Over at the Washington Post, Molly Roberts has called the return of sports a “delusional experiment.” And while she is right that we want sports back for some normalcy, her analysis gets everything else wrong.
Roberts writes, “The illusion starts with a delusion: that it’s really possible to wipe away risk altogether amid a pandemic. Next come the efforts to pretend, at least for nine sweet innings or four quarters, that there’s no pandemic at all.” Yet this two-pronged analysis misses on both fronts.
The first is the patently absurd argument that anyone believes it’s possible “to wipe away risk altogether.” This has been the exact opposite argument made by those who support the return of sports and by those who support reopening generally. This is Roberts imposing her shutdown mindset on the argument: Only those who want a continued lockdown think the goal should be eliminating risk wholesale. Risk will always be with us, with or without a pandemic.
The second argument isn’t much of an argument at all. No one is being deluded into thinking a pandemic doesn’t exist because Major League Baseball is pumping in crowd noise and using 50 cardboard cutouts to fill seats behind home plate. Of course people are seeking a bit of normalcy in a world where churches are closed, restaurants have no indoor dining, and masks are required for every building you enter.
And it turns out that so far, the risks are minimal. Only baseball has had a recent positive test, and despite not using a bubble system, the outbreak only came from one team, the Miami Marlins. It’s been reported that Marlins players may have caught the virus going out on the town in Atlanta. No other baseball team has had a recent positive test, and neither has any other sports league.
I’d add: With reports out that Marlins players went bar hopping while visiting Atlanta last week, it’s abundantly clear: When athletes (pro and college) actually follow the protocols put in place by the medical experts, they are not catching Covid, nor passing it on to each other
— Aaron Torres (@Aaron_Torres) July 29, 2020
The anger here is misplaced. CDC Director Robert Redfield has said that among high school students, suicides and drug overdoses have outpaced coronavirus deaths. Drug overdoses generally have been rising. It’s clear to anyone that the protests, riots, and general unrest are in large part due to the effects of sustained lockdowns and the resulting unemployment.
There’s no “delusion” involved in the comeback of sports. Each league has gone through prolonged periods of planning and negotiating with players to mitigate risks and get their leagues going. A return to normalcy is badly needed, and if sports can provide even a brief sense of it, we are all better off for it.
