Take Me Out to Fewer Ball Games

Michael Reagan on Apr 1, 2021

The Pandemic of 2020 was a tragedy for the whole world.

But our all-out war against the coronavirus taught Americans a bunch of important lessons.

It proved that our political system in Washington is a partisan train wreck.

It proved that you can’t teach kids by Zoom as well as you can in person.

It proved that the CDC doesn’t know what it’s doing and Blue State governors will issue sweeping lockdowns even when they have no idea how much collateral harm they’ll do to the rest of society.

And on a much, much lighter note - and as a way to mark Opening Day of the 2021 Major League Baseball season – the pandemic proved to us that America’s former national past-time doesn’t need a 162-game season.

Last year, because of lockdowns, teams played only 60 fan-free games, but the shorter season was probably good for everybody except ushers, vendors and betting parlors.

I’m not the first baseball fan who watches the Weather Channel regularly to point out that starting the season in April and ending it in November in North America is crazy.

For instance, on Thursday in Chicago the Cubs and Pirates started their opener at 2:30 p.m. with the temperature at 34 and a wind chill in the low 20s.

The game slogged on for nearly four hours and the Pirates won. No word yet on survivors.

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