On the baseball side of things, California’s edict of no more than 250 people at a sporting event at least through the end of the month could impact the start of the season for teams scheduled to play there. Spring training games are still ongoing with fans in attendance as of the writing of this post. Some teams have recalled their scouts and are curtailing travel for employees. There is supposed to be a meeting Friday for MLB decision makers to address how to proceed in response to the pandemic.
Meanwhile, last night I turned on the TV to watch the OKC Thunder play a home game against the Utah Jazz. Just before tip off both teams were sent back to the locker rooms. The game was postponed indefinitely about 30 minutes later. A Jazz player, Rudy Gobert, has tested positive. Suddenly the Jazz find themselves quarantined at their hotel while everyone else on the team gets tested too. They’ll probably go home via charter flights after the results are back. It’s the first positive test here in OKC. Thanks, Rudy. The whole NBA season is now suspended for at least two weeks as several teams, refs and a bunch of reporters all have to home quarantine too due to being exposed to Gobert. This guy, earlier this week, made light of the pandemic and made a point of touching every reporter’s equipment at a press conference—and he’s the one who ended up getting sick. Idiot. The good news is he isn’t that ill himself and so should be fine. Hopefully nobody he exposed to the disease will get seriously ill either. BTW, I say at least two weeks for the league wide shut down because China’s league got shut down, and is set to resume next month, after about 10 weeks off.
Most respiratory virus epidemics abate as the weather gets warmer. Let’s all hope this one does follow that pattern and that we have a nice, warm spring.
Fan Interference 
It says right here, in the baseball section of the Necronomicon, that the lords of Baseball, ably advised and abetted by the Old Ones, are going to suspend the season for an indeterminate period of time when they coagulate tomorrow for their emergency Star Chamber.
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MLB has to be in high level discussions about shutting the entire thing down. Any suspension of the season will be basically double as players will need a good smiling if time to get back into a mini-spring training and there’s no room at the end of the season to push games back. The best thing MLB can do right now is announce a 30 day suspension which would likely mean another 2 weeks minimum before they are able to play any games. May effectively cut the first two months if the season out. But it’s the right thing to do. Send everyone home and tell them not to travel.
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I bet Rudy Gobert thought he was being funny, but he’s French. It’s obvious the French don’t understand funny because they thought Jerry Lewis was funny.
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Yeah, too bad they were deprived of The Day the Clown Cried, at least so far. That would have inspired a dog meat cassoulet cook-off.
Meanwhile, season postponed. Blow the dust orf your relict Strat-O-Matic cards and bring out the walrus ivory dice. That, or go back to twiddling your thumbs.
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Happy Friday the 13th everyone!
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At least it’s Friday. Monday the 13th is the worst of both worlds.
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All the circuses are shutting down. Considering the state of the paper-products aisles in the supermarkets, will “bread” be far behind?
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The shelves at my local Publix today looked like the day before a hurricane. I felt like the daddy from The Road in there.
I thought I’d get around it with Instacart but they’re booked solid until Sunday. The whole store pongs of disinfectant. And I need to go back there because I forgot a fennel bulb!
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This is a first for me: I got a warning today for doing my job. They decided at the last minute not to open our office to the public and I didn’t have a chance to cancel my appointments, so when they showed up, I met with them. And my boss disciplined me for it. The world has gone crazy.
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Indeed
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Three days ago I saw on ABC a report that all clinics that use a certain national lab chain could test for COV-19. The company I work for uses that chain…and we had zero test kits at. the time. We actually did get some kits yesterday, but. not instructions on how to use them. We didn’t get the instructions until today.
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I guess the run on test kits is as bad as for TP.
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Also, this makes me a little proud of the Tigers:
https://www.mlb.com/news/tigers-ownership-paying-part-time-staff-for-canceled-spring-games
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If MLB in general follows California’s lead in not allowing more than 250 people at any sporting event, this will give the Feesh an unfair advantage, as they are used to playing in front of that size crowd already.
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Tell me a-a-a-a-alllllll about it. In fact I wrote something very similar the other day on the Fish Stripes web site.
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In the interest of social distancing, I have switched exclusively to a baked beans, sauerkraut and dark beer diet. Maybe MLB concessions could do the same.
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no chili dogs? pickled eggs?
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