Strange times beget strange scenarios.
In the sports world, here's an odd hypothetical that looms as extra strange:
MLB games being played for weeks or months, in empty Arizona ballparks where all 30 teams would play.
That's a loose plan that MLB officials are discussing, reported The Athletic and ESPN in recent days.
Weirder yet, ESPN says this glorified Cactus League could launch next month, a projection that comes even as the COVID-19 pandemic this week escalates to new levels in the United States.
It's hard to believe MLB could pull this off, especially so soon. These reports feel like a trial balloon.
Even with many daunting obstacles noted in the media reports _ the myriad safety challenges, for one, would be enormous _ to focus on May for Opening Day seems unwise, even desperate, in light of health unknowns playing out now with the virus.
Ron Fowler, the Padres' executive chairman, responded to an email Tuesday asking his reaction to the Arizona scenario and the May focus.
"Contrary to some media reports, MLB is in a very early stage of exploring/evaluating options," wrote Fowler, who has worked on MLB ownership committees and visited with MLB leaders throughout his eight-year tenure. "It is simply establishing all of the variables that would need to be considered. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to speculate ... it would be akin to speculating on speculation."
With a lot of money riding on this MLB season, it makes sense that industry leaders are brainstorming for solutions.
MLB generates more than $10 billion in annual revenue, exposing all 30 teams to big financial hits if the season can't be played or parts of the season can't be played. The Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds are just two of the teams that have placed big financial bets on this season, with the Cubs' bet extending to a new media venture.
Set aside the owners, and the players whose average salary is about $4 million. The shutdown could hammer a lot of financially vulnerable folks and their families.
"I guess you've got to ask what the motivation would be to try to do this, and obviously it would be dollars," Barry Axelrod, an Encinitas resident who represented dozens of MLB players in his career as a sport agent, said of the Arizona plan.
Baseball's importance to American culture, while often hugely overstated, is worth considering, too.
There's something to be said for the sport's ability to entertain people during a crisis.
"You talk to a psychologist about it, and they say it's really good for a culture to have sport and to have a focus like that, where for a few hours a day they can take their minds off the difficult reality of the virus," baseball agent Scott Boras told The Associated Press.
However, this crisis differs from all the others that have derailed MLB seasons, in this large respect: Where fans were able to attend games after the terrorist attacks of September 2001, they'd be home-bound this time, for their own safety, if MLB opts to play its games in empty ballparks.
Some baseball is better than no baseball, some folks say.
Unable to attend the games, would fans tune into broadcasts of MLB Lite? Would they stick around, once the novelty wore off?
Broadcasts draw energy from the crowds of excited humans, from the roars and the constant hum. The void would be noticeable.
If fans can't go to the games, MLB also runs this risk: The owners and ballplayers may come off as entitled, what with several games per day and dozens being played per week during this time of quarantine.
Boras made a valid point that baseball can provide an escape to unsettled Americans, but as a messenger he may not be the ideal person to argue for why the games must go on.
"Let me sum up what Scott Boras' suggestion means," said former Miami Marlins club President David Samson in a CBS Sports podcast, after Boras spoke for a full baseball menu that perhaps could run into December. "All players get paid what they were gonna get paid. All owners do not make anywhere near the revenue they were gonna have (because of empty stadiums). And Scott Boras himself will get the amount of commissions that he would have gotten normally."
Axelrod said he would watch telecasts from an empty stadium, but noted a few of several other potential obstacles: The heat in greater Phoenix, where he lived as a Diamondbacks executive and found to be draining; the excessive number of games in a packed schedule "that could easily lead to injury," and the concept of sequestering entire baseball teams every day.
"But," he added, "it's all for our entertainment."
My geographic suggestion to MLB leaders, if they're determined to stage games before the fans can attend: Explore San Diego ballparks that could be partnered with venues north of Camp Pendleton as an option to Arizona and its oppressive summer heat. Here's an incomplete list of candidates: Petco Park and venues at SDSU, USD, Point Loma Nazarene University, UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State in addition to the Angels' stadium in Anaheim.
If nothing else, note the huge gap in weather win shares, baseball nerds: San Diego's average high temperatures in June and July, at 72 and 76 degrees, offer a refreshing alternative to Phoenix, where the norms are 104 and 106.
MLB chopped 50 games off its 1981 season because of labor strife, and survived. The better option now? Wait until the fans can attend, and play the games in the cities the ballclubs purport to represent.
But even that plan has a big hole in it.
No one knows when it will be safe for 50 folks to congregate, let alone 50,000.
"People say in August we'll be back to normalcy," Axelrod said. "Here's what I ask them: 'When are you going to feel comfortable, you personally, in a crowd? Sitting in a crowded stadium? In a full hotel? A crowded airplane.'
"For me," he added, "it's not until they have a vaccine."
Strange, spooky times, these.
