On Sunday, Major League Baseball concluded a complex, but safe and successful regular season like no other.
After the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals had early COVID-19 outbreaks that delayed their seasons — and affected many others teams — almost the entire left-leaning media and many fans said baseball simply should end the season.
Thankfully that didn’t happen.
Only a few games were postponed the final six weeks of play, all have since been made up, and after a fun and exciting 70 days of baseball, the largest and most unique playoffs in history commence Tuesday (with Miami and St. Louis, ironically and impressively, both in the mix, having overcome so much).
Minnesota Twins announcer Dick Bremer said during Sunday’s season finale that Cleveland Indians pitchers Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac’s irresponsible behavior in early August “changed and maybe saved the 2020 season.”
He believes players started holding each other accountable and basically nothing has gone wrong since. Cleveland’s Oliver Perez, who’s 39 and has pitched in the Majors nearly 20 seasons, was a mature voice in the matter.
Other sports have also fared well, likely to the chagrin of “Corona Bros” in the doom-and-gloom media and society.
The NHL playoffs, played in “bubbles” across Canada since Aug. 1, end this week, with no issues; the NBA playoffs, contested in an Orlando bubble, conclude in the next fortnight, also with no major issues. They resumed games July 30.
And most of us are aware that the NFL is moving along fine through three weeks. College football is too.
With the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences reversing their capricious season cancellations from August, CNN must’ve been perturbed to run a story this weekend, noting all top-tier college football conferences will play this fall.
Media, politicians, and assorted doom merchants can cheer for cases, but society is moving along with or without them. Freedom by its very nature brings risk yet also great reward. Enjoying sports as a distraction from the last seven months of tumult is one such reward for many Americans.
A.J. Kaufman
A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.
