There's a contrast at the core of what sports _ let's use that umbrella term to refer to the major professional leagues on this continent and the people who direct and compete within them _ will try to do over the next couple of weeks. Sports will try to return, in as normal and stable a structure as it can build, even though the coronavirus has reconfigured just about all the structures we have, if not melted them down into liquid iron.
Major League Baseball will try to play a 60-game regular season, then a postseason. The NHL will hold round-robin tournaments among its top four teams in each of the two conferences to determine their seeding for a 16-team playoff tournament. The NBA will go with an eight-game warm-up before commencing with its postseason. Major League Soccer is attempting to hold 51 matches in 26 days among 25 teams. The NFL, for now, will sit back and watch and take notes.
There have been and will be bubbles _ when sports is indoors, that is. Franchises and leagues and broadcast networks will implement artificial measures to simulate the atmosphere and feel of pre-pandemic games. On the same day that Philadelphia officials erroneously announced that the city government would not allow fans to attend any professional sporting events in 2020, the Phillies provided a glimpse of what an average night at Citizens Bank Park this summer might look and sound and feel like.
For an intrasquad game, Dan Baker announced the starting lineup to a mostly empty ballpark. Andrew McCutchen pretended to slap his teammates' hands. Walk-up songs and organ music echoed. Scott Kingery hit a home run, and the ball didn't disappear silently and softly into a field of outstretched hands. It clanked against the hard, plastic chairs in the right-field stands. Once the season begins, cardboard cutouts of people will fill those seats.
And there, right there, is the contrast. Fake crowds. Fake crowd noise. Fake high fives. Real competition. Real risk. Real ramifications. That contradiction raises a profound question as the games resume: What exactly are we asking of these athletes once sports comes back, and are they equipped to handle it?
