It was only Tuesday that I thought the clubhouse access debate was kinda pointless, because the coronavirus was going to pose much bigger problems for baseball in short order.
Sure enough, in the matter of several hours, the NCAA closed off the upcoming men's and women's basketball tournaments to fans, and the NBA suspended its season because Rudy Gobert is a giant dumbass.
OK, that's only half true. He's a giant dumbass, but if he wasn't Patient Zero for the NBA, somebody else would be. Look at Fred Hoiberg, keeling over courtside at the Big Ten Tournament.
(Hoiberg only had the flu, but it's still an example of competition driving people to work when they shouldn't.)
The mistake leagues are making is assuming that players and coaches don't participate in the same society as everybody else. The fans aren't the only outsiders athletes interact with, and the sports themselves force them to interact with each other. If Rudy Gobert didn't happen, somebody with Bryce Harper's attitude would've made it happen.
"I live, man," the Phillies slugger said late Tuesday morning. "I don't worry about a disease or a virus. I live my life. I'm doing everything the same. I'm shaking people's hands, I'm high-fiving. I'm healthy. I'm 27. The people that are affected, it's a lot of older and maybe some young, as well. But I just live my life."
The leagues don't really stand a chance right now. It's just that there aren't many people around who have lived through anything like this, so now it's only a matter of whether the people in charge believe what they're seeing fast enough to make correct decisions.
Long story short, so what if Edwin Encarnación has a sore hip. He's going to have plenty of time to heal up.
