If Major League Baseball had watched me type with frozen fingers and listened to me talk through chattering teeth at various Opening Days over the years, we wouldn’t be bemoaning the predicted loss of two months of the season due to the coronavirus right now.
We’d be warming our extremities over the comforting thought that the beginning of the season, which already had been moved to May 1 under my plan, would only be delayed another month or so by the pandemic. Even though baseball is being pitched as a salve in these dark times, we in cold weather cities know, deep down, that playing games in snow and frigid temperatures is about as natural as a penguin applying sunscreen.