Maybe you felt that way all along. Stalwart in your pandemic pessimism that will probably prove to be realism, you didn’t let yourself buy into the implicit hope of warm weather or get distracted by the labor strife that threatens to derail Major League Baseball if the disease doesn’t. But for me, it was a confluence of events today that served to highlight how precarious a hypothetical season always was, and how carelessly the country has squandered the chance to contain the coronavirus as quickly as expert understanding would allow.
First, a report that eight people at the Philadelphia Phillies facility in Clearwater, Florida — five players and three staffers — along with many of their family members tested positive for COVID-19.