Is baseball the tip of the iceberg or, rather, the new morality?

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he expected positive tests once the season resumed with games and no fans. But did he expect 11 positives on one team the first weekend, as the Miami Marlins outbreak has called off three games to date?

Meanwhile, the NFL has wiped out its entire exhibition season, which was just a revenue producer detested by most players who had their roster spots locked up. And will the NBA bubble burst?

All this may bode poorly for college athletics, but as with the pros — it may be money talks, so no big-time sports walk. For now.

And, let’s be clear, this has nothing to do with whether public schools should open. Even private schools with large endowments aren’t sure they can pay their way into protection because frankly none of us know much after nearly six months of this mess.

Sports are in a different category for two reasons. No. 1, there may be enough money to shield enough players among the professional leagues and the Power 5 college conferences, so they can all at least try to get through this season with minimum damage. Second, the country’s collective sanity may be hinging on whether sports come back — at least on TV — as the diversion we all need, especially those who are mostly homebound.

Obviously, we let this pandemic get so out of control that the experts can’t even venture a guess about how long it will last. But not trying to bring back big-time sports, which has the most money to risk a return and the most money to lose in a complete shutdown, doesn’t seem like the right choice either.

Major colleges with the resources to test, test and test, could lose so much money for their schools, which are already losing millions on the academic, medical and research sides, they almost have to try.

If it doesn’t work, or gets halted midway through the football season, they can at least say we gave it a shot and then go to Plan B. If they don’t try — they may end up regretting that, too.

 

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