season opened about a week ago, without fans in the stadium. (It also happened once previously, for one game in Baltimore in 2015, for a game between the Orioles and the White Sox.)
And while it’s too early to really evaluate how significant the absence of spectators in the stadium is affecting the game in Korea, it’s clear that things are not the same.
Time will tell if this substitute for the real thing is safe, is satisfying, is something that helps everyone in these troubled times.
All of this, the absence of one of my life’s obsessions, baseball, and the role of sports in the lives of people everywhere, but in this instance particularly in our country is ‘explored in the two links below: one a 4:29 minute YouTube video of President Bush throwing out the opening pitch of game three in the World Series at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 30th, following 9/11 (hat/tip to Jere Smith for the update on this) and one a recent article in the NYTimes entitled The Healing Power of Baseball by Franklin Zimmerman, M.D. (hat/tip to Harry Siler for alerting me to this article).
And now read: The Healing Power of Baseball by Franklin H. Zimmerman M,D.
Check both of them out, and I’d love to hear what you think about any aspect of the importance of sports for yourself and for our society.
Ellen Miller said:
That’s an amazing video. Never thought that George Bush would ‘look’ that good!
Nick Jacobs said:
I could not agree more about the healing power of sport and baseball specifically. It’s events like the World Series and other major sporting events that truly do bring the country together. There’s an overwhelming desire for that shared experience of when we collectively shake off the cloak of whatever is ailing us and our resolve to move forward is on display. You don’t see it with Inaugurations, conventions, or any other big events. It’s always sports.
With that said, as much as I love baseball, I have tremendous concerns about how MLB will protect the health and safety of everyone involved from the athletes and coaching staff to the locker room staff or even the charter flight pilots and bus drivers who would get the players to and from games.
Jere Smith said:
Quick correction: not the first game at YS after 9/11, that is from the WS on Oct 30, after the season and playoffs had been completed. (I checked it out without sound but that’s what it seems like. The title of the video is a little misleading. Yes it is “after 9/11” and yes it’s a “first pitch” etc.)
Side note: even if it was a video about the first game at YS at 9/11, it should be noted that the first game in NY after 9/11 was at Shea.
Sent from a smartphone, not a smartphone zombie
Richard said:
Ah, Jere.
Thanx for that.
I can always count on you to be sure the details are correct.
R
Richard said:
Jere,
I’ve updated the post to include your correction. Not sure why I didn’t catch it myself when Pres. Bush was in Yankee locker room and said something about this being the first WS he’d ever attended.
It’s good to have a younger generation (yours) around to check on what I post.
Richard
PS – I still miss your blog but understand why you chose to give it up.
Tim Malieckal said:
I was at that game – my first World Series game in person!
At Yankee Stadium, with W throwing out the first pitch, though – double yuck.
I did not see the pitch in person, however, as security was insane and arriving an hour before the first pitch got us into our seats in the bottom of the second inning . . .
I love baseball, watch every Mets game and have off-hours games in the background while I work at my desk during the season, but I don’t see how this is going to work, and further, I think it’s dangerous to continue this premature normalization that we’re seeing across the country. Germany smothered Covid-19 with early action and contact tracing, and their cases surged as soon as they loosened restrictions. Pretending that we’ve turned a corner will embolden more people to go out more often with fewer precautions, and other businesses will feel pressure to do the same – spreading the virus further. 1,623 Americans died today, and 83,418 have died in America thus far.
We have no serious testing regime in place, zero plan, a culture of defiance and anti-science idiots running the country, and it’ll be 18 months until there is a vaccine. I can see letting people go to work (still taking painstaking precautions and distancing) but there’s just no way to do that at a ballgame, so fans at games is out of the question. Even if we’re all OK with empty stadia . . . what kind of life will it be for the players?
Here’s a great article I read in SI, which walks the reader through everything that needs to happen to play a half-season. It’s onerous for the players and bound to fail:
si [dot] com/mlb/2020/04/10/sports-arent-coming-back-soon
I cannot wait until this is over, but I’m not willing to see my mother, wife or children suffer through a preventable illness so that I can watch some hardball. SNY and every other RSN should pick up the season with replays of the finest championship season every team ever had. I know I would be glued to the set to relive the moments that catalyzed my fandom in 1986. It’s no different than rewatching a film or rereading a book. We can manage that much for one crappy summer, and reevaluate in 2021.