Sports, collectively, has difficult choices ahead. They are about more than safety. They are moral decisions, too.
Monday came reports the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo would be postponed, likely until 2021. That's smart. Canada and Australia already had withdrawn. There would have been mounting and justified pressure on the U.S. to do the same had the Games started this July 24 as scheduled.
Sports and leagues around the world debate when to return to play, but sports, collectively, don't matter right now _ not when we are in the middle of a global pandemic, at war with coronavirus/COVID-19. The plague already has killed more than 15,000. It is not nearly contained. Some projections estimate it could result in two million or more deaths in the United States this year alone.
This is a war we quite literally cannot afford to lose.
Everything is weird right now. By government edict or common sense, we practice "social distancing," avoid crowds, "self-quarantine" in our homes.
We miss our sports so much. Our home teams, the simple pleasure and comforting routine of seasons, of cheering crowds, of yelling at the ump. We know that the eventual return of sports will be a major symbol of our return to normalcy. We long for that. The simple normalcy more than the games.
And yet we know this is not the time. Not when healthcare is under siege, doctors and nurses fighting this war under-equipped. Not when this thing is not nearly contained. And not until it is.
Sports needs to shut down even more than it already has and for the foreseeable future.
The International Olympic Committee had said very recently it was "fully committed" to staging the Summer Olympics as scheduled, but was wise to reverse course. It was important for a global event to do so if only as a statement of priorities.
To prepare to travel and play games at this point is a moral affront. It disrespects the thousands who have died from COVID-19, the hundreds of thousands who may yet be lost this year, and the doctors and nurses risking their own lives on the front lines against this.
There are government indications we could be in for another 10 to 12 weeks of this national quarantining, but it could be longer. And even when we "flatten the curve," might the immediate resumption of sports, of "large social gatherings," increase the chance of a recurrence?
The way it looks now we should not even be thinking about sports at least through the summer.
For that reason the NBA and NHL should announce their seasons will not resume _ that they are done for the year, with no continuation and no playoffs.
MLB still plans to start its season within eight weeks, it has said. It won't. That seems all but certain. Unless it plays games with no fans, ghost games, the most pointless, ridiculous consideration of all.
Major League Soccer season also must weigh whether it should restart at all, or simply concede it has lost 2020 to the worst health catastrophe since the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
The Florida Derby, a major horse race, plans to run as scheduled this Saturday at Gulfstream Park _ but with no spectators. The upcoming Wrestlemania 36 will be staged in Orlando; again, no fans allowed. What's the point? Revenue. Money. Off-tracking betting. Pay per view.
The NFL season might still have a fighting chance to go on and welcome back huge crowds if this thing is contained by the fall. But even then, it is hard to imagine football not being affected, and likely delayed. Training camps are to open in late July (around the same time the Olympics were to begin). Will we have the all-clear by then?
I know everyone outside of Greater Boston is eager to see Tom Brady in a Tampa Bay Bucs uniform, but there are sacrifices to be made. We are making them now, by staying inside. By our lives being turned upside down by the closure of schools, restaurants, parks, beaches, just about everything.
We should not feel sorry for ourselves that the everyday freedoms we take for granted have been temporarily suspended out of necessity. Just as athletes should not feel sorry for themselves that a small chunk of their athletic primes are being erased.
This is bigger than our inconvenience, bigger than no sports.
We had a family dinner Sunday. Pot roast and small red potatoes. Italy had just announced 651 more deaths to bring its total to 5,476. The mayor of New York City called this America's greatest crisis since the Great Depression. There were six of us at the table. Near the end of the meal, to amuse my 2-year-old granddaughter, we all started singing "The Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round," all of us clapping at the end.
I don't know why, but I got so emotional I nearly cried.
No, guess I do know why.
Feed and water your optimism. It is a precious, essential thing. Believe we'll be back to normal fairly soon.
Meantime, there should be no cheering crowds in arenas and stadiums, because there is no "back to normal" until this war is won.
