Not This Time...

The Schloss-Blog is writing today about what it knows best and has been covering 40-plus years - asshole politicians.

No, I mean sports.

Except there is none. So the Schloss-Blog wants to know, right now, with conditions as they are in society in terms of the pandemic and treatment therefor, are you comfortable going to sporting events? I mean real sporting events?

Are you feeling comfortable sitting in Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium or Tropicana Field with 40,000 or so other fans (OK, 12,000 or so maybe at The Trop), sitting through a Major League Baseball Game?

How do you feel about watching a National Football League game, on TV, with no fans in the stands, while pro teams go at it in a quiet, 60,000-seat venue? I get the feeling the NFL is going to have a hard time in the fall justifying turning 22 athletes loose on every snap, basically doing little more than WWE hand-to-hand competition, but not allowing you, the fans, to sit next to each other watching them do it. Do you get the same feeling?

What about pro golf? Are you an avid golfer? Are the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA worthwhile watching without fans streaming along the fairway boundaries, forcing the competitors to hush them before critical shots? Are those tournaments the same without that fan energy? Plus, the Masters, if it's played, would be around the time of my birthday in November. And The (British) Open has already been canceled this year, so there is no chance of an individual winning the Grand Slam. Can you imagine if a golfer wins all three, if they're played, and is subsequently robbed of the opportunity to win the Slam? Bobby Jones, your record is intact.

And the Olympics? Already postponed until next year in Tokyo. No tingle up your spine as you listen to the National Anthem being played while Simone Biles is standing atop the podium, holding a bouquet with a gold medal around her neck. And admit it - you know you get that tingle.

Plus, the Olympics were adding skateboarding this year, a sport that greatly expands its audience. America's Nyjah Houston, the three-time world champion running, is not going to get to showcase his skills this year for an international audience, let alone make himself a household name. He is every bit the athlete that Mike Trout is.

What about weddings? It's almost summer, when weddings happen galore. My daughter's was supposed to be this summer, but she called it off. It would've been called off anyway.

Heading into fall, will the NBA and the NHL be playing, or will they finish up the seasons they have since suspended and cruise directly without a break into their subsequent new seasons, albeit likely abbreviated? In front of no fans in the stands, certainly at the outset, this fall.

College football? Will they allow cheerleaders and bands to perform in front of empty stands? Will the colleges sacrifice that ticket revenue they so depend on or play and look like anything but the exciting events they are with the stands empty all around them? "Go team go," they'll scream to no one in particular, with the only other reason for them being there is TV window dressing.

The only remark I'm going to make, with so much on the line, is that if the president had pursued the PPE equipment he needed when he needed it instead of waiting two months and sacrificing all that time, maybe we'd have the full sports seasons we crave. Yet he procrastinated and now we have between some 2,000 or so people dying every day and all our sports on hold, with some of our best-known sports facilities being transformed into field hospitals.

I don't know about you, but I can't watch Super Bowl III again for the umpteenth time, nor the 1969 World Series, or the last time my Knicks won the title (1973), or my Rangers (1994). or even the 1999 Women's World Cup as Brandi Chastain rips off her jersey after planting the game-winning goal and making Nike Sports Bras a household name.

I already know who won those events anyway. I wanna' see how Brady does in Tampa Bay, how Mitchell Trubisky holds on to his job (ha!) and how the Dodgers finally win the World Series against a team that doesn't cheat.

Looks like I might be waiting until 2021 for all that though.

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

More about all this on my show Sunday night on Radio Free Phoenix.