Published April 7, 2020
New reports say Major League Baseball is considering opening the season as early as May under tight conditions in Arizona. If that’s true, MLB should swing for the fences by opening the season with the All-Star Game.
Baseball has always been a uniquely American game. Although historians now reject the idea that it was founded by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839, the game that evolved in the United States early in the 19th century was the United States’ first contribution to global sports. It was the first nationally organized sport and was so well entrenched in the American conscience that GIs used baseball knowledge to root out German infiltrators during the Battle of the Bulge. No wonder it is still known as the national pastime.
The nation has had no pastimes for the past month, however, as the battle to contain covid-19 has shut down all live sporting events. Tens of millions of people who used to watch sports on television have been cut off cold turkey. No March Madness, no Masters Tournament, no NBA or NHL, no nothing.
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Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
