There’s something missing from a new wave of bars opening around the world: Alcohol.

Aimed at the growing number of people exploring sobriety, the bars pour adult drinks like craft cocktails without the booze. At 0% Non-Alcohol Experience, a futuristic bar in Tokyo, patrons can sip a mix of non-alcoholic white wine, sake and cranberries from a sugar-rimmed glass. On a recent evening at Sans Bar in Austin, Texas, customers gathered at outdoor tables, enjoying live music, bottles of alcohol-free IPA and drinks like the watermelon mockarita, which is made with a tequila alternative.

Sober bars aren’t a new phenomenon. They first appeared in the 19th century as part of the temperance movement. But while previous iterations were geared toward non-drinkers or people in recovery, the newer venues welcome the sober as well as the curious.

“A lot of people just want to drink less,” said Chris Marshall, Sans Bar’s founder.

AP

Marshall, who has been sober for 14 years, opened the bar after serving as an addiction counselor. But he estimates 75% of his customers also drink alcohol outside of his bar.

“It’s just easier,” said Sondra Prineaux, a regular customer at Sans Bar. “I don’t have to worry about leaving my car here and getting an Uber home. I’ll wake up without a headache.”

Abstinence challenges like Dry January — which began in 2013 — and a growing interest in health and wellness are behind the trend, said Brandy Rand, chief operating officer for the Americas at IWSR Drinks Market Analysis.

Last year, alcohol consumption in 10 key markets — including the U.S., Germany, Japan and Brazil — fell 5%, IWSR said. Consumption of low- and no-alcohol drinks rose 1% in that same time period.

Alcohol still far outsells low- and no-alcohol drinks. Drinkers in those key markets consumed 9.7 billion 9-liter cases of alcohol in 2020, compared to 292 million 9-liter cases of low- and no-alcohol beverages. But Rand notes that global consumption of low- and no-alcohol beer, wine and spirits is growing two to three times faster than overall alcohol consumption.

An explosion of new products is also fueling sales. There are drinks from smaller makers like Chicago’s Ritual Zero Proof — which opened in 2019 and makes no-alcohol whiskey, gin and tequila — and big companies like Anheuser-Busch, which introduced alcohol-free Budweiser Zero last year.

“I have the wonderful problem of too many great options,” said Douglas Watters, who opened Spirited Away, a New York shop that sells non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirits, in November.

Watters said the pandemic lockdown caused him to rethink his usual pattern of ending each day with a cocktail. He started experimenting with non-alcoholic beverages, and by August he had decided to open his store. Many of his customers are sober, he said, but others are pregnant or have health issues. Some are training for marathons; others just want to cut back on alcohol.

AP

“There are a lot of people, this past year more than ever, thinking more critically about what they’re drinking and how it’s making them feel,” he said.

Joshua James, a veteran bartender, had a similar realization during the pandemic. After a stint at Friendship House, a substance abuse treatment center, he recently opened Ocean Beach Cafe, an alcohol-free bar in San Francisco.

“I wanted to destigmatize the words addiction, recovery and sober,” he said. “There’s a thousand reasons to not want to drink as much.”

The coronavirus, James said, “warp-speeded” the change in many people’s drinking habits. But it has also hurt the nascent non-alcoholic bar scene.

Some bars, like The Virgin Mary Bar in Dublin and Zeroliq in Berlin, have temporarily closed their doors due to regulations. Getaway, a non-alcoholic bar in New York, transitioned into a coffee shop to weather the pandemic. Owner Sam Thonis has added outdoor seating and hopes to reopen the bar this spring.

Billy Wynne, the co-owner of Awake in Denver, is also selling coffee and bottles of non-alcoholic spirits out of a carryout window for now. But he plans to open the doors to a non-alcoholic bar next month.

Wynne says the price of drinks will be comparable to a regular bar. Alcohol is cheap, he said, and the process for extracting it from some beverages makes them more expensive.

AP

Alcohol delivery site Drizly charges $33 for a 700 ml bottle of Seedlip Spice 94, a non-alcoholic spirit. That’s slightly more than a 750 ml bottle of Aviation Gin, which sells for $30. But Wynne thinks customers are willing to pay for the craft that goes into a cocktail or a flavorful wine whether it has alcohol or not.

He said his customers tend to be in their 30s or 40s, and the majority are women. Some tell him they’ve have waiting their whole lives for a bar like his to open.

“This type of thing, it’s not a fad,” he said. “People don’t wake up to the negative impact alcohol is having on their life and then change their mind.”

AP

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A handful of behind-the-scenes gems from my James Caan interview about the making of the 1981 classic “Thief” — and the story of the three Bears.

• For the iconic, nearly 10-minute sequence in “Thief” with Frank and Jessie sharing their life stories, director Michael Mann filmed at the O’Hare Tollway Oasis — the same spot where he and his future wife, Summer, had talked through the night years earlier.
• The late Robert Prosky was a 51-year-old veteran of the theater when he made his feature film debut as crime boss Leo in “Thief.” Prosky went on to appear in films such as “The Natural,” “Broadcast News,” “Hoffa” and “Dead Man Walking,” and played Sgt. Stan Jablonski on “Hill Street Blues.”
• Also making their film debuts in “Thief”: Jim Belushi as Frank’s partner Barry; William Petersen as a bouncer at Wise Fools Pub who scoots away when Frank puts a scare into him, and Dennis Farina, who was still on the Chicago Police force and was working as a consultant on the film when Mann cast him as one of Leo’s henchmen, who wounds Frank in the climactic scene before Frank guns him down.
• Real-life jewel thief John Santucci was also cast in the film, as a corrupt police officer.
• Two years after Tangerine Dream contributed the searing soundtrack for “Thief,” the German electronic group’s music was put to equally effective use in another memorable early 1980s Chicago adventure: “Risky Business.”
• Of course, “Thief” wasn’t James Caan’s first Chicago-centric film that has stood the test of time. A decade earlier, he played Chicago Bears fullback Brian Piccolo, who succumbed to cancer at age 26, and Billy Dee Williams played Gale Sayers in the classic “Brian’s Song.” Real-life Chicago Bears had bit roles as themselves in the movie, and Caan said when the Bears would come out to play the then-Los Angeles Rams, a few of them would visit his house and knock down his door. Not ON his door, mind you.

“That was 50 years ago, holy s—,” said Caan. “Oh yeah, my boys, my Chicago boys. [Dick] Butkus, [Doug] Buffone, [Ed] O’Bradovich. They would break down my front door on a Saturday. They thought that was really funny. Seriously, they’d just pound it in. They wouldn’t knock or anything.”

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Six people were shot Monday in Chicago, including two men who were shot in Englewood on the South Side. The two men, both 36, were standing on the sidewalk about 6:30 p.m. in the 400 block of West 72nd Street when they heard shots and felt pain, police said. Both men suffered a gunshot wound to the left thigh and were transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition.

A man in his 20s was shot in Fifth City on the West Side. The man was sleeping in his vehicle about 4:40 p.m. in the 3800 block of West Van Buren Street when he heard shots and felt pain, police said. He was struck in the back of the head and brought himself to Mt. Sinai Hospital. He was listed in good condition.

A man was shot in Gresham on the South Side. The 32-year-old was on the sidewalk about 2:45 p.m. in the 8200 block of South Racine Avenue when someone opened fire, striking him in the knee, police said. The man was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

Minutes prior, a man was wounded in a shooting in Englewood on the South Side. He was on the sidewalk about 2:30 p.m. in the 5600 block of South Justine Street when a light-colored vehicle pulled up and someone got out, pulled out a gun and opened fire, police said. The 24-year-old was struck in the lower back and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition.

In the day’s first reported shooting, a 21-year-old man was shot in Little Village on the Southwest Side. He was walking about 2 a.m. in the 2700 block of South Karlov Avenue, when a dark-colored vehicle pulled up near him and someone from inside told him to show a gang sign, police said. The man refused and the person fired shots before leaving the scene. He was struck twice in the stomach and was taken to Mount Sinai hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

Thirty-six people were shot, four fatally, last weekend citywide.

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There have been many times this season when Billy Donovan has used encouragement to pick up a team that looked mentally fragile at times.

With just 27 games left in the regular season, however, the Bulls coach was past that.

It was time to be a realist.

Just because the Bulls added five new faces and finally had them all in uniform in an eventual 116-102 loss to Golden State on Monday night, the rest of the league wasn’t going to bow down or hand them anything. Yes, on paper, Donovan’s group is better than it was a week ago. But it’s up to the team to show that.

He made that message loud and clear.

“Adding talent doesn’t take away your problems, and if you think you’re adding talent so it becomes a lot easier, it doesn’t,” Donovan said. “There are things we have to do that were no different than the things we had to do with the previous roster.

“We’ve still got to run back in transition. If we play defense the way we did against San Antonio [on Saturday], we’re not going anywhere. If we run offense the way we ran offense [against the Spurs], we’re not going anywhere. Now, in fairness to them, it was the first time they were playing together, and we’ve got to work out some of those things.”

And quickly.

The Bulls will be able to get a practice day in again Tuesday, play the Suns on Wednesday and get another practice in Thursday before the finale of this road trip Friday in Utah.

That’s as much practice time Donovan’s crew has seen since before the All-Star break. And it’ll need every bit of it.

Newly acquired Nikola Vucevic looked more comfortable in his second game with the Bulls (19-26), but he still was getting a grasp of terminology. Thad Young was inserted into the starting unit over Lauri Markkanen as Donovan continued to play mad scientist with his frontcourt combinations.

And while it didn’t help that Coby White sat out with a sore neck — his first missed game as a Bull — and Garrett Temple left in the second quarter with a strained right hamstring, it did allow Troy Brown Jr. and Javonte Green a chance to get some minutes.

But poor defense and untimely turnovers continued to haunt this team, no matter how many new names were on the back of jerseys. Add in Zach LaVine, who’s dealing with a sore ankle, failing to score at least 20 points in both games with this new-look roster, and it’s obvious that there’s some fixing to do, both old problems and new.

“We’re still going to have to figure out how we can be the best version of ourselves,” Donovan said. “I’ve been around enough teams and seen enough basketball, there are teams that are really, really talented that don’t do anything. And there’s a lot of teams … I’ll give you an example, like last year at OKC, we weren’t supposed to be any good. Chris Paul wasn’t tolerating that. He wasn’t walking in there and saying, ‘Oh, OK, we’re not supposed to be as good. We lost Paul George, we lost Russell [Westbrook].’ No, these guys are professionals. They’ve got a lot of pride.

“I think you want to set that kind of standard all the time. That was something that was powerful inside our locker room was [Paul’s] internal belief of, ‘Hey, listen, when I’m on a team, we’re competing.’ ”

The hope is Vucevic has that kind of mentality and it permeates.

Coming out against the Warriors (23-24) and scoring nine first-quarter points was a nice early message from Vucevic, who finished with 21. But Donovan wants his entire team to play with that kind of swagger, especially with the Eastern Conference standings so log-jammed.

“It was much better,” Vucevic said of his second game. “I’m really happy with where I’m at with where I fit with the team, and I think we’ll grow as a team.

“We just all need to figure it out and get comfortable with each other.”

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Moon Alert

After 1 a.m. Chicago time, there are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions today. The Moon is in Scorpio.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Someone older or more experienced might have advice for you. Meanwhile, you’re happy to lend your efforts to help a friend or an organization because it’s the thing to do. You don’t mind. In fact, you will feel a sense of reward for doing so.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

You have an inner discipline that will serve you well if you know what you want to do. You have been involved with younger people more than usual lately, perhaps it will relate to helping them. Or you might do some quiet research.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Today you’re willing to help a group, perhaps a nonprofit organization or a charitable association? You might also be involved in a supportive way with someone who is creative and artistic. Certainly, your friends will appreciate you today.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Today you will use your influence with bosses, parents or important people to benefit others. Furthermore, you are willing to work and fulfill certain duties and obligations because you find it rewarding to do this role. (Impressive.)

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

You will enjoy study, travel or anything that expands your world today; furthermore, you’re willing to work to make this a reality. You might use your influence to help people in another culture or another country. If so, you will feel fortunate to be able to do this.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Someone older might be generous to you today. Or perhaps you are able to get funding or support to, in turn, offer practical support to someone else — someone in need? Whatever you do today will be the result of an inner discipline and a sense of obligation to do the right thing.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

You might join forces with a partner or close friend today to act together to offer a service that needs to be provided to members of the general public or to someone you know. You are willing to step up to the plate and carry your share of responsibility for something.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

You will be productive at work today because you’re happy to do what is expected of you. You won’t complain. You won’t feel like a martyr. Quite the opposite, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and personal reward to do something, especially something that needs to be done.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

You might take on increased responsibilities for children or educating young people today. Or perhaps, your activities will be related to sports with young people? You’re happy to do the leg work necessary to make some social event happen because you know this will please others.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

You’re happy to take on more than your fair share of work or responsibilities with something related to family issues or work needed to be done at home. It’s obvious you can do it and you’re happy to step in and make a difference for everyone else. Bravo!

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Today you’re concerned with practical realities. You’ll find it rewarding to address duties and obligations that you have to live up to with the relationship you have with siblings and relatives. It won’t be difficult because you will feel gratified to be of service to others.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

If shopping today, you will want to spend your money realistically and wisely, which is why you will choose long-lasting, practical items. Whatever you do today related to your own possessions or money, you will do with discipline and thoroughness. “A penny saved” and all that.

If Your Birthday Is Today

Artist Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) shares your birthday. You are outgoing and assertive; however, you are also aware and sensitive to the feelings of others. You are an ardent lover. This will be a more easygoing year. Your smart choice will be to cooperate because your relations with others will benefit you, even business and personal relationships. Grab every chance to practice kindness and be helpful.

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Brewer Preview: Rhinegeist

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By Mark McDermott,
today at 11:25 pm

I’m going to go through some more beers and beverages that have been sent to me for comment. Some of these have been provided in several different brews. So I’ll try to pick the flagship, or most-reviewed beer of each, do one of my videos, and then update this article as I drink more. A tough job, but it’s gotta get done.

[embedded content]

Rhinegeist Brewery began making beer and cider in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in 2013. Their brewery occupies the pre-Prohibition bottling plant of Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. They’ve expended distribution into several neighboring states, and have been found in Indiana and Wisconsin. This month they’re bringing cans and taps to the Chicago market, in partnership with Windy City Brewing.

They sent me six different brews. I decided to start with their most-reviewed flagship beer, the Truth IPA. It’s a 7.2% abv ale, with a tilt to West Coast IPA styles from Amarillo, Citra, Simcoe and Centennial hops.

Sitting out by the grill, where the wind kind of interfered with my video, I pooped the can. There’s a nice amber color under a foamy head. The head left some legs on the glass after I had finished most of it. The nose had hops to it of course; a little bit of tropical fruit and plenty of pine resin.

The taste had plenty of malt to back up the aggressive load. Again, bitterness and some pine and resin, plus a little bit of passion fruit and mango. I do catch a little bit of sodium, like from a Bohemian Pilsner. I’ll see if I catch this in the other beers to find if it’s from the Cincinnati brewing water. A decent start to my Rhinegeist journey.

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Fresh off her second “Rock the Block” challenge win, Alison Victoria headed down to the basement to keep the winning momentum going for week four of the HGTV series Monday night, but she struggled to add the wow factor of her previous designs.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Going into Monday night, Victoria and her designer partner Mike Holmes had already won two of the three challenges so far: kitchen, main bedroom and bathroom. The pair’s “wood wall” treatment on last week’s episode impressed the judges, but it was the ombre tile in the bathroom and the massive closet that won over judges Egypt Sherrod from “Property Virgins” and husband Mike Jackson. Last week’s victory by Victoria and Holmes left a bad taste in competitor Mika Kleinschmidt’s mouth: she told the judges she thought they were wrong.

This week, the design teams (in addition to Victoria and Holmes) — Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent of “Nate and Jeremiah: Save My House;” David Bromstad of “My Lottery Dream Home” and Tiffany Brooks from the upcoming show “50K Three Ways;” and Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt of “100 Day Dream Home” — tackled the basement. Tamara Day of “Bargain Mansions” was this week’s judge.

In her basement, Victoria designed a luxurious wine bar and home theater. Another room became a bedroom with a walk-in closet with a full bathroom nearby, while the final room was transformed into an office.

“I think that even though David and Tiffany won that challenge,” Victoria said, referring to the series’ second episode in which competitors David Bromstad and Tiffany Brooks added a bedroom to the main level, “that the bedroom down here makes more sense value-wise than on the first floor.”

“If we can get another win this week, there is no question in my mind that we wouldn’t win the entire competition,” Victoria said.

This week’s surprise design challenge called for each team to incorporate one heavy metal item (from a dumpster dive) — tin roofs, street signs, pipes — into the basement design “in a meaningful way,” host Ty Pennington explained.

HGTV

Meanwhile in the other homes, Berkus and Brent reworked the basement into a rental unit for extra income. Brooks and Bromstad painted their entire basement a light pink blush. Tired of playing it safe, the Kleinschmidts installed a bowling alley in their basement because that’s what every home needs?

Judgment day arrived, and the first thing Day noticed in Victoria and Holmes’ basement was the barn doors to the office, which Victoria suggested could also be a home gym. As the designers and Day moved into the main entertaining space, there was simply not much wow. The theater turned out to be a regular sitting space, and the wine bar never materialized. Bright spot: in a corner was the table lamp Holmes designed from pipe recovered from the dumpster dive. The only luxury addition that survived was the walk-in closet in the bedroom.

While Day was impressed, her only complaint for the basement design was the choice of carpet over hardwood floors because, as she put it, her four children trashed the carpet in her basement.

“If the only negative is that we have carpet over hardwood, I’ll take it,” Holmes said.

In the end though, the design team that truly created versatility (and plenty of wow) in the space ended up being Berkus and Brent, who won the challenge. Their rental unit design floored Day, and with the help of a strategically placed Murphy bed, they added not one, but two bedrooms to the basement.

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Baseball projection systems have a certain amount of built-in caution.

When a player has a breakthrough season, regression will be projected until he does it again — and perhaps again. Players having unusually bad seasons will be projected to bounce back.

And the 60-game season of 2020 is likely to be a less reliable indicator than a 162-game season.

That’s part of the reason for Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections, which have confounded White Sox fans who have championship hopes and surprised Cubs fans fearing the bottom will fall out. Updated last week and reflecting the injury to Sox outfielder Eloy Jimenez, the PECOTA standings at baseballprospectus.com list the Sox at 80.2-81.8 and the Cubs at 85.4-76.6.

Let’s peek at projections for a few key players that help explain the team projections.

o Sox first baseman Jose Abreu: His .987 OPS in 2020 was 117 points above his career average, and his 1.9 WARP — the Baseball Prospectus equivalent of WAR — is equivalent to a career-high-tying 5.1 over a 162-game season. PECOTA projects a return to norms at .870 OPS and 2.3 WARP.

o Sox shortstop Tim Anderson: Batting averages of .335 in 2019 and .322 in 2020 were fueled by batting average on balls in play of .399 and .383. Anderson hits to all fields and can sustain BABiPs above the major-league average, which was .292 last season. But there is an element of chance in whether balls elude fielders. PECOTA projects a .336 BABiP and .271 batting average.

o Cubs shortstop Javy Baez: After a drastic drop to .203/.238/.360 in 2020, PECOTA has Baez rebounding to .246/.295/.458. That .753 OPS and 2.4 WARP are comedowns from .881 and 4.6 in 2018 and .847 and 3.9 in 2019, but not as disastrous as the .598 and 0.9 last season.

o Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant: He played in only 34 games in 2020, but his .206 batting average, .644 OPS and 0.3 WARP were shocks to the system. In five seasons through 2019, his career OPS was .901 and never was below his .834 in 2018. PECOTA expects an upswing to a .245 batting average, .814 OPS and 2.5 WARP.

Past performance, with emphasis on recent seasons, is a prime factor in player projections. So is the performance of players who had similar success through similar ages.

A range of projections for players feed into simulated team seasons. The records reported as ”the PECOTA projection” are among multitudes of simulations. Projections sort into a bell-shaped curve. The top of the curve, the 50th percentile, represents the victory total that comes up most frequently in simulated seasons.

For the Sox, the 90th-percentile projection was 91 victories. That’s if players hold their 2020 improvement and things click. The 10th-percentile projection, with players at the low end of their probabilities, was 77 victories. The Cubs were at 94 victories in the 90th percentile and 77 in the 10th.

PECOTA doesn’t rule out a Sox title with 91-plus victories. But in simulations, the most frequent results are seasons closer to .500.

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Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday announced a new vaccination site in partnership with the Chicago Federation of Labor that will help get doses of COVID-19 vaccine into the arms of essential union workers.

Lightfoot said the site will be able to handle about 1,200 vaccinations weekly at first and can grow to 6,000 weekly as vaccine supply increases.

The announcement comes as the city expands eligibility requirements to what’s called Phase 1C. That expansion includes residents ages 16 to 64 with underlying medical conditions, such as chronic kidney disease or cancer.

It also will allow vaccination for those working in construction, retail, restaurants and all other essential workers who had not previously been eligible.

“You all know this, but it bears repeating. Chicago is 100% a union town,” the mayor said in making the announcement at the vaccination site, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 399, 2260 S. Grove St.

“It’s our union workers who make up the backbone of this city.”

Those wishing to be vaccinated at Local 399 must live or work in Chicago, hold a current union card or be a union retiree, and qualify under the city’s current eligibility criteria.

Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter said this will be the nation’s first vaccination site run by the labor movement for union workers. It will focus on inoculating those affected disproportionately by the pandemic. The group has 300 affiliated unions and a combined half-million working members.

The labor federation has an ownership stake in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

“Two-thirds of our members are Black and Brown workers, and we must do everything we can to get this vaccine into arms as quickly as possible,” Reiter said. “Let’s move past this pandemic once and for all.”

Union members interested in getting vaccinated should visit www.chicagolabor.org/vaccine for more information or to schedule an appointment.

Lightfoot said 84% of residents in Chicago are now eligible to receive vaccines but cautioned supply remains limited. She also warned against thinking the deadly pandemic is behind us.

“Right now, we are seeing a troubling uptick in our case positivity and daily case rates,” Lightfoot said. “COVID-19 is still here, it is still killing people in our city every day, so we have got to remain diligent.”

The Chicago Department of Public Health reported 438 new confirmed cases, 3 deaths and a test positivity rate of 4% — up from 3.1% last week.

Lightfoot said the spike in cases mostly comes from adults, ages 18 to 39, living on the North and Northwest sides, who participated in bar crawls or played on a sports team.

Lightfoot stopped short of blaming the opening of bars or athletic events for the uptick, instead pointing the finger at individuals not wearing masks or not adhering to other safety guidelines.

Illinois public health officials on Monday also reported its seven-day positivity rate jumped to 3.8%, up from 2.9% last week. Statewide, officials also announced 1,761 new coronavirus cases, the lowest in the last seven days. Five additional deaths — the second lowest daily tally this month — raised the state’s total to 21,256.

Hospitalization continues its upward trend over the past two weeks, with 1,352 COVID-19 patients occupying hospital bed within the past 24 hours. Of those hospitalized, 280 patients were in the ICU and 128 patients were on ventilators.

The state also reported that as of midnight Sunday, nearly 5.6 million vaccines have been administered in Illinois, including 49,192 doses on Sunday.

Manny Ramos is a corps member in Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster Sun-Times coverage of issues affecting Chicago’s South and West sides.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

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If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention.

A dangerous virus is raging, and we should stay home and avoid travel. Or not. It all depends on whom you listen to — and, of course, whom you believe.

What does this have to do with Opening Day on Thursday at Wrigley Field for our beloved Cubs?

Just about everything.

We are so sick of quarantining and missing out on the simple joys of being alive in a free country that the start of baseball — and nothing says ”Play ball!” like a spring day game at the Friendly Confines — could bring us pure exhilaration.

And maybe it will. Let’s hope it does.

The point is that fans are going to be in the stands as the Cubs take on the Pirates at 1:20 p.m. Hey, hey!

Yes, attendance will be limited to 20% of capacity, roughly 8,000 people. But there have been no fans at any Chicago games — baseball, basketball, football, hockey — since the game between the Sharks and Blackhawks at the United Center on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 — more than a year ago.

So this is happiness, albeit muted.

Imagine real people cheering again, not canned P.A. stuff. Real fans hollering, ”Get a cane, ump!” Real kids bickering with their siblings over peanuts.

That is, of course, if the voices can be heard through masks.

And masks will be required at all times. If you don’t have a mask, field staff will provide you with one. If you won’t wear the one provided, you’ll be asked to leave. If you won’t leave . . . well, this ain’t Texas, pardner.

Indeed, as monumental as this soft opening at Wrigley is, down in Arlington, Texas, the Rangers are allowing a full house of 40,518 fans for Opening Day at Globe Life Field. That makes the Rangers the first pro team in North America to allow a capacity crowd at its home field or arena since the COVID-19 shutdown last March.

Yep, that virus is scared of tough guys in 10-gallon hats. Back on

March 2, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott fully opened the state, the first governor in the nation to do so. Freedom!

Which is why I brought up confusion at the start.

If Texans can go maskless, jam restaurants, dance in crowds, party at bars, carry six-shooters and blast rattlesnakes at will, well, are they smarter than the rest of us or idiotic?

Don’t answer out loud.

It’s a funny thing for Texas folks to ponder, isn’t it, when the default situation might mean the intensive-care unit or worse.

So what the Cubs are doing — and the White Sox when they open Guaranteed Rate Field to 8,000 fans for their home opener April 8 — is probably pretty darn safe, all things considered.

Lots of restrictions apply, such as pod seating, cashless food areas, the aforementioned mask mandate, etc. But just to see the green grass and ancient center-field scoreboard at Wrigley — with the pennants of every National League team blowing in the breeze — will be as soothing as a lullaby. The ridiculous hand-moved white numbers on that huge green box will be part of a happy dream.

And good ol’ Kyle Hendricks, the dependable, soft-throwing professor — whose best-in-the-majors 2.13 ERA in 2016 helped the Cubs win that life-altering World Series — will be on the mound. It’ll be like watching your friendly uncle fish a favorite hole, looking for nibbles. Wonderful.

Yet there’s a variant out there. People are getting vaccinated, but not enough. Nothing truly will be safe until there is herd immunity for 330 million Americans. And even then . . .

The best guess is that COVID likely spread from bats to pigs, then to us. According to one scientific estimate, there are more than 820,000 viruses in the animal world that have similar potential to jump to humans. Yowee!

”Right now, I’m scared,” Centers for Disease Control director Rochelle Walensky said Monday, adding that she feels a sense of ”impending doom.”

You see, there appears to be a COVID spike going on again.

On March 8, Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted: ”Folks, we’ve significantly slowed the spread of COVID. . . . And now, we can begin to safely welcome fans back to our baseball stands on opening day.”

Can we? Talk about confusion.

Well, they’re coming, no matter what.

So let’s call that a good thing. And then let’s shout — all together and through our mandatory masks — ”Go, Cubs, go!”

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