The slog from the first temperature check to opening day, a rigorous physical, economic and psychological gauntlet that is The COVID Kilometer, got off its feet for just a moment Tuesday afternoon.
Then the protocols were less intrusive, the long-stemmed swabs not as invasive, the jittery first steps yesterday’s gripe. They were, all of them, for a breezy moment that braved 20 minutes, merely the necessary steps to a baseball season that surely will be a good time and quite possibly, as you’ll learn, historic.
In case that message hadn’t yet been shouted from the mezzanines of enough ghostly ballparks (or had been lost in practices canceled on account of mail), New York Mets star Pete Alonso showed up to his conference call with reporters two minutes early.