Review: Life Without Sports
It’s been nine days since the NBA suspended its season in the wake of Rudy Gobert testing positive for COVID-19. If you’re anything like me, that was the moment when the threat of the virus went from worrisome to completely unprecedented. Wait, like all the games? ALL the games?? It quickly seemed that MLB would have no choice but to follow suit, which put the enormity of the life changes we were about to undergo into clear focus.
For many of us, this is the first extended stretch of our adult lives without sports to keep us company. I was a kid during the baseball strike in 1994-95, and still a teenager when sports were briefly suspended after 9/11; for me the lack of baseball is not a defining memory of either of those periods. I suspect that even if that isn’t the case for others, the lack of competitive diversions will hit fans a lot harder this time. We’re staring down the barrel of several months without the thing we watch, talk about, and read about every single day.
Of course, there’s a great irony in the current lack of baseball and basketball and hockey and soccer and MMA and whatever other athletic activity you’re missing at this moment in time. There’s bad news every day, the future is unknowable, and we’re all full of anxiety… it sure would be nice to watch Luis Robert right now!
Alas, MLB (and the other leagues) obviously made the correct decision in shuttering. Take one look at the dire situation in Italian hospitals and it’s easy to see why we collectively need to take every precaution possible. But that doesn’t change the fact there’s an acute emptiness in the sportsy part of my brain… those grey cells are used to a lot of action.
So what do I think of life without sports? Well, it’s certainly quieter. I was of course aware that I spend a lot of time watching sports, particularly baseball and basketball. But I don’t think I had quite realized the pure volume (both amount of space AND degree of sound) that sports occupy in my life. Many of the podcasts I listen to have ground to a halt with nothing new to talk about. I haven’t flipped on ESPN or the MLB Network or NBATV in days, even as background noise, because… why?
All that noise has been replaced with a combination of silence, music, and other forms of TV — including a surprising amount of Reality TV, which honestly (and sadly) comes closest to fulfilling the thrill of sports. This has been a downgrade in my quality of life, but also a pretty big upgrade in my girlfriend’s. Pros and cons.
Speaking of my girlfriend, she likes to remind me that all the sports teams I root for are terrible and bring me nothing but pain. She’s not wrong. The White Sox haven’t made the playoffs in 11 years. My NBA team, the Phoenix Suns, is in the midst of a comparatively mild 10 year drought. Prior to this season, their last four winning percentages were .280, .293, .256 and a league-worst .232 last year. College basketball is also big where I’m from, but my Arizona Wildcats haven’t made the Final Four since 2001, a stretch that includes five extremely painful Elite Eight losses and five equally painful First Round exits. You get the idea.
Nevertheless, this sudden and extended lack of sports has reminded me what I love about them. The constancy. The routine of long season transitioning to long season. The comforting knowledge that when I’m done with work for the day I can almost always pop on a game. The many websites and analysts and writers who entertain me and enrich my knowledge, everyone from Jim Margalus to Charles Barkley. These are the things I miss most.
The next few months, maybe even the next few years, are probably going to mostly suck. Heck, the last few months and years have mostly sucked. There are a lot of reasons for that, but losing the comfort that sports bring to millions is going to compound any pain we’re already feeling.
I give life without sports zero stars. I can’t wait to talk about Luis Robert again.
Author
I am gonna be blatantly honest… I am dying without baseball. Working from home for me hasn’t been great at all. I am a hermit, so going to the office everyday, follow a routine, say hi to coworkers, my daily banter about baseball with a couple of them… it keeps me sane. Also, I need fresh air because I am allergic to cats, and I have two cats (I really like cats)…so getting out helps me.
Fortunately, I have my brothers a couple of blocks away from here, so I can walk over there, and talk with someone. I haven’t been watching TV lately. I find that watching too much TV dulls my brain and depresses me. I have been reading too, and mostly listening to music.
I hope you guys are doing better than me, but yet again, complain we shouldn’t as many people in the world aren’t doing swimmingly as we cope with this virus. I can’t wait to get back to normal life. Get back to watch baseball games. I was so exited with the prospects of this season with a competent roster. I was also thinking about making plans to go to Chicago this year and catch a game or two…maybe go to one of those meetups you guys always do.
sighs
En fin…
sighs
For you guys fans of music, I share a couple of new bands discoveries I have made recently that I really really like:
BC Camplight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR0EVWnG0rQ)
Still Corners
Stay well everyone 🙂
Both those songs have a bit of a Pink Floyd vibe going on.
Makes sense as I love Pink Floyd
Gotta read the byline. I thought Jim made the mistake of mentioning his girlfriend right after he just got married.
My wife and I have worked together at home for the past 32 years, so that part isn’t a big adjustment. We’re isolating ourselves to the greatest extent possible, both out of social responsibility and self-interest. We’re in at-risk groups.
We moved GrinnellKate back home, both to monitor her activity and to combat the incredible loneliness of living alone and having all your social supports removed.
Our days so far have consisted of digesting too much depressing news, frittering away time online, watching Netflix, reading, listening to music, organizing a little (should be a lot), cooking, working a little, playing board games, skyping with our son, and washing our hands and wiping down surfaces. Yesterday I got out and talked to neighbors from a safe distance. Last night we played the game Just One via Skype with our son and his girlfriend.
We have the advantage that we like each other. I’d hate to be holed up with people who consistently got on my nerves. Quite honestly I think I could deal with all the isolating measures pretty easily if I had access to my sports. All in all, though, we’re doing well. We have no idea if we’ll avoid the virus or survive it if we contract it. We’re doing all we can to stack the deck in our favor. Right now, I’m optimistic. That’s subject to change with the next report I hear.
Glad you’re staying safe. My parents took some convincing.
Thanks. We didn’t really need any convincing, but my son has been calling us regularly to check on how we’re doing. He was insistent we should bring our daughter home. It’s heart-warming to see how our little boy is now the adult in the family.
Good for you and anyone reading this for staying on your parents.
MLB Network has stepped it up a bit. Fewer talking heads shows, more “classic” games. Yesterday they showed an old broadcast of Mark Fidrych taking down the Yankees. It was great!
That was followed up by an MLB Network countdown of the top 25 personalities in baseball. Plenty of Chicago representation: Bill Veeck, Ozzie, Hawk, Harry.
In summation: don’t sleep on MLB Network right now. It’s helping me to fill the hole a little. And I haven’t had to hear Harold Reynolds’s inane blathering for at least a week!
I watched an inning of the game last night. Fidrych looked great.
They also showed my all-time favorite Cubs game from 1979, where the home team scored 22 runs and lost with the wind blowing out at 17mph at Wrigley.
I actually have already pulled away from sports because of several factors before this.
1. My teams are terrible. My favorite teams all decided to self destruct at the same time. They are Purdue, Bulls, Bears and the White Sox. They have recently improved but still I don’t feel comfortable jumping on the bandwagon.
2. The NFL, NBA and MLB have all gone downhill. Offense is out of control and reffing is terrible. The NBA’s reffing has made it completely unwatchable. It feels like professional wrestling now.
3. ESPN has become unwatchable. I can’t take listening to what Lebron wore yesterday in the middle of the baseball season and things like that. The fact that they have to talk about politics like they are some expert or that I care what they think also made me turn it off.
As for what I’m doing now. I bought Spotify, have been discovering new music, took up whittling, have started reading more and have been hanging out with friends.
I guess I’m in the minority here in that I’m just not that engaged with sports outside of the Sox and by extension baseball as a whole. Haven’t watched a whole basketball game since Jordan was on the Bulls (unless the last act of Uncut Gems counts). Football simply bores me to death, the Bears being perpetually terrible doesn’t help. Hockey I’ll get into with good company but not so much on my own.
I’m as bummed as any of us we have to wait even longer to see the Sox be relevant and exciting again, but since the season never started it’s hard to say I’m really feeling the absence just yet. But, we’re also only just now starting to see what things are going to be like for the immediate future here. Hopefully we get everyone we can on board with the mitigation efforts, since that seems to be the best (or only) hope at the moment. I feel like if we get baseball at all this year it will be a blessing, but I hope to see every last one of ya cheering out in the stands as soon as it’s safe.
“I give life without sports zero stars” I assume you are referencing Andy Daly’s show “Review”
This indeed would be perfect for that show. Although I’d rather watch Forest deal with this, than myself.
The scene where he goes into space and takes his Father in Law( Fred Willard)along because it was his life’s desire. Knocked me right out of my chair.
Anyway April is going to be a long month.
April is the cruelest month…
Yeah, but December boys got it bad
No Baseball and no racing sucks. Whats worse is we still might have 2-6 months of this to go. Im usually a pretty introverted person that works at home and likes staying at home anyway so this is mostly no big deal for me on a breaking up the routine standpoint. Outside of the obvious potential for a family member to get this and pass away the only concern i have over this is the long term effect on the economy. I realize this is pretty poor thing to say with people getting really sick and dying out there but this whole virus thing had gotten a little tiresome to me. I go out of my way to avoid seeing news about it as much as possible now.
I dont know how those people (like my dad) who just watch their news channel of choice all day and not lose their minds.
No daytime TV. That sucks the life out of you. I understand the folks that don’t make it through are 2 to 1 males. I told my wife her chances of cashing in that life insurance policy have gone up.
So… that’s nice.
We spoke with our financial advisor yesterday about our life insurance. I wondered if a pandemic might nullify the terms. He assured me it wouldn’t, to the extent that anyone can assure anything right now.
Luckily my TV is being used for the The Show 20 90% of the time. Ill pop on MLB network if a classic game i want to watch is on with a little espn/nfl network to see the free agency stuff. My dad who i live with is just MSNBC all day till the ABC news at 5. Its made me want to leave my room less since im tired of hearing of all the stuff (That quite frankly isnt relevant to us within this household most of the time.) each time i go to get something to drink.
My only real fear is the risk of dragging this virus into the house right to my dad who is right in the crosshairs for the deadly aspect of it when i have to go outside for food or something like that.
This is our first week of lockdown and I’m seeing interesting things happening.
When Social networking Apps first appeared, it seemed like they might bring us closer. “Hey what’s Pete from high school up to these days?” But I think it can be argued that they pushed us farther apart (heads in phones when sitting around a table with each other). We saw this happen in our family. Each person doing a thing in their phone while in the same room is NOT doing something TOGETHER.
Now with the lockdown two things are happening. In the family we are forced to really plan our days – schooling for daughter, work for us, individual exercise for each person ( can’t go out together and recommended to keep the kid at home) and plan family activities in the evening. Game nights for instance. Admittedly we have more time without a commute. So more real interaction as we are forced to stay together without outside distractions.
Second, more interactions with coworkers to help keep interacting alive. It actually brings us closer as people, seeing and talking about our personal lives. And ironically using the same social apps that originally pushed us apart.
So easy access to people on apps pushed us apart, but forced isolation is actually bringing us together.
Maybe when this is over we’ll get the right mix and be closer together when we are actually physically together.
Apologize if this has already been commented on, but Chris Sale and the Red Sox are major league a*******:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/chris-sale-will-have-tommy-john-surgery-after-all/
That article mentions something I have been wondering about: that players won’t have their normal access to the facilities and resources they use to stay in shape. Makes any possibility for this season tougher
This isn’t baseball — nothing can compensate for losing baseball — but here’s a sport that hasn’t been cancelled (yet) and is a helluva lot of fun to watch.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/03/19/australian-rules-football-rules/
Australian Rules Football is perhaps the only live sporting event being televised in the world today. They have started their season, and you can subscribe to “all access” or (I think) see weekly games on Fox Sports 1 & 2.
Many will remember that when ESPN was first getting started, the showed a lot of “footy” games, which is where I got hooked on the sport. If you’ve never tried it, think of a cross between soccer and rugby, except lots of scoring.
You can subscribe for a week to “all access” for “free”, otherwise it’s about $17/US per month.
Had the pleasure of going to an Aussie Rules match when I was in Melbourne. Fantastically entertaining. Such an open field sport. Highly recommend.
I could have written this exact response. For me it was in 2000. You?
ESPN showed cricket from New Zealand about a week ago, which made me nostalgic about a place I used to live while wondering how confused it made American college basketball fans tuning in.