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It was the rare day in that soggy, soggy summer where right from the start you clicked on your phone’s weather app and all you saw was one thing: the sun. Alone. Glorious. Unambiguous. Unblocked by clouds, not bothered by rain droplets or lightning. The rest of the weekend, of course, seems sketchy and uneven. By for the course this summer.
Not that day. Just sunshine in the sky, and in the forecast, that day. All day. In the Bronx, the forecast for 7:05 p.m. was sunny and 86 degrees. A light breeze, maybe, but no storm clouds looming. No storm is brewing.
At 7:05 am, Domingo German was going to throw a baseball in the direction of Kiké Hernandez, there would be a full house at Yankee Stadium, the smells of beer and hot dogs in the air, and even Yankees fans seized with it. unusual pessimism. the last few weeks could sense, by then, that everything was going to be really good.
For once through that soggy, wet summer, we would have a perfect night for a baseball game, and the only one in town, the only one in the entire baseball program, was a good one, maybe the best.
The Red Sox vs. the Yankees.
Perfect. Just perfect.
Except it turned out not so perfect after all. Except at 7:05 p.m., there were no Yankees on the field, no Red Sox on the field, no referees. There were no fans in the stands. The doors never opened. The sun is lost. Once again, even in the midst of the bright sun, a shadow descended.
Game called.
Because of COVID.
“We are still vulnerable,” said Brian Cashman.
And we’re still in a time when the headlines can overwhelm us. Earlier today, USA Basketball said Bradley Beal, who is in the process of tracing contacts, would not be allowed to compete in the Tokyo Olympics. Double-vaccinated NFL Network announcer Rich Eisen announced he had tested positive. Los Angeles County, the nation’s largest county, said it would reinstate mandatory masks in public spaces this weekend.
Yankees-Red Sox, PPD, COVID.
Yes. We’re still vulnerable, not just to the virus itself, but to the soul-hungry punch that each of these items delivers. Our world is a better place for vaccines, and at least they seem to have blunted the disease deadline. But he still prowls among us. It can still obscure the sun on the brightest day of summer.
The Yankees have three confirmed cases – pitchers Nester Cortes Jr., Wandy Peralta and Jonathan Loaisiga. They have three daily players who are in the COVID protocol, awaiting lab results: Aaron Judge, Gio Urshela, Kyle Higashioka. None of this is good news.
But it’s Judge’s name that raises the greatest concern, as Judge spent the first part of the week at the MLB All-Star Game, an event that, if you didn’t know better, could have taken place in 2019. Full house at Coors Field. Smiling teammates, all freely interacting with each other. Not a problem in the air miles high.
Not all are vaccinated.
And so baseball is entering its most nervous time of the year, its most curious phase since last summer when teams such as the Cardinals and Marlins spent long periods of inactivity due to outbreaks of virus.
The Red Sox have announced that their five All-Stars are undergoing immediate testing – and admitted that at least one of them has not been vaccinated. Similar protocols will surely be imposed on the 28 teams whose seasons are set to resume on Friday night. And once again the sport is holding its breath.
“Disappointing and frustrating,” Yankees coach Aaron Boone put it. “Nobody wants to talk about it. We want to get back to normal. But some things are beyond our control. We must do our best with the circumstances and the hands given to us. “
We’ve been dealing with the same bad cards for 16 months. Things are getting better, much better. But they are not normal. Every once in a while we have a few happy weeks where we are allowed to forget about it. We take back our lives. We reconnect. We’re getting ready for a great night at the stadium, the Yankees versus the Sox, two former rivals, and a perfect night for baseball. Until he didn’t turn out to be so perfect after all.
Damn it.
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