March 11, 2020: The Sports World Is Shut Down

March 11, 2020: There were 4 NBA games played. The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 136-131 in overtime at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Detroit Pistons, 124-106 at the Wells Fargo Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia. The Charlotte Hornets beat the Miami Heat, 109-98 at the American Airlines Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami. And the Dallas Mavericks beat the Denver Nuggets, 113-97 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

There were 5 NHL games played. The New York Rangers lost to the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2 in overtime at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver. The Chicago Blackhawks beat the San Jose Sharks, 6-2 at the United Center in Chicago. The Winnipeg Jets beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-2 at Rogers Place in Edmonton. The Los Angeles Kings beat the Ottawa Senators, 3-2 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles. And the St. Louis Blues beat the Anaheim Ducks, 4-2 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Two Major League Soccer teams played games in the CONCACAF Champions League, both against teams from Mexico. New York City FC, yet again forced out of Yankee Stadium for reasons beyond their control -- at this point, a team that doesn't control its own venue looks really stupid -- played at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, home of their arch-rivals, who were happy to take the money of the richest team in MLS, and lost 1-0 to Tigres UANL of San Nicolás de los Garza. And Atlanta United lost 3-0 to Club América, at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.

And Major League Baseball was in Spring Training. The Yankees lost to the Miami Marlins, 3-1 at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida. The Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-3 at Clover Park (the new name of their Spring Training stadium since 1988) in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

The next day, March 12, 2020, was The Day Everything Stopped. The Coronavirus pandemic, known as COVID-19, had shut everything down. That day, I wrote this on Facebook: "Now, it has really gotten real. Disney has chosen safety over money, and is closing both Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida."

Disney chose safety over money. Donald Trump did not: He continued to call COVID a hoax, designed to hurt him in the election.

In the end, it didn't hurt him. His supporters came out to vote for him, anyway. The Democrats' get-out-the-vote effort, already in place before COVID, is what beat him: There were simply more of them than of the other side, and while COVID was one reason they came out, including in what turned out to be the key States, it was far from the only reason.

I had gotten my long-awaited 1st hip replacement on February 19, and was scheduled to start outpatient therapy when the shutdown came. On March 17, I wrote, "This is what my life has come to. I am still waiting for women to return my calls, but now, they are all doctors' receptionists."

And on April 5, I wrote, "I feel like I'm 14 again. The President is a 73-year-old greedy senile Republican the media covers for, current music mostly sucks, and the Yankees aren't winning the Pennant." Of course, at that point, we didn't know if the season would get started at all, and that anybody would win the Pennants. For the first time since the Strike of '94, we didn't know if baseball would get started again until the next season, or ever.

UPDATE: According to this source, over 1.1 million Americans died from COVID. We may never know how many would have lived had a vaccine been available sooner. It would take until June 2021 for the various vaccines to be available to all Americans. From then until this article, by Philip Bump, was published in The Washington Post on April 21, 2022, it had been estimated that 234,000 Americans had died from COVID after refusing to get vaccines.