Category: From My Seat

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From My Seat Sports

Hoop Lockdown and Big Dates

CREDIT: Joe Murphy / Memphis Athletics

Football is a sport designed with lengthy delays, typically six days off for every game day. Basketball is very different, a sport built around rhythm and flow. Ask a hot shooter when he’d like to have a day off and he’ll say when the season’s over. When the Memphis Tigers next take the floor (Wednesday night?), they will have gone almost three weeks (at least) without playing a game that counts. With a 12-6 record (and only three losses in American Athletic Conference competition), Memphis is, by the numbers, in contention to win a league championship and earn an NCAA tournament berth. But what kind of Memphis team will we see after such a lengthy interruption by Covid-19?
Joe Murphy / Memphis Athletics

Alex Lomax

The Tigers won six of their last seven games before the current lockdown, thanks largely to collective shooting improvement. Over one five-game stretch, Memphis shot 49 percent from three-point range and moved to the top of the AAC in the category. Will Landers Nolley, Lester Quinones, and friends be on target when the season resumes?

Alex Lomax was playing the best basketball of his three-year college career before the lockdown. The pride of East High did his best Antonio Anderson impression in the Tigers’ last game, a win over East Carolina: 10 points, 9 assists, 5 rebounds, 5 steals. Will Lomax be a difference-maker when the Tigers return to play?

The AAC tournament is scheduled for March 11th-14th in Fort Worth. That’s less than three weeks. With four games remaining on the Tiger schedule, how many of the four games postponed this month (so far) can be played? Among those games: two against Houston and one against Wichita State, the teams Memphis must leap to win the conference title. (One of the Houston games and the Shockers contest are among the postponements.) And if the Tigers only complete a partial schedule, what will that mean for seeding at the AAC tourney? What will it mean for at-large consideration for the NCAA tournament? We’re still living in a pandemic. There are more questions than answers, naturally.

• A distinct ray of sunshine during last week’s historic deep freeze was the Memphis Redbirds’ 2021 schedule release. Even the idea of a baseball game at AutoZone Park — Opening Day April 6th! — feels like a shortening not only of winter, but the pandemic (which cost the Redbirds their entire 2020 season). The Pacific Coast League is a thing of the past. Memphis will now compete in the Triple-A Southeast Division. Instead of traveling as far as Tacoma, Reno, and Albuquerque to play, the Redbirds will compete with teams from Louisville, Jacksonville, and Gwinnett (the Atlanta Braves’ Triple-A affiliate), cities we can call regional rivals, at least with a wink.

Those into pop culture will welcome visits to AutoZone Park by the Durham Bulls (for whom Crash Davis starred) and Toledo Mud Hens (adored by Corporal Klinger from MASH). There was a time when Memphis-Louisville was Ali-Frazier in college basketball. Now, the Redbirds will play several games against the city the franchise called home before moving to Memphis in 1998. And hey, Bats and Redbirds are natural enemies, aren’t they?

• The Memphis Tigers last played Mississippi State on the gridiron in 2011. Justin Fuente’s name was not on the minds of Tiger fans ten years ago, much less Mike Norvell’s. It’s been two legitimate “eras” since the Bullies came to town. The drought ends September 18th. The Tigers will likely carry a 16-game home winning streak into the showdown with SEC competition. (Memphis opens its season two weeks earlier by hosting Nicholls State.) Let’s hope, here in February — still winter, still pandemic conditions — that the Tigers and Bulldogs clash in a packed Liberty Bowl. In many ways, that would be a larger victory than anything Memphis fans might see on the scoreboard. 

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From My Seat Sports

A Heart Story

This is a sports column, so let’s start with this: The best athlete I know over the age of 50 happens to be my wife. Sharon has run a pair of marathons since hitting the half-century mark, the second one faster than the first. We’ve run dozens of 5Ks, Sharon always patiently waiting for me — her sweat nearly dried — at the finish line. And this isn’t a recent development. Sharon was an all-state soccer player during our high school days in Vermont and helped our Northfield Marauders win a state championship as a senior. High school boys challenged Sharon to races when she was in middle school. Her list of names taken while kicking ass is, shall we say, lengthy.

But back to the present. Sharon will cross the finish line of her next marathon with a pacemaker in her chest.

I’m with you. Huh?!?

During Sharon’s annual physical last year, an EKG revealed abnormalities in her heart rate: too high at times, too low at others, and without a pattern. She wore a monitor home for 24 hours and the larger sample size revealed the same troubling data. Most concerning: As Sharon slept, her heart would pause — yes, her heart would stop — for as long as two seconds. Fortunately, our brains are wired to recognize such a “glitch” and wake us when it happens. Sharon would wake up, if slightly, catch her breath, and gradually fall back to sleep. It wasn’t painful or violent. But concerning to her cardiologist? Absolutely.

Last week, Sharon checked into Baptist Memorial Hospital for an electrophysiological study (EPS), a procedure involving very thin wire electrodes that, traveling through a vein, approach and measure the heart’s function. And sure enough, my wife’s heart was not beating properly. It’s called tachy-brady syndrome: sometimes too fast, others too slow. The risk of such a condition isn’t necessarily a heart attack (she has no blockage; the mechanical function and blood flow from Sharon’s heart is strong). The risk involves the possibility of Sharon losing consciousness — even briefly — while driving, while swimming, while riding a bike. A catastrophic event may have been waiting for Sharon, one directly connected to tachy-brady syndrome.

So my wife of 26 years is now wearing a pacemaker in her chest. The size of a silver dollar — with two thin wires, or “leads,” snaking their way to her heart — the pacemaker will moderate her heart rhythm if it threatens one extreme or another on the scale of human heartbeat. The pacemaker won’t prevent her heart from relaxing with a glass of wine or a night’s sleep. It won’t prevent her heart from speeding up when she hits mile 25 of her next marathon, knowing the race is nearly complete. This life-improving, life-lengthening device will simply make sure her heart “remembers” the proper range of beats. Among Sharon’s many skills, dancing is not one. So there’s a slice of humor in all this.

Why Sharon? Why tachy-brady at a still relatively young age? I’m not an M.D. and I’m not a biology professor, so I’ll do the best I can at relaying what I’ve been told by Sharon’s cardiologist. We’re all born with a bundle of cells — millions of them — tasked with charging our heart for every beat so we don’t have to consciously instruct this vital organ to do its thing. Well, some of us are born a few cells shy, and we reach a point where that bundle of cells is overworked, sometimes dangerously so. Modern science has provided an answer, a delightfully tiny device that will almost certainly help my wife live happier and longer than she would have without one.

The irony squeezes me. “Sharon Murtaugh’s faulty heart” is an oxymoron. She is the kindest person I’ve ever known. She’s my Valentine, and so much more. To paraphrase Lady Gaga, the part of me that’s her will never die. And among her myriad attributes, Sharon’s heart has always stood out. She laughs with vigor. She cries at the right times. And her devotion to our daughters is immeasurable. And Sharon runs. My god, you need to see Sharon run.

Valentine’s Day will feel different this year. My favorite person will be nearby. And my heart will race.

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From My Seat Sports

The Hammer’s Time

My family lived in Atlanta in the early Seventies. These were my preschool years, so memories are blurry at best. But it was an extraordinary time in an extraordinary place, largely because of the great Henry Aaron. I’ve been fighting back tears since last Friday when we learned the Hammer had died at the age of 86.

My parents were pursuing doctoral degrees at Emory University, and I was an only child when we arrived in Atlanta late in the summer of 1972. Mine was a St. Louis Cardinals family — Dad born and raised in Memphis — but Atlanta had become a big-league town in 1966 (when the Braves moved from Milwaukee), and we found time for outings to Braves games during the summers of 1973 and ’74. Which means 4-year-old me sat in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium when the great Henry Aaron took the field for the home team. I was more interested in the Braves’ mascot (and his dances after a home run) than the players actually hitting the baseball, but it’s safe to say I witnessed one or two of Aaron’s 755 career home runs, a record for the sport that stood for more than 30 years.

Aaron’s most famous home run, of course, was his 715th, hit against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Atlanta on April 8, 1974, to break Babe Ruth’s career record. It was the second-biggest highlight of that year for me, as my sister, Liz, was born 10 days earlier. (I do remember leaving my nursery school early, to meet the new arrival.) I’ve seen Aaron’s famous shot hundreds of times, and every time it makes me think of my only sibling. That’s a gift Hank Aaron provided my family without knowing we even existed. Such is the work of legends.

If you need a number to associate with Aaron, make it 6,856, his record for career total bases, and one we can safely say will never be broken. (Stan Musial is second on the chart, but more than 700 total bases — two outstanding seasons — behind Aaron.) Aaron’s career began in the Negro Leagues, even after the major leagues had integrated, so he represents a human bridge to a time when a celebration of baseball’s best meant only partial recognition. He endured hate and racism as he “chased” the record of a revered white icon. (Quote marks because Aaron never targeted Ruth’s mark. He was simply so good that the record became part of his story.) Hank Aaron remained dignified, strong, perceptive, and somehow, gentle through it all. He was a titan of a human being, one who just happened to be very good at baseball.

• The only man to hit more than 755 home runs — Barry Bonds — may be voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame four days after Aaron’s passing. If Bonds again falls short in his ninth year of eligibility, it’s because there are enough voters (more than 25 percent) still uncomfortable about honoring a man deeply connected with performance-enhancing drugs. And if Bonds joins Aaron in the Hall of Fame? There are records, and there are the men who break them. There is a standard established by the Baseball Hall of Fame, and a standard established by the life of Henry Aaron. Those paying close enough attention recognize a dramatic distinction. Rest in peace, Hammer.

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From My Seat Sports

Of Dreams and Ja

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

The Memphis Grizzlies’ annual Martin Luther King Day game is the most important sporting event in this city. It provides Memphis — and not just our beloved NBA franchise — a national platform, one from which the powerful and inspiring work of the National Civil Rights Museum (NCRM) is on full display. It’s the rare sporting event that feels bigger. Because it is.
Larry Kuzniewski

Ja Morant

And this year’s game felt especially right, even with FedExForum empty of fans, even with pandemic conditions still heavy worldwide, even with our nation’s capital becoming, yes, a fortress for the upcoming inauguration of our 46th president. In the game’s closing seconds, a dynamic Black player (Ja Morant) found a sharp-shooting white teammate (Grayson Allen) who buried a game-winning three-pointer to beat one of the league’s best young teams. If you looked west shortly before Allen’s game-winner, you saw the new year’s most beautiful sunset, a lovely metaphor for the Grizzlies’ comeback victory against, of course, the Phoenix Suns. It felt . . . just right.

The TNT studio hosts were especially sentimental, Kenny Smith being one of this year’s three NCRM Sports Legacy Honorees. A two-time NBA champion (as a Houston Rocket), Smith and his more-provocative colleague — Hall of Famer Charles Barkley — were effusive in their gratitude for the platform the NBA has provided them, as Black men, to speak about topics more important than James Harden taking his talents to Brooklyn. Best of all, Smith, Barkley, and friends see what is rising in Memphis (on the hardwood): Morant, one of the league’s top two or three players under the age of 25, and Jaren Jackson Jr. — a future All-Star himself — soon to return from knee surgery. The Grizzlies keep Memphis proud, one year to the next, but particularly on MLK Day. I’m choosing to see their win this week as an omen for a year we all rise, as Memphians and as human beings.

• Memphis Tiger coach Penny Hardaway is a past recipient of the NCRM Sports Legacy Award. That was an especially happy day at FedExForum, a packed crowd — it was 2018 — saluting a past hero, one already rumored to be returning to the college program where he played a generation ago. Hardaway is surely calling on days like that right now, as his current Tiger team tries to find its way through a season already damaged by COVID-19 (three January games postponed) and the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (two losses after the Tigers led at halftime). Now 6-5, the Tigers face four games in eight days before the calendar turns to February. And a coach with top-five aspirations for his program now must wonder if 20 wins are within reach, let alone an NCAA tournament bid. Hardaway was philosophical last week during a virtual press conference, identifying the same cloud the rest of us do these days when things turn sour: “We’re trying to play through a pandemic. It’s not the worst thing. We have to be mindful, continue to be safe. You just have to work through the rigors of what’s happening.”

• I’ve written in this space about Tom Brady being the first one-man dynasty in the history of American team sports. The 43-year-old quarterback has now proven that a New England Patriots uniform wasn’t required for this “dynasty” to happen, having led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the NFC Championship in his first season with the franchise. The game will be Brady’s 14th(!) conference title game. Perspective? You’ve heard of Joe Montana, John Elway, and Dan Marino. That trio played in 16 conference championships combined.

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From My Seat Sports

Games and Goons

CREDIT: Jj Gouin/Dreamstime

Jj Gouin/Dreamstime

Sports have been hard to properly cheer for almost a year now. Our favorite teams and athletes are finding ways to compete, to create memories for us, despite a pandemic in which almost two million people worldwide have now died. We saw Major League Baseball squeeze a season into two months, baseballs clearing fences but into empty seats, players crossing the plate after a home run to cheers only from their teammates. The country is revved up these days — like every January — for the NFL playoffs, but we still see virtually empty stadiums as twenty-first century gladiators do what we love them to do: clash and crash.

But after January 6th? Good lord, does “clash and crash” now mean, yes, insurrection at our nation’s Capitol? How does sports fill its “distraction” role when we’re choosing to distract from what could be the dissolution of democracy? A Grizzlies game is always welcome this time of year, even if background to the evening chores, or muted for the sake of dinner conversation. But after January 6th? Are we really going to fret over two missing stars — and the Grizzlies really miss Ja and Jaren — while the legislative branch of our government is discussing the level of madness in the executive branch?

Most of last weekend, I utilized the last-channel button on my remote, bouncing between football and CNN’s updates on the status of President Donald J. Trump. Where was he? How would he choose to communicate with Twitter having silenced him? Would he lower the White House’s flag to half staff in honor of fallen Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick? Would he face removal via the Constitution’s 25th Amendment? Would he face a second impeachment? Who is Taylor Heinicke and what the hell is he doing competing with Tom Brady?

It’s a mad world, somewhat literally, here in the early stages of America’s 2021. The growing divide between those of us who adhere to science and facts and those (many) who choose to ignore them resulted in this country’s first outright coup attempt, one orchestrated and encouraged by the American president. Right there in public, though behind a pane of bulletproof glass. In a time when we are not allowed to gather in stadiums or arenas to cheer our favorite football and basketball teams, thousands gathered — not many in protective masks, you may have noticed — to destroy. The contact tracing from January 6th’s attack is going to reach a lot of morgues, I’m afraid. Insurrection in the time of coronavirus is a social cocktail mixed by Lucifer himself.

The Founding Fathers — Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, you know the names — are popular among so-called “patriots,” the type who will chant “Hang Mike Pence!” as they breach Capitol security. It’s almost quaint now to consider that sedition — conduct in opposition to government authority — was once a hanging offense. Had the American Revolution failed, it’s often noted by historians, Washington, Jefferson, and friends would likely have ended up dangling from a rope in front of British officers. Here, almost 250 years later, there will be no hanging of those responsible for January 6th. The question remains if there will be any consequences for the man most responsible for the seditious act.

I share all these thoughts because fear and anxiety (for Democracy, an experiment I’ve come to love) has reduced my rooting interest (for the teams I love) to its lowest level of my lifetime. Will the St. Louis Cardinals find a bat to improve their anemic offense in 2021? (If they don’t, no glass will be broken.) Might the Memphis Tigers find their way to some version of an NCAA tournament come March? (If they don’t, no gas will be sprayed.) No, I find myself merely rooting for peace — and significantly, a return to health — for my fellow man, both here in America and abroad. I also hope to see the day when, yes, the Cardinals’ run production is my most significant concern. At least for that day. It would be a new time for our planet, and quite welcome for all of us who occupy it.

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From My Seat Sports

Pandemic Baseball Day?

CREDIT: Jj Gouin/Dreamstime

Be careful what you wish for in a sports column.

For the better part of two decades, I’ve written in this space about the need for National Baseball Day, a holiday to recognize and celebrate this country’s longtime national pastime. The day would coincide each year with Game 1 of the World Series, Americans from coast to coast would be allowed to stay home with family and friends and — should they choose — watch the Fall Classic together, with the first pitch at 3 p.m. Eastern time, early enough for the youngest baseball fans to see the final out. How is it that a country so devoted to sports and leisure doesn’t have a day on the calendar to formally salute the rewards of recreation? National Baseball Day would check that box nicely.
Jj Gouin/Dreamstime

So, here we are in 2020, and more people will be at home for Game 1 of the World Series — by choice or by pink slip — than in any other year of our lifetimes. A pandemic has slammed doors shut both on business and recreation, those of us fortunate enough to be able to work from our dens and living rooms doing so, while those unable to earn a salary without gathering crowds and cheering audiences . . . endure the best they’re able.

As for the World Series, all games will be played at a neutral site (a “bubble” in pandemic terms), Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Major League Baseball and the state of Texas will allow small “pods” of fans to scatter safe distances within the ballpark. So, yes, there will be some cheering when the Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Dodgers take the field Tuesday for the 116th World Series. (Alas, the game is still scheduled to maximize ad revenue. So, first pitch will be in prime time.) In a year with so much on hold, can baseball’s showcase lift a nation’s spirits?

For anyone with a modicum of affection for baseball history, 2020 has been an absolute kick in the teeth. Al Kaline — for many, the face of the Detroit Tigers franchise — died in April. Tom Seaver — for everyone, the face of the New York Mets franchise — died in August. The two greatest World Series heroes in St. Louis Cardinals history — Lou Brock and Bob Gibson — died within four weeks of each other, just as this year’s postseason arrived. Earlier this month, Whitey Ford died, the most decorated pitcher in New York Yankees history. Three days later, Joe Morgan passed away. Playing for the fabled Big Red Machine of the 1970s (a team that feature Johnny Bench and Pete Rose), Morgan was named MVP after each of Cincinnati’s championship seasons. All of these men were Hall of Famers, all of them World Series heroes from a time that seems further away in 2020 than it did 12 months ago. A packed Busch Stadium cheering Gibson’s 17th strikeout to close Game 1 of the 1968 Series? That’s an image from a dimension we can’t seem to reach, one we now wonder if we’ll ever see again.

The 2020 baseball season was abbreviated, of course. Reduced from 162 games to 60, the campaign was more of a sprint than baseball fans are used to, and 16 teams — six more than has been customary — made the playoff field, an attempt to make sure a rightful champion doesn’t get erased because of the sliced schedule (and yes, more televised playoff games to pad the sagging bank accounts of MLB owners). But the games have indeed been a happy distraction, particularly in the climate of a national election taking place in the most divisive America many of us have seen. The bitter debate over a Supreme Court nominee not your thing? Tune in to see former Memphis Redbird Randy Arozarena slug cowhide for the Rays. Worn out by a U.S. president downplaying a virus that’s killed almost a quarter-million Americans? You gotta see the exuberance Dodger outfielder Mookie Betts brings to the diamond. British writer Charles Kingsley said it best: “All we really need is something to be enthusiastic about.”

My enthusiasm for National Baseball Day is unabated. The sport needs new life, younger life, and it’s getting it on the field in the form of Acuna, Washington’s Juan Soto, and San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. But young fans? Casual fans? They’re diminishing, turning to more modern distractions (many requiring screens and an internet connection). But we can find baseball again, when we find our new normal. Sitting in a ballpark — under sunshine — is my happy place. I’ve missed it in 2020. Which means I’ll appreciate it in ways I haven’t since I was a child, the next time I stare at grass the way God meant it to grow. For now, let’s enjoy a Texas World Series with no teams from Texas. (Hey, the Houston Astros are done. So, the year ain’t all bad.) Cracker Jack tastes good on a couch, too.

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From My Seat Sports

Tigers Tested, Sweet Lou, and the NBA

The coronavirus, college football, and math. You can choose two, but you can’t have all three.

The average reproductive number for coronavirus infection — the number of people a person carrying the virus infects — is between 2 and 3. Some carriers of the virus won’t infect anyone they encounter, but some will infect more than 10. It’s the nastiest “bug” in recent human history, precisely because it’s so easy to share but so hard to detect.

Take this math and apply it to a college football game. Two programs on a field, each with a minimum of 100 people sharing a sideline. The idea of one of those teams playing as many as eight games this fall and keeping that reproductive number at zero is really bad math. It’s ludicrous. The Memphis Tigers and the program’s followers learned this after but one game, their season-opening beating of Arkansas State. With multiple members of the program testing positive for COVID-19 (as announced last Friday), the Tigers’ next game — scheduled for this Friday against Houston at the Liberty Bowl — has been postponed. At least.

So pandemic football comes down to the frequency of COVID tests within each program, and how those tests are reported. Were Tiger players and staff infected with the virus during their game against the Red Wolves (six days before the positives were announced)? Arkansas State played its game at Kansas State last Saturday, but several players on the depth chart were sidelined. And there was plenty of finger-pointing — toward the A-State program — over social media throughout the weekend. It stands to reason, if I understand contact tracing, that if one team had infected players during a football game, the opposing roster would be compromised (as potential carriers) a week later. It’s ugly math if you’re a football fan. And no game on your favorite schedule should be written in ink.

• For the third time in eight seasons, the St. Louis Cardinals are wearing a patch commemorating the life of a legendary player, one whose statue stands in front of Busch Stadium. The greatest Cardinal of them all, Stan Musial, died in 2013. Five years later, Red Schoendienst joined his former roommate in that great clubhouse in the sky. Then on September 6th, Lou Brock passed away at age 81. It seems especially cruel that a man whose number 20 has been retired by the Cardinals for more than 40 years was taken from us in the already-plenty-dreadful year 2020.

Brock’s 3,000th hit (in August 1979) is my earliest distinct memory of the Cardinals. I got the chance to meet Mr. Brock twice — once at Tim McCarver Stadium and once at AutoZone Park — and both times he treated me like I was the first fan he’d ever met. Like fellow Hall of Famers Musial and Schoendienst, Brock was somehow better at being a human being than he was at playing baseball. He also happens to have been one of the most competitive men to ever set foot on a diamond. (Brock is the only player Sandy Koufax acknowledges having hit with a pitch on purpose. Brock was that disruptive upon reaching base.) The world needs more Lou Brocks. I’m grateful we had him as long as we did.

• Nine months into the most unpredictable year of our lives, it’s nice have the NBA playoffs nearing completion. When it comes to the NBA Finals, what you expect is typically what you get. Since the turn of the century, only three teams seeded lower than third have reached the Finals. And all three — the 2006 Mavericks, the 2010 Celtics, and the 2018 Cavaliers — lost the championship series. The fifth-seeded Miami Heat could become the fourth “surprise” entry if Jimmy Butler and friends can knock off the third-seeded Boston Celtics. More than likely, the de facto Finals will be played in the Western Conference, where we could see a “Battle for L.A.” (unless the Denver Nuggets crash the party): both the Lakers’ LeBron James and Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard are aiming to lead a third franchise to a title. The NBA doesn’t exactly welcome Cinderella to its dance, but a clash of familiar champions — even in new uniforms — might be just the right vitamin for a 2020 sports fan.

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From My Seat Sports

Pandemic Football: To Play or Not to Play?

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

What does the American Athletic Conference know about pandemic football that the Big Ten doesn’t? Or to rephrase for a more worrisome question, what does the Big Ten know about the coronavirus and football that the AAC doesn’t?

As spectator sports reawaken — with major restrictions — under the current pandemic conditions, two “Power 5” college football conferences announced last week that they will not be fielding football teams this fall. In addition to the Big Ten —  no Michigan! no Ohio State! no Rutgers! — the Pac 12 will keep its helmets and shoulder pads in closets at least until the spring when, maybe, we’ll have more clarity on how mankind emerges from this health crisis. Two “Group of Five” leagues — the Mid-American Conference and the Mountain West Conference — have also cancelled play this fall. But as of now, the Memphis Tigers and ten football-playing AAC brethren are preparing to clash on the gridiron next month. What are we to make of the differing approaches to the same contagion?
Larry Kuzniewski

When I ponder what football in 2020 might look like, it’s not the empty stands (a given) that captures my mind’s eye. It’s the sidelines. During an FBS college football game, more than 100 people — players, staff, trainers — stand along each sideline, typically over a 60-yard strip (between the 20-yard lines). It’s the precise opposite of social distancing. It’s social packing. Will every player and coach on every sideline this fall wear a protective mask? How will trainers safely address a twisted knee or turned ankle? When a player is unable to leave the field under his own power, how many people can safely attend to his care and transportation?

These are superfluous questions, of course, when it comes to football. On every snap in every game — more than 100 times per game — at least five and often as many as 11 players on one team each collide with a player on the other. It’s the kind of human behavior a catchy virus dreams about. Can such a sport be played while, at the same time, keeping that catchy virus outside the stadium?

Here’s the word that will most come into play in the weeks and months ahead, especially if football teams do, in fact, kick off near Labor Day: myocarditis. The condition’s quick definition (via Wikipedia): “inflammation of the heart muscle, also known as inflammatory cardiomyopathy.” Links have been established between COVID-19 infection and myocarditis, and specifically in the bodies of athletes. A sport already afflicted with criticism for the damage it does to the human brain is now measuring if it can be played without damaging another rather vital organ in the human body. Were I a 20-year-old athlete, my sense of immortality might supersede concerns about my gray matter. But damage to my heart? I suppose football can be played after one gets one’s “bell rung” a few times. If the heart isn’t operating properly, a lot more than football will be lost.

The coronavirus is a worldwide villain (thus use of the word pandemic). It knows no region, certainly no conference affiliation. Which makes a look at the football conferences ready to play this fall somewhat troubling: they all include schools in the southern United States. Do the powers-that-be running the SEC, ACC, Big 12, AAC, Sun Belt, and Conference USA have a handle on controlling the coronavirus that the leagues up north and out west haven’t discovered? We all love (or hate) the correlation between the South and football, how you can’t live with (or in) one without loving (or adopting) the other. But at what cost during a pandemic?

In late July, I asked Memphis quarterback Brady White — a California native and a PhD. candidate, mind you — if he was prepared for an interruption or cancellation of his final season as a Tiger. “What we’re doing now is different from everything we’ve done in the past,” he said. “We recognize that, and we accept it. We know the possibilities, but we’re preparing for a full season. We’re preparing to be playing September 5th at the Liberty Bowl. You’d rather over-prepare and be ready to play than sit on your hands and then you’re behind the eight ball [when games are played]. I love the way we’re doing it. The biggest thing for football players in general is getting your mindset to ‘go’ mode.”

We’ll know soon enough if the AAC and other southern football conferences choose the “go” mode for 2020. As college students gather on campuses where masks are required everywhere except dorm rooms, college football players will — or won’t — take the field with even more at risk than their knees and thinking caps. Those deciding when (or if) to take such a risk must get this right, as there won’t be a second chance.

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From My Seat Sports

Live Sports: Pandemic Therapy

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

I went to bed angry Sunday night for the first time in months. Truly pissed off. Having waited more than four months to see my hockey team of choice — the Stanley Cup-champion St. Louis Blues — play a meaningful game, I watched them lose their opening playoff tilt by the narrowest margin possible in a timed contest. The Colorado Avalanche scored the game winner with a tenth of a second on the clock, and it took almost 10 minutes of video review to confirm that tenth of a second existed. Infuriating, that ice hockey game played in August.

And damn, did the anger feel good.
Larry Kuzniewski

Ja Morant

For the first time since the novel coronavirus changed our planet — at least that part occupied by the United States — in mid-March, we have a packed sports calendar. The NBA has resumed its season with 22 teams each playing eight “seeding games” in Orlando, a one-city “bubble” designed and operated to contain that insidious virus and still provide televised basketball at its highest level.

Likewise, the NHL has opened its postseason with two bubble cities, both north of our border: Edmonton and Toronto. If you like sticks and pucks, you can turn on the NBC Sports network today — a Monday in August – and watch live playoff hockey for more than 12 hours, a total of six games to be played (starting with the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes at 11 a.m. central). This is a new, if disorienting, form of bliss.

Major League Baseball is trying, too. Instead of localized, condensed play within one or two bubbles, MLB is trying to coordinate 30 mobile bubbles — one for each team — and present a 60-game regular season followed by an expanded postseason. And it’s not working entirely, not if you ask the Miami Marlins or St. Louis Cardinals. The two National League franchises have each been locked down after virus outbreaks, quarantined in hotels while rapid testing measures just how many players or staff in traveling parties of more than 50 carry the contagion. And let me tell you, the only thing worse than no pandemic baseball is pandemic baseball with your favorite team not allowed to play. It’s waking up on Christmas morning with gifts under the tree . . . for everyone but you.

It still feels good. For more than 100 days, sports fans have pined for the “welcome distraction” of games and scores to track. Well, guess what? Some of that distraction isn’t welcome in normal circumstances: a blown lead, a narrow loss, a game-changing call that goes against your team. It purely stinks. And it lingers. In all the right ways.

The Memphis Grizzlies lost their first two of eight seeding games as they cling to the final (eighth) playoff spot in the Western Conference. They lost to a pair of teams — Portland and San Antonio — below them in the standings, teams unlikely to catch Memphis for a postseason berth . . . unless the Griz allow them. Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. are as electric as any young tandem in the league, and they both had moments over the weekend, Jackson burying a late-game three-pointer against the Spurs that forced overtime . . . until it didn’t (thanks to a buzzer-beating foul that led to game-winning free throws for the bad guys). What if we’ve waited all this time to see our Grizzlies, and the “show” becomes a bubbled-season collapse into the draft lottery? (Memphis plays New Orleans Monday, then will face five playoff teams. Should the Grizzlies make the postseason, they will have earned it.)

More than 1,000 Americans are dying each day from COVID-19. The U.S. president, here in August, is calling into question the very lifeblood of democracy: our voting system. Children and teachers from coast to coast are wondering if they’ll become the lab rats for a “return to normal” no one feels comfortable defining. Times are still really, really tough. But we have sports again, at least a version. Justin Thomas is now a Memphian for life, his win in the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational highlighting the beautiful TPC Southwind — and countless tributes to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital — for a national TV audience, including the thousands of Memphis fans forced to watch from their living rooms. It felt good, and it felt right, watching Thomas barely hold off defending champ Brooks Koepka.


And even when sports don’t feel right — when the game-winning goal is scored by a villain — it still feels good. Let’s stay healthy, and let’s play on.
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From My Seat Sports

WGC Returns to Memphis

CREDIT: PGA TOUR

TPC Southwind won’t be packed with galleries of fans this week, as it typically has been for decades when the PGA Tour comes to town. But make no mistake. With the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in town for the second year, Memphis will be the center of the golf universe for four days. The field will include the top eight players in the World Golf Rankings (at the top of the list, Jon Rahm) and 70 others competing for a total purse of $10.5 million and a bounty of 550 FedEx Cup points for the winner.
PGA TOUR

Defending champion Brooks Koepka.

Defending champion Brooks Koepka and three other players answered some questions in advance of the most unusual PGA event Memphis has ever hosted.

There’s irony in the absence of fans in golf, as silence is expected on each shot. Is it a different kind of silence, though, with no gallery?

Brooks Koepka: I’ll tell you what, it’s very weird. You’re used to so many people following your group and cheering, and even when you hit a bad shot, the little gasp they do, you’re used to that. It’s a weird feeling. Sometimes when you hit one offline, you can see the crowd kind of scurry over there so you know where it is and it just now becomes a little bit tougher. I’ve had to do it a few times, but you’re searching for a ball over there; that three minutes comes up rather quick. You don’t have as many people searching for it. It is weird when you make a birdie and there’s no applause, no cheer, no anything. It’s kind of an eerie feeling, but at the same time, I’m just happy to be back playing.

Tommy Fleetwood: For me, I’ve always kind of pictured the atmosphere with crowds and everything, whether it be winning a major or winning a Tour event or anything like that. I always think about what that feeling’s going to be, the reaction and interaction with the crowds. I think at times you’ve seen the emotion from players — which has been just the same — but there’s no doubt about it, there’s going to be less noise, less ebbs and flows momentum‑wise without the crowd living and breathing it with you. So maybe that does play a big part. Probably be silly to say that it doesn’t, but we’ll see.

Tony Finau: It’s really strange. I thrive on that energy, having them out here. I don’t mind the distraction of fans. That dynamic is amazing for our game. I miss that energy.

Rafa Cabrera-Bello: You miss the crowds, obviously. We want silence, but only for the moment before we hit. The rest of the time, we don’t mind [the crowd noise] at all. We wish they were here.

Those watching the WGC on television will welcome any live sports in ways they haven’t before. Do you feel like the PGA Tour is providing a form of stress-relief by playing during the pandemic?

Cabrera-Bello: I have no doubt it’s been good. We have the opportunity to be one of the first sports back out there, as close to normal as it can possibly be. If there are fans who might not otherwise be watching, it will be good to grow the game.

Much of the season’s rhythm was lost with the cancellation of the Masters and U.S. Open. Does this put that much more of a premium on a tournament like the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational?

Finau: Every tournament seems to be extremely important. No matter whether you’re playing for Ryder Cup points, FedEx Cup points, world-ranking points. They’re all extremely important because of how condensed the season has been. You look at every week as a major week.

Cabrera-Bello: We may play fewer majors this year, so that would give more importance to the World Golf Championships, but they’ll always be a step down from the majors, unfortunately, for me.

Professional golf in Memphis has long been tied to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Have you been able to visit the hospital . . . and does this connection distinguish the upcoming tournament on your own playing schedule?

Finau: It’s a great tournament. The work they do for St. Jude is amazing. I’ve been down to visit that hospital. It’s pretty cool. Gives you a sense of humility, seeing how grateful those kids are just to have life. I’m looking forward to competing there.

Cabrera-Bello: It’s amazing. It’s one of the best courses we play all year, FedEx has its headquarters there [in Memphis], and what they do to help the kids [at St. Jude]. When you can manage to save a kid’s life, there’s nothing better in the world than that. As a recent father, I can only imagine what parents go through when they have a sick kid. All the support — and not just financial, but moral — for St. Jude is truly unbelievable.