Baseball Survives COVID-19

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Toronto Blue Jays Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Photo credit: online pic Sporting News.

COVID-19 is anti-human because it goes against nature, which is keeping human beings close, very close to each other. Babies are close to their mothers in the womb, close when they feed from the breast and close when mothers carry them on their backs.

They grow up and play sports and most of them are contact sports. They play soccer and basketball, which demand that they stay close to the guy with the ball.

Enter COVID-19. Keep six feet apart otherwise you might catch the virus. There are very few sports that will survive social distancing. Hockey for one. Although it is a contact sport, they already were masks, so the National Hockey League (NHL) will tweak them a bit to accommodate COVID-19.

Cricket and baseball have long distances between players so, there is a future for them, post COVID-19. Let’s take a clinical view at baseball. It is social distancing personified. Bases on a baseball field are already far apart. I don’t know the distance but they look far to me.

Even the pitcher stands there massaging the ball behind his back eyeing his prey, rookie Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays fame, and scheming how to strike him out. He’s not alone in his evil thoughts. He is watching the catcher’s hands, that are telling him how to get rid of the man with the bat.

The man with the bat is too close to the catcher so some social distancing configuration will have to be done. The catcher has all kinds of gear on his face for protection, but it is not COVID-19 approved. We leave that on Major League Baseball (MLB) to figure out.

How about stealing bases? That is the genius of the game. Socially, stealing is bad. You can land in jail. Do time and be unemployable when you are released from jail, but it’s cool in baseball.

Is it possible to steal bases without touching somebody? Impossible. The Major League Baseball organization must come up with some original social distancing strategies.

Home run? No problem with social distancing there. The ball absconded, left home, eloped and went more than six feet to the rafters.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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