The Sunday mosey: NFL observes MLB’s pending gamble, hope, related randomness

We still have tickets for the Yankees-Cardinals at Busch Stadium on July 18.

And at this juncture, it is reasonable to assume we will be able to attend the game.

Everybody should still have hope during these seemingly (to some) apocalyptic times and along with everyone staying safe and healthy, I hope we can attend the game safely.

The definition of what is safe when it comes to being at a Major League Baseball (MLB) game has changed big time–along with everything else.

Safe at a ballgame used to mean not getting hit by a foul ball.

They extended screens behind home plate to protect fans down both the first and third base lines.

This largely solved the problem of fans being injured by errant balls (great band name by the way).

Small business owners are the heart of the economy and they can’t afford to stay closed indefinitely.

The pressure to reopen the economy has been enormous and I get it.

People say at what cost.

Like a lot of things during this time, no one really knows.

Money is bet on many sports matchups.

And by not being able to stay locked down until vaccines and/or herd immunity are realized, we take the biggest gamble of all.

Like MLB, it’s hard to not take risks.

No one wants to stay in an interminable lockdown.

We want to return to being free to move about the cabin.

To that end, I want to say (now) we would attend the game if allowed, knowing that all measures to ensure fan safety have been invoked.

Baseball speaks to my youth.

To not have at least some kind of season in some ways invalidates my childhood.

I loved Mickey Mantle and I still love the Yankees.

The position players on a baseball diamond are naturally socially distanced (if there is such a thing), with the exception of when the “shift” is on (personally I think the shift should be limited to not only accommodate social distancing but to return the traditional strategies of baseball position defense).

The airlines are flying with no one adequately socially distanced.

I’d split the difference and let 50% of fans attend games.

Safety is not guaranteed and many of us would take that risk to attend a ballgame.

Both sides

Respect for differing opinions and points of view is imperative in order to get through all of this in one piece.

Football, unlike baseball, will have a tougher time preventing transmission with the close proximity of players to one another.

If home is where the heart is, and I don’t deny this, then we should be making our homes the ultimate sanctuaries for quality of life that they can be.

We print money in order to send a stimulus to citizens.

We’re consumers and the economy is propped up by our propensity to consume and spend–except when we’re not consuming and spending as we did pre-virus.