A light?
Did Monday feel kind of, dare we say optimistic?
We ask with the firm knowledge that the changing stats and prisms in a fight against a truly invisible and unknown foe. (In fact, here’s today’s A2 column on the impossible and at times damaging efforts to scoreboard watch during the fight against The Corona.)
And maybe the springboard was the weekend conference call between Donald Trump and the commissioners. Maybe it was the realization of America’s need for distraction and some kind of normalcy. Pragmatically, maybe it was the turn of the calendar into April and the fundamental economic realization that the bills keep coming whether the revenue does or not.
But look at the sports news of the last 24 or so hours.
Locally, the numbers in Hamilton County continue to offer promising news. As tests increase dramatically, the increase in cases continues to gain marginally. Are we through the woods?
Of course not.
But the sporting announcements for the first time turned toward scheduling rather than suspension.
Golf announced a tentative schedule for later in the year that puts the Masters on a mid-November weekend that would give any CBS executive a migraine trying to figure the time slots for the Masters around SEC college football on Saturday and NFL football on Sunday.
(Side note: You would have to believe that the CBS SEC game on Saturday would be Georgia-Tennessee at 3:30. Also, as we discussed on Press Row a little on Monday, the sun sets about 5:30ish that time of year, so golf will start much earlier in the day. We had a regular offer that a Saturday night CBS SEC game allows both, and that’s true. But even as much as golf fans love Masters Sunday, almost every NFL game will cruise by it. For perspective, the NFL draft drew more viewers in 2019 than the final round of the Masters, and that was when some dude named Eldrick won it. Some of you have asked for my solution. If I’m a CBS bigwig, I ask ESPN to use it’s one-time a year first pick of a CBS game on that Saturday and air the Masters during the main Saturday window. Then I offer afternoon Sunday Masters coverage – while simulcast on CBS Sports as well – during the NFL window.)
The British Open has been called. The Masters will be Nov. 12-15, the PGA Championship will be in August outside of San Francisco and the U.S. Open and the Ryder Cup will be in September. In some ways, I’ve wondered why golf has not been on the front edge of finding a way back to competing, but this is still some sort of positive announcement that shows a life beyond this quarantined exile. Dang you Corona.
And MLB went a step further with its optimism. According to this story from excellent ESPN baseball writer Jeff Passan – who also does an amazing Elmo impression when he’s on the LeBatard Show – MLB and the players union are looking at going into a solution that has some promising options.
The plan would a) get baseball moving in May, b) move all 30 teams – players and essential players only – to the Phoenix area, c) those players and staff would be quarantined in local hotels, d) play games in the 10 spring training facilities in the area and the Diamondbacks stadium, and e) has the backing of officials at the CDC and the National Institute for Health.
That last one is really important. Which offers the question, if you were a MLB player would you accept those conditions and play? If you have $100 million in the bank and a family of five, are you willing to take those circumstances and those risks?
But having those decisions to make would be a certain step forward rather than having all those decisions made by medical personnel, right? And yes, it’s just a plan, but the thought of a plan is a way more promising proposition than wondering when or hoping for a Hail Mary.
Betting bottoms out
We mentioned the normal sports glory of the nine days from last Saturday to next Sunday with the Final Four and the title game, MLB everywhere and the Masters on the horizon.
It also has traditionally been the capper to a forever profitable March.
But sports books are dark with no return to gambling in sight.
Vegas officials approved betting on the NASCAR simulated iRacing over the weekend, but the numbers were closer to minor league soccer in Turkey and about a fifth of the normal betting handle (total amount wagered) of a normal NASCAR race.