Sports will be back this summer.
It's no longer a matter of if, but when and how.
In Taiwan, the top baseball league, including my adopted Rakuten Monkeys, has been charging, gloving, throwing and getting since April 12. And though my boys finally absorbed their first loss last night after seven Ws, undone by the Uni-Lions' mega-dramatic home run that'd be rubbed in by a dugout dance so obnoxious only the Reds would've approved ...
The Uni-Lions took down the undefeated Rakuten Monkeys last night with a game-tying solo shot and a walk-off hit by 林安可 (Lin An-Ko). #CPBL pic.twitter.com/w79XMAOq1j
— CPBL STATS (@GOCPBL) April 26, 2020
... there'll be another ballgame today.
Because in baseball, and in life, there's always another ballgame.
In South Korea, their top baseball league, the KBO League, is well into its own preseason and will emerge May 5, followed three days later by the top soccer league. They'll use all 10 stadiums, all empty of fans until further clearance.
In Germany, the Bundesliga, one of the world's great soccer leagues, will emerge May 9. They've already been in training for two weeks. They'll use all 18 stadiums, all empty of fans.
Those are the easy ones, of course. South Korea crushed the coronavirus curve -- probably better than any country -- through a sophisticated regimen of testing, tracing and quarantining the infected. Not coincidentally, the Germans have been in the same class despite 152,438 known cases, in that they've applied their own similar process toward producing one of the world's lowest fatality rates at 3.6 percent, or six people for every 100,000 in the overall population.
Again, those two should've gone first, and they have.
But Spain?
Only the U.S. (48,303 deaths) and Italy (26,384) have been hit harder than Spain (22,902), but La Liga, their top soccer league, announced this week they'll kick off, too, as early as June. They'll use all 18 stadiums, all empty of fans. And to pull that off, meaning to convince government and health officials it'd be safe, league executives put together an excruciatingly detailed 23-page document outlining their plan.
It had been confidential, but it was obtained yesterday by the New York Times, and it provides maybe the greatest insight yet into what sports will look like in 2020. Among the highlights:
• Everyone gets tested every day. I've been writing all along that this would be paramount, while also adding that the tests can't come at the expense of people in need. La Liga is presuming -- and safely so, based on recent accounts -- that testing will be in infinitely greater supply in a month than it is now.
• All athletes and staff would be tested while still in their cars entering any facility, whether for a game or practice. Their arrival times would be staggered. If anyone tests positive, they're sent home into isolation. Everyone who's already on the grounds is cleared out, too, and required to enter anew.
• Even once inside, they'll wear masks and gloves until it's time to go out to the pitch. That guards against any issues that might be in the facility, though that obviously would need extraordinary cleaning akin to what the Pirates had been doing in Bradenton, Fla., in early March.
• The early phase of training would involve a maximum of eight athletes at a time, then gradually grow into the whole group as team exercises become necessary. But until then, that group will mingle only with that group, including in any eating or recreational areas.
• Once the regular season nears, the athletes will be required to move into team-designated housing near the practice facility, with far fewer staff there than the norm: A cook, an equipment manager, someone to do laundry, and not a lot else.
• For the matches themselves, La Liga estimates having 240 total people on hand, including other team personnel, security, first responders, media and broadcast production workers. All will follow the same protocol upon entering.
Crazy, huh?
But really, will it be any crazier than us watching sports in other parts of the world while we just wait?
No, this isn't an advocation to rush anything. I'm not an idiot. Spare the premature venom, and hear me out.
Few countries have handled the coronavirus worse than ours, and that's not based on opinion but, rather, on painfully documented scientific data. Even accounting for population/density differences, our infection rate's the worst in the world, our fatality rate's far too high and, specific to this discussion, we're miles behind on testing.
Can't say it enough, but our collective recovery, for sports and for life, is all about testing, testing, testing. And according to our own top government health officials, we're barely halfway to where we need to be. We're at roughly a million a week, and most experts state that it should be closer to 3 million a week, or 1 percent of our population.
That said, it's getting better, and one would figure it'll keep getting better.
So what stops any of our various halted sports from putting together a plan like Spain's?
Anything at all?
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news late yesterday that the NBA will reopen its practice facilities to players Friday, though only those in regions and states that've been loosening stay-at-home restrictions.
Right now, that'd mean only Atlanta and Oklahoma City ...
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THE NEW YORK TIMES[/caption]
... but by Friday, it'd be a bunch of others. Another week or two after that, all the more. And nothing's to stop teams and players from more deeply affected areas from converging upon cleaner locales.
That's a big, big deal. Because whatever issues -- optical or otherwise -- are resolved by our witnessing baseball in the Far East or soccer in Europe, multiply that by a million when we're seeing LeBron James shoot Js in the gym, wearing his official purple and gold. There's no way real NBA games will be far behind and, in turn, the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs and the opening of Major League Baseball.
Same applies to the NFL, by the way. Wonderful as it was to watch the draft all weekend -- and my goodness, did all involved shine, even Roger Goodell with all his aw-shucks awkwardness -- it's right about now that all those rookies would be descending on the South Side for their first minicamp, their introductions. And the further football falls behind its own offseason schedule, the sooner the main one gets messed up.
Repeating for emphasis: I'm not calling for action now. Only planning. That's reasonable and, in its own way, healthy.
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