When it comes to sports, for me it’s always been about baseball. Yes, I admit I’m a sports junkie. If there’s a game going on, I’m watching, but baseball has always been the leader…and by far.

My obsession started at a young age. WGN television would broadcast all the home games of the Chicago Cubs. They were day games starting in the 1 to 1:30 pm range. We’d get home from school and get to catch the last couple of innings of those games. Even though those Cubs teams of the early 1960’s were bad…real bad in many cases…I was hooked on the game.

When I hit fifth or sixth grade, my parents allowed me to go to the games. They were all day games back in those olden days. They were played faster, too. Usually in two hours or less. To get into the bleachers or grandstands, a ticket cost around $1. Yep…an entire buck to see players like Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Frank Robinson, Sandy Koufax and our local dude, Ernie Banks. Quite the value to get hooked on a sport that was in its golden age. I’d hit the park with friends or my brother…or sometimes just by myself. I didn’t mind doing that. I just wanted to be around baseball. Along with the dollar for the ticket, I bring a lunch and another dollar which paid for the round trip train ride and either a soft drink or a frosty malt ice cream. We’d be home in time for dinner. Wrigley Field and the Cubs were my mom’s cheap baby sitting service.

Opening day has always been special to me. I’ve been to openers at four ballparks. Wrigley, Comiskey for the White Sox, Los Angeles and Anaheim for the Dodgers and Angels. It’s always been a wonderful day. It wasn’t so much the baseball itself, but the first day of baseball always signals the end of winter. Sure, it’s still cold out, but you know better days are just ahead.

I remember my first opener in the mid-1960’s. Ernie Banks hit a two out home run in the bottom of the ninth to tie a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The game was suspended because of darkness a few innings later because Wrigley Field didn’t have lights at that time. That was still twenty years away. Other highlights include seeing both the Cubs and Sox opener on the same day. I went to one Dodger opener in L.A., left the park and headed to Wrestlemania 3. I also was at Wrigley when Dutchie Caray sang “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” a couple of months after her husband, Harry, died.

My last opening day memory was maybe fifteen years ago. It was a brutally cold day at Wrigley Field. I was bundled up in lots of layers. Around the fifth inning, I went to bathroom, found myself shivering and thought enough is enough. I left the park and watched the rest of the game from a bar across the street.

Today is supposed to be another opening day for major league baseball. The Cubs should be in Milwaukee, playing the Brewers. The stadium would be packed with fans from both teams. It would be the start of another season of high hopes for everyone. Optimism reigns supreme on opening day!

Sadly that’s not going to happen. Like all sports, baseball has been shut down by the coronavirus. Players are just like the rest of us, staying in their homes, trying to ride this pandemic out. We have no idea when real life will begin again, much less the baseball season. Hell, we have no idea if there will be a baseball season at all.

Last night I watched an interview with baseball commissioner Rob Manfred. He tried to put a positive spin on the season. He’s hoping they’ll get to play as close to one hundred and sixty-two games as possible. I can’t see that happening. Even if they get the clearance to go back in May, players will almost need to start spring training over again. I’m thinking an early June start is a best case scenario. That’s the best possible outcome. If that’s the best we can hope for, what’s the worse case scenario? A cancelled season! Yeah, saying that is a doomsday prediction, but if the Olympics can be pushed back a year, what makes you think baseball being played in 2020 is a certainty?

But, let’s try to stay optimistic. Everything is now on a day to day basis, including all sports. At some point, we’ll be back to normal, right? At some point, the games will go on, right? But, until then we can remember the good old days. We can remember the opening days of our past. We can live on our memories and hope to start making new memories soon.

Related Post: I’m still in shock the Chicago Cubs won the World Series

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Does taking a walk in the park in Chicago become criminal in the age of Covid-19?

It hasn’t — yet.

But the simple act of getting some fresh air in one of Chicago’s parks and along the lakefront may soon become one, according to Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

It’s understandable for people who have houses to perhaps stay home.  They can wander into their backyards at least.  But people crammed into highrises in the densely populated city center, what can they do?  Instead of gathering in a park, they can walk on the sidewalks downtown, the crowded, bustling and dirty sidewalks.  How can Lightfoot be sure that forcing people desperate for sunshine to take their short strolls on a city sidewalk won’t lead to more virus transmission, considering the virus that causes Covid-19 can cling to things like soles of shoes and hangs in the air for a time after a sneeze or cough?  Funneling people into a smaller space with heavy human traffic does not seem like the best choice for health protection.

Two people broke the spirit of the law yesterday.  I was one of them. More on me later.

One friend I know decided to leave her south suburban home and drive to a friend’s house in a semi-rural area. She was not going to help him with anything, bringing food or our new medium of exchange — toilet paper– no, she was going to his few acres to sit in a greenhouse to get some sun and some heat and destress.

“It was about 90 degrees inside,” she said.

Grant Park ImageChicago.com

Now for me.  I left the house twice yesterday.  Not for groceries.  Not for an emergency.  Not to help anybody in need.  I left to get some sunshine.  I don’t like walking around my neighborhood because now too many people are navigating down the narrow sidewalks and possibly sneezing and coughing and trampling disease with them, so I entered my car, which I alone use and took a walk in a solitary place.  On my way there I passed the parks, which were lined with cars in the lots.  I came right home.  I live alone. I liked it so much that I did it again in the afternoon, but instead of a walk, I jogged.  I didn’t see another soul.

Am I a criminal?  Or nearly a criminal?

Will Covid-19 make criminals of us all?

Is my friend a near or total criminal?

Is it criminal to funnel people onto a narrow corridor of a sidewalk instead of the green area of a park to stretch their legs, hoping they will get enough UV light to kill the virus and other germs?

Criminal or not, science-based or not, individually responsible or not, the restrictions on the population due to Covid-19 look like it will increase, at least here in Chicago.

Science-based channels focusing on Covid-19:

Dr. John Campbell

MedCram

As a word maven, I am enjoying something during all the stories about the novel Coronavirus pandemic. I am enjoying the use of the specific, but previously rare, word “pandemic” itself.

On the other hand, I’m reluctant to write that we’re “in the middle of” a pandemic — not because I’m worried about the word pandemic, but I’m worried about “in the middle.” It always reminds me of my mother, who did a lot of sewing. When she needed to cut two things from a piece of fabric, she wanted to find the middle. To do that, she would hold one end of the fabric. I would hold the other and bring it up to her hands. Then we knew where the middle was, the same distance from both ends. Without knowing the end, how can you say we’re in the middle? (I get the same way about “middle age.”)

But at least I’m hearing the word pandemic, not just epidemic. My old faithful dictionary, Webster’s  New Twentieth Century, second edition, calls pandemic “a type of epidemic that affects large numbers, whole communities, or the majority of a place at the same time.” Epidemic is “a disease prevalent in a locality, an epidemic disease; also, the rapid spreading of such a disease.”

The prefix pan- is defined on Dictionary.com as  “a combining form meaning “all,” occurring originally in loanwords from Greek (panacea; panoply), but now used freely as a general formative (panleukopenia; panorama; pantelegraph; pantheism; pantonality), and especially in terms, formed at will, implying the union of all branches of a group (Pan-Christian; Panhellenic; Pan-Slavism).”

So a pandemic is an epidemic affecting us all, or the majority of a place.

The majority of a planet, perhaps?

Margaret Serious has a page on Facebook. Stop by for a socially distanced  visit.

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BY SANDRA GUY

The spring allergy season has started early, leading to fear and concern about allergy sufferers’ coughing, sniffling and itchy eyes.

Experts say it’s important to understand how allergies to increased tree pollen differ from the symptoms of COVID19.

The sneezing and runny nose that accompany allergies are rarely a sign of COVID19, according to the AARP.

The main symptoms of coronavirus are a fever, a dry cough, and shortness of breath, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The symptoms also tend to appear two to 14 days after exposure.

So how can allergy sufferers ease their symptoms — and ward off anxieties?

Natural solutions include:

• Be vigilant about dusting and cleaning your home, and use blinds and curtains to keep dust at bay.

• A sinus rinse, such as with a Neti pot, at the start and end of the day can help clean out allergens. It’s best to use distilled water, sterilized water or tap water that has been boiled, and then cool when used.

• Explore herbs such as butterbur, a European shrub extract, and quercetin, a nutrient found in apples, onions and black tea, which act similarly to antihistamines. Make sure any butterbur product is labeled “PA-free,” so that it contains no pyrrolizidine alkaloids — chemicals that can cause serious illness.

• Try mixing one or two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar with a glass of water to help break up mucus.

• Avoid eating or drinking inflammatory boosters such as sugar, alcohol and fried foods.

Despite, Mayor Lightfoot’s warning yesterday that she would close the Lakefront if  excessive numbers of people continued to gather there, many people defied her warning.

This necessitated further action today. In order to bend the curve of COVID-19, the Mayor has issued an executive order to close the Chicago’s Lakefront, Riverwalk and 606 Trail, effective immediately until further notice.

The Mayor’s Executive Order will direct a shutdown of the Lakefront including adjacent trails, green spaces and facilities.  In addition, the order provides guidance for residents to make every effort to practice social distancing during recreational activities, such as walking, running or cycling.  The order also prohibits contact sports, like basketball and football. These measures are designed to protect the health and safety of residents amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

 “While our parks and other green spaces offer residents a brief respite during this stay at home order, we simply must take action to prevent the large gatherings that are putting our public health at risk,” said Mayor Lightfoot. “As we work tirelessly to flatten the curve and prevent the spread of COVID-19, we need people to stay at home as much as possible. Our order to temporarily close access to the Lakefront and restrict gatherings has now become a necessary step in our effort to protect people, and to get our city through this crisis as quickly as possible.”

Chicagoans are still able, and encouraged, to do the following during this time: 

• Go for a short walk or runs but maintain physical distance from others while doing so, preferably in their own neighborhoods.
• Walk their dog, but do not congregate at the dog park or beach.
• Shop at the grocery stores that remain open, as long as, you are not sick, and practice social distancing.
• Continue visiting the restaurants that remain open for pick-up and delivery.

Enforcement

While the Chicago Police Department is empowered to enforce the Mayor’s new order through citations up to $500 and additional measures, the Department is primarily focusing on educating residents about the new order and providing warnings to individuals using these closed spaces. To further ensure compliance with the order, the Department will move forward with issuing citations if individuals don’t adhere to initial warnings from police officers.

Other closures  

Chicago Park District’s facilities and fieldhouses will remain closed for the duration of the stay at home order. Currently, the District’s green spaces and parks remain open, and the City will monitor park activity in the event more closures are necessary to prevent large gatherings and congregations of people during the stay at home order.

State order 

Under Governor Pritzker’s ‘Stay at Home’ Order, which went into effect on March 21, residents of Chicago and across the state are mandated to stay at home as much as possible, and to limit occasions for leaving their homes, unless it is to: retrieve essential goods or services, go work if they are an essential employee, seek medical care, or to get fresh air for brief amounts of time while practicing social distancing. The order was issued out of an abundance of caution to safeguard the public health and prevent further spread in the community and is expected to last through April 7, unless otherwise directed.

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