Numbers have always been the backbone of sports, and for going on nearly three months now, its aficionados have gone without RBI and points per …
Numbers have always been the backbone of sports, and for going on nearly three months now, its aficionados have gone without RBI and points per game and shots on goal.
Even worse, these innocuous and even comforting metrics have been supplanted by horrific measurements like mortality and infection rates, vector transmissions and ventilator availability.
From the moment a group of coaches and officials gathered at a scorer’s table March 11 and declared an otherwise unremarkable Utah Jazz-Oklahoma City Thunder game postponed, it was obvious COVID-19 and sports would be a terrible pairing, what with games based largely on physical contact and fan passions stoked by intimate gatherings in tightly packed arenas and stadiums.
Sports for the most part have gone ghost. For those hoping to will them back into existence as they were with raucous crowds, the coronavirus simply uproots these goalposts and moves them further away, breeding frustration and confusion. For those viewing sports as a beacon of “hope” – either as a diversion or an example that the world may again be normal someday – this can feel like a calamitous loss.
So maybe, it’s best not to pounce at the carrot in front of us. Maybe it’s best to look far down the road at an object we can’t quite make out, knowing that it will eventually come into focus.
Perhaps, if sports fans want to maintain sanity and moderate expectations appropriately, and dream about packing stadiums and arenas as they once did, there’s a number we can all focus on.
2022.
Ouch. Prefer your sports return measured in days and weeks, not months and years, right? Yeah, waiting ‘til next year, let alone the year after, might be a little harsh.
And in a literal sense, it’s also inaccurate.
Heck, NASCAR, mixed-martial arts and match-play golf with Tiger Woods are already back. Major League Baseball is making plans to start play in early July. The NBA and NHL are hoping to complete their seasons this summer. Football will happen in fits and starts this fall, because it waits for no one, though it almost certainly won’t be played on every college campus that usually fields a team.
And 2021 should bring back just about everything. If the Masters occurs in April after this year’s attempt to play in November, there will be no need to Photoshop azaleas into the Augusta National backdrop. March Madness, the first major casualty of this scourge, could be back. And, of course, the Summer Olympics.
That’s great, particularly since by then, we’ll all be done with «Ozark,» and perhaps even «The Complete Works of Dostoyevsky.
