UNHAPPY ANNIVERSARY

 

               Stuck at home much of the time to hide out from the virus, wife Susie and I talk together more than we used to. A typical conversation goes like this:

               Me—"What day is this?”

               Susie—"Tuesday, I think.”

               Me— “Sure it’s not Wednesday?”

               Susie— “Pretty sure.”

               I’m very sure that exchange has been mirrored in the homes of many people reading this. When you’re retired as are Susie and I, and in virtual self-quarantine, the days run into one another, distinguishable only by the numbers on the calendar. Personal calendars, once crowded, now stand mostly empty. When we have two errands to run we don’t do both of them on the same day.

               The most-used cliché of the plague is that we’re all in the same boat, but it’s wrong. Were all in the same ocean but in different boats. The boat that Susie and I share is a good one— very good, in fact. We have a smallish but nice home on a large (1 ¼-acre) lot in an out-of-the-way part of Scottsdale, Arizona, on a cul-de-sac with no sidewalks or street lights and lots of space between houses. Without further labor we have enough income to support our needs.

               The bad news is that I’m 82 years old and Susie is 77, so we’re in the age group that has the most to worry about if the virus strikes. I have to laugh every time I hear that the most vulnerable groups consist of people over 65 or ones with a “preexisting condition.” There is no “or” about it-- just about everyone over 65 has one of those nasty things.  Susie and I are in relatively good health but we each have good-sized medical files.  Like many, I’m sure, every time I cough or sneeze I think, “Oh, oh, this may be it!”

               The reason I’m writing this now is that yesterday, September 14, marked the six-month anniversary of my personal history with virus fears. I’d heard about the affliction before that, of course, but with Arizona cases numbering in just the dozens didn’t take it too seriously. Indeed, things like the toilet-paper panic gave it a humorous cast. On March 14, though, Turf Paradise, the local horse-racing track where I’d spent just about every Saturday for years, announced it was shutting down. That meant a severe change in my routine, something old guys like me loath. It would be the first of many.

               Arizona experienced a general shutdown of about six weeks beginning around then, but it was spottily endorsed and enforced by governmental units, from the top down. Mixed messages prevailed and from the outset it became clear that we Americans were on our own when it came to protection. We still are, which is why virus statistics continue to fluctuate scarily, amounting to anything but control. Everything in the U.S. is politicized these days, and such obvious antiviral measures as mask-wearing is deemed to be controversial. In some circles foolishness is hailed as freedom.

               Susie and I take what we consider to be reasonable safety precautions. We wear masks in public, avoid large groups of people and utilize hand sanitizers. Susie shops, I swim four times a week in a large, outdoor public pool, bypassing the locker rooms coming and going. Once in a while we roll the dice and eat dinner in one of the restaurants we know provide for proper social distancing. We’d prefer to eat outdoors but our area has been too hot for that since June. Hey, you gotta get out occasionally.

               Other than that our options are few. Since we moved to Arizona in 1997 we’ve bailed out for cooler climes during July and August, lovely Santa Barbara, California, being our recent-years’ choice.  Not this year. No Arizona Diamondbacks’ games, either. Fall looms without theater, opera, my beloved Arizona Fall League baseball, or other public diversions.

               That has left us to such time-honored amusements as reading and crossword and jigsaw puzzles (the last for Susie, not me), and the tube. We’ve added Amazon Prime to our TV list, allowing us to watch such series’ as “Bosch,” a detective show set in Los Angeles, and the fast-paced “Intelligence,” about cops and drug dealers in Vancouver. I heartily recommend both.

               Sports, shelved in the plague’s early months (and the usual subject of this blog), have come back strong of late, albeit mostly before empty arenas. That has surprised many, including me. The NBA and NHL are successfully concluding their seasons in “bubbles,” and Major League Baseball lurches play-bound with limited travel after some initial stumbles. I didn’t think they could do it in part because I didn’t think their wealthy, entitled players could exercise the monastic discipline needed to stay “clean” amid a pandemic.  They pretty much have so far, but it remains to be seen if that will continue.

                At least equally important have been the truly massive testing regimes that professional sports have been able to institute, ones that dwarf those that exist in most other parts of our economy. Since their training camps opened last month the NFL has carried out daily virus testing for the more than 3,000 individuals who make up their playing rosters, coaching staffs and supporting personnel, enabling the quick identification and quarantine of infected individuals. It’s a telling societal commentary that our schools, hospitals and food processors don’t have it nearly so good.

It would be nice to report that help in the form of a vaccine was quickly on its way, but I’m troubled by efforts in that direction. The process is widely viewed as a race, with the first pharma company to declare victory able to claim a huge, global prize, but what if the third, sixth or tenth vaccine   to cross the line is the most effective?

               And what of complaints about spying involving the research drives? With thousands of lives at stake shouldn’t scientific cooperation be the rule, instead of competition?  I’m expecting to note another six-months anniversary come March. I’m praying that’ll be the last but I’m not betting on it.

                               

FOOTBALL ANYONE?

 

               The alignment of our planet with the sun dictates that autumn begins on September 22, but we know different, don’t we? It starts today, September 1. We know that because football is a fall sport that begins in earnest with the “S” month. Always has, always will.

               Except for this year. This year the pandemic reigns and September begins with not a pigskin being snapped in earnest at either the professional or major-college level. The colleges are in disarray, with two of the so-called “Power Five” conferences (the Big Ten and PAC 12) already having delayed the sport’s start until spring and the other three (the SEC, Big 12 and ACC) plunging forward, at least until further notice.

The National Football League is tiptoeing ahead, canceling pre-season games and scrimmages and holding practices of a sort as its September 10 starting date (a Thursday night game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans) approaches. But in Las Vegas, where the action speaks louder than words, it is only even money that date will be kept, and, no doubt, a longer-odds play that the season will be concluded successfully.

Back in June, when the pandemic was on the upswing, I addressed football’s prospects and found them wanting. Too many things could go wrong for a season to come off as hoped, I concluded. I still think so, especially with sports’ rolling racial boycotts now in play. I also was pessimistic about our three other major spectator sports even though they involve fewer athletes and, thus, fewer risks.

 As it has turned out, basketball and hockey have implemented “bubbles” to resume play, albeit in narrow confines and before empty arenas. Baseball limps along sans bubbles on broader stages, with each day’s schedule at risk to positive tests as the virus still percolates and regional spikes continue. Thirty one MLB games have been lost to virus-related cancellations, knocking schedules askew. A couple  more hard knocks would endanger the whole enterprise.

Hockey’s smartest move was to put its resumption in Canada (specifically in Toronto and Edmonton), where pandemic control has been far more successful than in the U.S.  That the NBA also is doing well is mostly a tribute to its players’ apparent willingness to live monk-like existences within the league’s Orlando, Florida, ring. Who knew they could do that? Can they keep it up?

The NFL leads the world in hubris but despite its bravado looks anything but confident as opening day approaches. Sixty six players and five game officials have opted out of playing this year and one could hear knees quaking around the league as 59 players tested positive before training camps opened two weeks ago. Most of those players returned after sitting out quarantines and there have been no reported positives since, but training camps offer the sort of mini-bubbles that won’t be replicated as travel for games begins.

The foundation of the NFL’s return plan is its ability to bull to the front of any and all lines and obtain a level of virus testing that, as far as I know, exists nowhere else in the U.S.  Daily testing of every participant began with the training camps and will continue until September 5, or until local positive rates dip below 5%. One report last week said that the league had used about 150,00 tests to that point.

Television reports from the NFL camps show a sort of football-like activity but not the sweaty, rigorous drills usually associated with the bruising sport. With its summer warm-up camps limited to about two weeks, baseball has had an unusual spate of injuries in its truncated season. Unless about 70 years of experience amounts to nothing, the casualty lists should be long when (if) football gets back into action.

Further, the NFL’s once-a-week play and 16-game schedule puts a premium on every game that doesn’t exist elsewhere. Baseball has been able to make up for lost games with seven-inning doubleheaders. No such option exists in football. What would a playoff picture look like if some teams play 16 games while others play 15 or 14?  Commish Goodell would earn his salary making those calls.

If the NFL season’s viability looks shaky, it is rock solid compared to that of the college game. Return-to-class reports from campuses around the land have revealed the sort of knuckleheaded behaviors and student contagion rates that have tilted national rates upward, including (indeed, especially) in states whose university teams play in conferences that remain determined to play football later this month. The U of North Carolina, an ACC school, reported 784 positive tests among enrollees last month, the U of Alabama (SEC) 1,000-plus, the U of Missouri (Big 12) 166. No breakdowns were reported but some of those kids have to be footballers, huh?

 Some schools in those conferences have canceled opening home games scheduled for early this month, including North Carolina State (ACC) and Iowa State (Big 12).  Two SEC members—Tennessee and Auburn—cancelled practices last week after positive virus tests.

Everything is political these days so it’s probably no accident that the collegiate will-play/won’t -play divide has mostly “blue” states on the cautious “won’t” side and “red” states among the gung ho “wills.” To say this is disturbing is an understatement; college sports are played by kids but run by adults who are supposed to look out for their welfare. Putting that second to make a buck or a point  buck is reprehensible, but no surprise.