The Runback: We Need It Badly
Baseball season is not America's biggest problem. But we still need it.
Welcome to another week of The Runback. Have you been enjoying The Duckpin? Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you want to write for us? Let me know at theduckpin@gmail.com. And please be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Thanks in advance.
News and Politics
Teachers Union Demands “Homeschooling Lite” for Maryland’s New School Year: The teacher’s union “Homeschool Lite” model involving all virtual learning comes at a pronounced social equity cost.
Can We Not? Let's Get Through 2020 before worrying about 2024
You Can't Spell Fundraiser Without F-U-N: Fundraising emails are beyond parody
Sports
MLB Watchability Index Part 1: Which team should you watch besides yours?
The Elephant in the Room: College football finds itself on the brink with COVID19
Food and Drink
The Cow Fart Acid Trip: What is Burger King Doing?
Welcome to Maine Beer: One of the best beer states in the nation deserves your attention
Entertainment
I Watched It So You Don’t Have To: Independence Day: Resurgence
Coming Soon
The Duckpin Podcast is coming this September! Subscribe now on YouTube, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcast content.
The Monday Thought
It’s the dog days of summer. It’s been a tumultuous year, to say this least. COVID-19 is still spreading into new parts of the country. We still don’t know (at least here in Maryland) what all of our schools are going to do this fall. We’re having an election that is showing just how divided we are politically.
But you know what we do have this week. Hopefully? Baseball.
Professional sports have been back, in some form of fashion, for a few weeks. The MLS is Back Tournament started ten days ago for Major League Soccer in their bubble in Orlando. The NBA has been preparing their own bubble in Orlando for their playoffs. UFC is running fights on an island in Abu Dhabi. The NHL is prepping two bubble sites, one in Edmonton, and one in Toronto, for their playoffs.
But none of them are baseball.
Baseball is in the unique position of being the first sport to start its regular season after the world stopped due to the pandemic, as well as the first sport to try to operate outside of a bubble by playing in their regular home stadia. The changes are obvious: larger rosters to start the season, players not currently in the game being socially distanced in the stands, some players and coaches sitting out the season. The Blue Jays being forced to play in a city to be named later (seriously, that is a mess. Is it Buffalo? Is it Dunedin, FL? Is it Pittsburgh? Are they a traveling roadshow? They have no idea).
Even the TV broadcasts aren’t safe from being changed this year.
At the end of the day, none of that even matters. Baseball means, for as long as we get it this year, normalcy.
In our family, we often wind up the day watching the Orioles game on TV (assuming we’re not at the game, which this year we certainly will not be). The lack of Orioles games on television this year probably more than anything else has been the second biggest day-to-day change in our lives as a family, trailing only working from home itself.
As I said previously, baseball is not America’s biggest concern right now. But a return to at least some small chunk of normalcy is what baseball can bring. And we need that. We need it badly.
I’d much rather argue balls and strikes than argue about the latest Trump Tweet.
I’d rather be concerned with bullpen usage than with violence in the streets.
I’d rather hope that Chris Davis can get keep his average above .200 than fret that the infection rate is rising.
(Incidentally, the last day Chris Davis entered a game hitting above .200 was October 1, 2017.
Even if just for a small period of time, baseball can give us a brief escape from the nonsense, grief, and anger of this Year of Our Lord 2020.
Play Ball.