Yesterday at noon I turned on the TV to watch Bayern Munich play Union Berlin – live sports! – and turned it off after about 15 minutes. The empty stands made the action on the field seem inconsequential. Fans, I realized, give sports not just money but meaning.
It recently occurred to me that this virus has saved the Houston Astros from a season of away-game boos.
Dave Hyde had two articles in yesterday’s Sun-Sentinel about Don Shula, and each contained an interesting story. The first was about the time Larry Csonka, before a game in Oakland, found the Raiders playbook in the visiting team’s locker room and Shula immediately threw it in the trash. To have looked at it, the coach explained, would have been cheating.
The second story was more personal. After Shula’s wife died, Hyde wrote a column about her. The next time they met, Shula thanked him for the column and then, as if Hyde were a lineman who had just given a key block, he tapped him on the butt and said “Good job.”
Whenever I find myself among soccer fans, the talk inevitably turns to Liverpool, a team that people speak about in tones that border on reverence. In a New York Times feature on personal heroes last year, Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver wrote about the team’s forward, Mohamed Salah.
So yesterday at 3 pm I stopped everything to watch Liverpool’s Champions League round of 16 match against Atlético Madrid. They lost 1-0. (Though they did control the ball two-thirds of the game.)
The Houston Astros players who engaged in sign stealing have been given immunity because of their cooperation in the investigation, an action that makes Major League Baseball a bit like the Mafia.