play ball!

I characterize myself as a realist.

-Dr. Anthony Fauci

Today is Opening Day for the 2020 Major League Baseball season.  This evening, the Yankees shall begin their campaign on the road against the defending World Series Champions, the Washington Nationals.  Gerritt Cole is making his first start for the Bombers and Max Scherzer takes the ball for the Nats.  Two studs in the role of starting pitcher and a third stud toeing the rubber just long enough to throw out the first pitch: 

Photo Credit: 

Getty Images

I love baseball.  Typically, Opening Day is one of my favorite days of the year.  This year? Not so much. I have missed baseball.  That much is undeniable.  However, I cannot shake the feeling in my gut that our desire to grab fast to something - to anything - that makes us feel good in these historically trying times, is clouding our better judgment.  I hope like hell I am wrong.  I hope like hell that the 2020 MLB Season, starting today, is played to its conclusion in the autumn with a World Series Champion being crowned and that it is played by teams of fully-healthy players from Opening Day to the season's final out.  MLB has two teams in Florida, which as of yesterday afternoon, reported on its own Florida Department of Health COVID-19 page (under the heading "Current Situation in Florida") 379,619 total COVID-19 cases, including 22,243 people hospitalized.  In this abbreviated, sixty-game regular season the Yankees play the Rays ten times and the Marlins three times. 

There is no second chance to make a first impression. 

-AK