Today, Wednesday, was the first day of school here in Portland, Oregon. Because of COVID, the kids all assembled in the field outside the school and entered the building in lines, class by class, one at a time. As I was watching my son figure out which line was his, a woman I recognized through her mask as a parent I’d talked to in the before-times came up to me. She smiled, or I think she did, and said hello. We commiserated about the normal worries of any first day of school. Then she said, “I hope we’re not making a huge mistake. My friend just died of COVID last week and I’m worried about the kids.”
I stood there watching them mill around in the field, all masked, but hugging, poking, and grabbing at one another, like middle school kids have always done forever, as her words washed over me. Is our desperate search for normalcy blinding us to the danger of sending our kids to in-person school in a raging pandemic? Are we so collectively tired of this that we’re putting our loved ones at risk? Are we making a huge mistake?
None of that has anything to do with the Red Sox, except of course it does. Yesterday, after singling in a run to give the Red Sox what would be a short-lived lead over the never-not-annoying Rays, Xander Bogaerts was pulled from the game. Cameras showed him warming up at shortstop for the start of the half inning in the field before getting waved in by manager Alex Cora. A few innings later it was announced Bogaerts had tested positive for COVID.
And it wasn’t an isolated incident, instead it’s another drop of water in a tsunami of COVID. As Peter Abraham put it in the Boston Globe,
The Sox took the field against the first-place Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night without leadoff hitter Kiké Hernández, four key members of their bullpen, and two coaches.
And even that undersells it. Relievers Matt Barnes, Martin Perez, and Hirokazu Sawamura have tested positive, as has infielder Christian Arroyo. The Red Sox are in a lot of trouble on the field, but somehow, they are in even more trouble off it.
It’s easy to think of these COVID positives as injuries, and they are in the most general sense, but in another more real way, each of these people has a very serious illness, one that has killed 4.5 million people around the world. There is very real risk here, risk that was the consequence of playing this baseball season.
I’ve mostly avoided writing about COVID here because, maybe selfishly and not unlike you, I live it every day. I’ve been very lucky in that nobody I know has been seriously sickened with the virus yet, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t infected every aspect of my life, and I’m sure you are no different. And so I’ve mostly avoided writing about COVID here because the last thing I want to write about is COVID. Also, it isn’t lost on me that after a full day of dealing with COVID-related everything, it’s probably the last thing you want to read about, too.
And yet, COVID has a way of making what we want irrelevant. So here we are.
The Red Sox are fighting for their playoff lives without some of their best players who might be fighting for their actual real lives. I have no idea who on the team has been vaccinated or not, but I hope all of them were able to get the vaccine. It won’t keep you from getting the virus, but it all-but-prevents the virus from killing you, and the more that I think about it, the more I realize how lucky we’ve been that nothing that serious has happened yet during this baseball season.
These are hard words to write. In my mind I keep trying to bring this back around to baseball - there sure are a lot of topics to talk about right now - but I’m sorry, I can’t take my mind off of what these players and their families might be going through.
There is lots of work to be done this off-season, something this past month of baseball has made clearer and clearer. The team needs more of everything, starting and relief pitching, better hitting, better base-running, much much better defense, smarter managing, and a more opportunistic front office. How all that will come together or even if it will is an open question. But all of that is secondary right now. Right now, I’m hopeful everyone ill gets healthy. I’m hopeful there are no long term complications for those infected.
Mostly, I’m hopeful we haven’t all made a huge mistake.
After what ERod went through last year, I find it so hard to believe any of them wouldn’t choose the vaccine vs heart issues and not being able to walk for months. I now live in SW Florida and the refrigerated truck behind the hospital makes me wish ppl would protect themselves with the added bonus of protecting others! Win/Win!
I remember writing on Allan's blog last year that the Baseball Season lasts until "somebody" gets seriously ill in Hospital ...... or dies .......
At that point it all becomes irrelevant & we wonder what we are doing .......
So far, thankfully, that hasn't happened ..... but it still might ? And if it does, then everybody will feel somewhat "guilty" that they went along with this
In my eyes, Covid is the Master of Perspective - it makes us wonder about hindsight BEFORE it happens ..... so much of what we took for granted, is now an "arguable risk"
That is precisely why so many Whackjobs & Nuts are now against Science ....... because they struggle with risk & fear & can't possibly be so blatantly reminded of it !!!
FEAR is the real Pandemic, as FDR said nearly a Century ago & the "Right" ( the Not Correct ! ) have been exploiting this for decades
Fear of this
Fear of that
Fear of Immigrants
Fear of Gays
Fear of Disabled
Fear of Women
Fear of Foreigners
Fear of Muslims
Fear of Difference
Fear of Change
Fear of Progress
Fear of The Future
It's all the same BULLDUST from the exact same Playbook
Now it's just a plain & simple Fear of Science
Fear of having any Brains more like it .......
I am here on an isolated Farm near Pinjarra, a fair way from anyone & anywhere & am extremely Lucky to have gotten my 2 Pfizer Shots so early on & feel very lucky to be about as safe as one could be in the current circumstances
But I feel great Sorrow when I look at the State of the World & the Disadvantage & Exploitation that Covid has "magnified" in relation to Information, Healthcare, Science & Pure Misinformation & Nonsense.
Some "Mistakes" now have deadly consequences
So I wish you Matt & your Readers "all the best", for we fear, you are going to need some good fortune to survive this unscathed ?