It may turn out that in the face of COVID-19 that Major League Baseball (MLB) later may be viewed as intrepid. The virus rages. College Fall sports schedules are being canceled left and right, and the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), which is the usher of all extra curricular activities, sports and non-sports, was expected earlier this week to take a stern look at its Board meeting Wednesday this week at all sides of the issue.
Some observers see the IHSA postponing all Fall activities with the idea that the Fall Sports could be played simultaneously as the Spring sports in 2021. It would mean the belief is that COVID-19 may be diminished next year and playing football in the Spring, along with all Fall sports is making the best of a bad situation.
Few are fully clairvoyant, so we must make decisions based on the best and latest information. Could the IHSA Wednesday have delayed a decision for two weeks, which would bring us to August 12? Fall sports practices were scheduled to begin in early August.
In Major League Baseball earlier this week, the Miami Marlins, based in Florida, which has the Nation’s worst pandemic numbers and a high spreading quotient of COVID-19, suffered from six players who tested positive from the virus. Two games were postponed amid the shortened 60-game schedule earlier in the week with the knowledge a spreading virus may cause more games to be missed.
The MLB Hall of Fame celebration, annually in late July in Cooperstown, N.Y., long ago was postponed. The schedule now is to hold the induction in 2021 along with next year’s class. The induction will be Sunday, July 26, the end of a four-day celebration. This year’s celebration was to have been July 21.
This year’s class includes retired Chicago White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, who left the booth full-time following the 2018 season.
Harrelson is the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Media Award. Harrelson was a longtime broadcaster for the White Sox, following short stints with the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. He was a top player for nine years until he broke a leg to end his career in 1970. His best year was in 1967 when helped lead the Red Sox to the 1967 Word Series championship as the starting first baseman.
The other members of the 2020 Class include Derek Jeter, shortstop for the New York Yankees, 1995-2014; Larry Walker, 1989-2005; Ted Simmons, 1968-1988; and Marvin Miller, the late baseball players union chief executive.
Jeter earned 396 of 397 votes on year after Yankee relief pitcher, Mariano Rivera last season became the first player with a unanimous vote for his election. Jeter’s lifetime batting average was .310 with 260 home runs.
Walker played 17 years with Montreal, Colorado, St. Louis and put together a lifetime batting average of .313 with 3,465 hits.
Simmons played with St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Atlanta as a catcher and first baseman. His lifetime average was .285 with 248 home runs and 2472 runs driven in.
Baseball will find a way to survive, however, will this season find a ay to be completed. Carelessness within the bubble of the teams may not allow all games to be played.
Two Division III college conferences released information Monday this week, that it will postpone all Fall conference games in all sports. Both the CCIW (College Conference of Wisconsin and Illinois) and the NACC (Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference) have schools in Illinois and Wisconsin. Each conference president expressed regret and each allowed for the possibility that limited games could be played in non-contact sports, but in conference play.