Baseball 'Opens Up'....The Pandemic

On Monday morning, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida was telling one of those money channels that the U.S. had to “open up” for business.
 
Sen. Scott knows a lot about business, having run a “health-care” company that paid $1.7-billion in penalties, while he personally escaped jail as the leader of the devious pack.  
 
But there he was, a senator, urging American businesses to get back to work. At the very same time, Major League Baseball – as part of its patriotic duty to get back to business – was postponing two games scheduled for Monday because many members of the Miami Marlins, in the state Scott theoretically represents, had tested positive for Covid-19.
 
Getting back to business has its drawbacks, whether for endangered children and endangered teachers in schools being pressured to open, or ball players in their own little playpens. 
 
Donald Trump, allegedly once the greatest baseball prospect in American prep-school history,  has insisted the game be resumed as part of the economic re-opening. Then again, he felt the same thing about political rallies and nominating conventions. Poor schlub, he invited himself to throw out a first pitch in Yankee Stadium and then got disinvited. (Ever hear an empty stadium boo?)
 
Baseball is supposed to contribute to normalcy while a pandemic is going on, particularly in the presumably-red Sunbelt states being led into danger by clodhoppers like Abbott of Texas, Kemp of Georgia and DeSantis of Florida. (Where do they get these people?)  
 
As of this typing, baseball was still planning to hold most games in its improvised season of 60 games. But ballplayers were starting to follow the new protocols, donning masks on the field, refraining from some bro hugs, and some were voicing their fears.
 
This puts these masked men ahead of many millions of Americans currently milling around unmasked at bars and beaches and back-yard parties, ignoring the warnings of scientists. It’s part of their constitutional rights, as Americans, to be independent knuckleheads.
 
This raises questions for me, hunkering in our cool cave at home, watching just about every pitch of the Mets'first four games.
 
How can I watch the runs, hits, errors, facial expressions and strategies in empty stadiums, while millions of people around the world are endangered by this pandemic?
 
We stay home as much as possible, we read, we watch filmed plays from London, we listen to the political yammerers on the tube, my wife makes great meals. And for the moment, I watch the Mets.  
 
Every winter I wait for the season, and finally it is here, in its imperiled fashion, and I am watching Jeff McNeil’s fire and Jacob deGrom’s near-perfection and Pete Alonso’s power and Seth Lugo’s monk-like calm.
 
Am I doing something wrong? Am I encouraging baseball…and other businesses….to “open up?”
 
I took a random sample Monday night.
 
One fan, nameless, was at home in front of the tube, watching the Mets from  Fenway Park, which was  sadly not quivering with energy and history.
 
The game was not 15 minutes old when the Mets committed a blunder on the field. My phone pinged with a message from the aforementioned fan: “Not a very disciplined ball club.”  So we pinged back and forth while the Mets held on for a 7-4 victory. For one more evening, we watched baseball, knowing it could be the last for a long time.
 
My sample was balanced by other pings from a good friend of mine, a former minor-league prospect who knows the game so well and shares my appreciation for the late-bloomer Jeff McNeil.
 
Except that my ball-player pal was not watching. He thinks baseball should not be open, should not be exposing players and those who serve them. He pinged:
 
“George, I refuse to watch this stupid circus! MLB has lost the little credibility they once had! The owners do not care about baseball’s image! They care only about taking in anti-trust-protected profits!”
 
So there you have it.  One for. One against.
 
For the moment, I am watching the Mets.
What else I got to do?

Dom Smith homers in Fenway. Will any of these exploits count if MLB has to cancel this season?