There were 5 NHL games played. The New York Rangers lost to the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2 in overtime at the Pepsi Center in Denver. The Chicago Blackhawks beat the San Jose Sharks, 6-2 at the United Center in Chicago. The Winnipeg Jets beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-2 at Rogers Place in Edmonton. The Los Angeles Kings beat the Ottawa Senators, 3-2 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. And the St. Louis Blues beat the Anaheim Ducks, 4-2 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.
Two Major League Soccer teams played games in the CONCACAF Champions League, both against teams from Mexico. New York City, yet again forced out of Yankee Stadium for reasons beyond their control -- at this point, a team that doesn't control its own venue looks really stupid -- played at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, home of their arch-rivals, who were happy to take the money of the richest team in MLS, and lost 1-0 to Tigres UANL of San Nicolás de los Garza. And Atlanta United lost 3-0 to Club América, at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.
And Major League Baseball was in Spring Training. The Yankees lost to the Miami Marlins, 3-1 at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida. The Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-3 at Clover Park (the new name of their Spring Training stadium since 1988) in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
The next day, everything stopped. The Coronavirus pandemic, known as COVID-19, has shut everything down.
Today, the MLS Is Back Tournament gets underway at the Disney World complex outside Orlando, Florida. So North American major league sports will be played for the 1st time in 119 days -- a shade under 4 months. How long has that been?
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We've had St. Patrick's Day, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and the Independence Days of both America and Canada.
The New York Knicks and the New Jersey Devils are both considering new head coaches, and the Devils are considering a new general manager -- or, the Devils may stick with both current holders of those jobs, Alain Nasreddine and Tom Fitzgerald, respectively. But none of the New York Tri-State Area teams have changed managers/head coaches, or general managers.
The NCAA canceled its basketball tournament. Football, at all levels, looks like it will start on time, but probably in closed stadiums. MLB, the NBA and the NHL will all restart this month, although MLB canceled its All-Star Game today. The Los Angeles Dodgers were supposed to host it for the 1st time since 1980, so they got the 2022 edition, with next year's going to the Atlanta Braves.
Thoroughbred horse racing's Triple Crown was postponed. The Belmont Stakes was only postponed 2 weeks, then run before an empty grandstand, with Tiz the Law winning. The Kentucky Derby has been moved to September 5, and the Preakness Stakes to October 3.
In tennis, Wimbledon was canceled for the 1st time since World War II. The French Open was postponed to September 20 to October 4, while the U.S. Open is tentatively set to be held on schedule, starting August 31.
The Tour de France has been postponed until August 29. If you consider auto racing to be a sport, the Indianapolis 500 has been postponed until August 23. If you consider golf to be a sport, the PGA Championship has been postponed until August 3, the U.S. Open until September 17, the Masters until November 12, and the British Open canceled outright, also for the 1st time since World War II.
The 2020 Summer Olympics and Soccer's Euro 2020 have been postponed until 2021. Liverpool have finally clinched the Premier League title, their 1st title in England's top flight since 1990, when it was still called the Football League Division One.
The FA Cup Quarterfinals have been played, behind closed doors. The Semifinals and the Final will be held at the new Wembley Stadium in London, as planned, but postponed and behind closed doors. Arsenal will play Manchester City on July 18, and Chelsea will play Manchester United on July 19. The winners of these games will face each other for the Cup on August 1.
The UEFA Champions League had not yet completed its Round of 16. Its Quarterfinals will be held from August 12 to 15, its Semifinals on August 18 and 19, and its Final on August 23. All of these games will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, which was meant to host only the Final (barring advancement by either of the city's big teams, Benfica and Sporting Clube de Portugal, neither of which happened).
You'll notice that these games are spilling over into what would have been the start of the 2020-21 seasons in the various European leagues. Said leagues will have to come up with schedules that are either compressed more than usual, to get done by mid-May as usually intended (some leagues have Winter breaks, and may have to eliminate them), or may have to spill over into Summer again, thus again putting the Euros in jeopardy.
Movie premieres have been put on hold. Some studios have made deals with Internet streaming services to premiere their movies. This includes Scoob!, a purported origin story for cartoon dog Scooby-Doo and his human friends, the crime-solving teenagers known as Mystery, Inc. This cartoon also includes Hanna-Barbera stars the Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, Captain Caveman and his companion Dee Dee Skyes, and, as the villains, Dick Dastardly and Muttley. (This Blue Falcon is Brian Crown, son of Radley Crown from the original from the 1976-77 Dynomutt series.)
The Number 1 song in America at the time of the shutdown was "The Box" by Roddy Ricch, a.k.a. Rodrick Wayne Moore Jr., a 21-year-old rapper who is, yes, straight outta Compton, California. Now, the Number 1 song is "Rockstar" by DaBaby, a.k.a. Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, a 28-year-old rapper from Cleveland, with Roddy Ricch also on it. The songs have other things in common: They're both autotuned, and they're both monotonous as hell.
Since the world pretty much shut down, global stock markets have crashed. So has the price of oil, as the pandemic means fewer people are going out, thus fewer are buying gasoline. But other things have happened.
North Macedonia, formerly a part of Yugoslavia, joined NATO. The Israeli governmental deadlock was ended, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had held on to power through 2 inconclusive national elections, formed a unity government with opposition leader Benny Gantz, and agreed to step aside in favor of Gantz in 18 months, on November 17, 2021.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was reported to be deathly ill, or even dead, following surgery, but appears to have recovered. Islamist militants killed 52 people in Mozambique. Iran launched its 1st satellite, Ghased (meaning "Messenger").
Troops from India and China clash over their border. Gunmen killed 24 people, including 2 newborns, in a maternity hospital in Afghanistan. On the same day in that country, a suicide bomber killed 32 people at the other side of life, a funeral. A Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed near Karachi, killing 97 people. An attack on that country's stock exchange killed 8 people. A landslide in Myanmar killed 162. And 34 died in a ferry collision in Bangladesh.
In North America, the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history took lace, 16 people in the small coastal town of Portapique, Nova Scotia. The SpaceX Dragon 2 was launched, the 1st manned spacecraft taking off from U.S. soil since the suspension of the Space Shuttle program 9 years earlier.
And the murder of George Floyd by a policeman in Minneapolis boosted the Black Lives Matter movement, causing demonstrations around the world, leading to Donald Trump ordering the U.S. Army to gas peaceful demonstrators near the White House, so he could walk over to a nearby church, and stand for a photo op, holding a Bible -- upside-down, as it turned out. And he's held rallies in Oklahoma, Arizona and New Hampshire, increasing the spread of COVID-19. It's almost like he doesn't give a damn how many people have to die to keep him in office and out of prison.
Over 132,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 in America. That's equivalent to roughly 44 occurrences of the 9/11 attacks, in just 4 months. It's also 2.27 times the 8-year U.S. death total in the Vietnam War, in 4 months. And nearly 1/3rd of the U.S. deaths in World War II, which was nearly 4 years, and this happened, I say it again, in 4 months. Or, to put it another way, Donald Trump has been in office for 41 1/2 months, so this is more than one 9/11's worth of deaths in every month of his Presidency.
And still, Trump refuses to accept responsibility. How many of those 132,000 people could have been saved if he had just used the Obama Administration's pandemic plan, instead of throwing it out, because he's Mr. Government By Spite?
Let's suppose a pessimistic figure. Suppose only 10 percent could have been saved, above and beyond the number we will never know who have been saved by the other measures that Governors and Mayors of taken. That would still be 13,200 people. That would still be more than four 9/11s whose blood is on Trump's tiny hands.
Here's a summary of famous people who've died from the Coronavirus, from March 12 until now:
* Sports: Philadelphia Eagles running back turned actor Timmy Brown, New Orleans Saints 63-yard field goal kicker Tom Dempsey, 1966 English World Cup winner Norman "Bites Yer Legs" Hunter, former Arizona State baseball coach and Oakland Athletics manager Bobby Winkles, and Canadian Football Hall-of-Famer Marv Luster.
* Other fields of endeavor: Playwright Terrence McNally, jazz patriarch Ellis Marsalis, Fountains of Wayne singer Adam Schlesinger, historian Henry Graff, singer John Prine, magician and animal trainer Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy, and actor-singer Nick Cordero.
Among those who've died from other causes, in sports:
* Baseball: Former Atlanta Braves owner Bill Bartholomay, Houston Astros slugger Jimmy Wynn, Chicago White Sox pitcher and broadcaster Ed Farmer, Detroit Tigers Hall-of-Famer Al Kaline, 1960s Chicago Cubs All-Star Glenn Beckert, Kansas City Royals Pennant-winning manager Jim Frey, Yankees part-owner Hank Steinbrenner, former Oakland Athletics All-Star Matt Keough, former Houston Astros All-Star and Yankee general manager Bob Watson, former Atlanta Braves catcher Biff Pocoroba, former All-Star outfielder Claudell Washington, former Boston Red Sox manager Eddie Kasko.
* Football: Buffalo Bills AFL Champion Mike Stratton, 1956 NFL Champion Giants player Harland Svare, Washington Redskins Hall-of-Famer Bobby Mitchell, Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro Pete Retzlaff, former NFL quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, Green Bay Packers Hall-of-Famer Willie Davis, Baltimore Colts All-Pro Mike Curtis, Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame coach Don Shula, Miss America turned CBS NFL Today panelist Phyllis George, college coach Pepper Rodgers, original 1960 New York Titan/Jet Jack Klotz, Auburn University coach Pat Dye, New York Giants football player and broadcaster Lee Grosscup, college football coach Johnny Majors, Cincinnati Bengals All-Pro Ken Riley, New York Jet Super Bowl III winner Paul Rochester, Miami Dolphins Super Bowl winner Jim Kiick, former Washington Redskins offensive line coach Joe Bugel, and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Gay Culverhouse.
* Basketball: Harlem Globetrotters icon Curly Neal, 1963 Loyola National Champion Les Hunter, ABA Commissioner Mike Storen, 1955 Syracuse Nationals NBA Champion and Globetrotter Jim Tucker, former Chicago Bull All-Star and Hall of Fame Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, college coach Eddie Sutton, Washington Bullets Hall-of-Famer Wes Unseld, and former Portland Trail Blazers executive Harry Glickman.
* Hockey: 1970s Chicago Blackhawks All-Star Pat Stapleton, 1940s hockey star Jim Conacher, former Los Angeles Kings coach Tom Webster, auto racer Stirling Moss, and 1950 Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup winner Doug McKay.
* Soccer: Executive Bob Hermann, founder of the North American Soccer League and namesake of soccer's version of the Heisman Trophy; Manchester City legend Glyn Pardoe, Norman Hunter's Leeds United teammate Trevor Cherry, New York Cosmos players Ralph Wright and Seninho, and Manchester United legend Tony Dunne.
* Olympic Gold Medalists: Czech javelin thrower Dana Zatopkova (widow of track legend Emil Zatopek), American swimmer Tom Bruce, American sprinter Bobby Morrow, American boxer Pete Rademacher, and 1964 decathlon winner Willi Holdorf of Germany.
* Other Sports: World Champion gymnast Kurt Thomas, and Hall of Fame jockey Don Seymour.
Other fields:
* Acting: Stuart Whitman, Lyle Waggoner, Melinda O. Fee, Honor Blackman, Shirley Douglas (ex-wife of Donald Sutherland and mother of Kiefer Sutherland), Brian Dennehy, Tom Lester, Sam Lloyd, Jerry Stiller, Fred Willard, Ken Osmond, Richard Herd, Ian Holm and Carl Reiner.
* Directing: Peter Hunt, Lynn Shelton and Joel Schumacher.
* Music: Rock and roll pioneer Little Richard; Singers Kenny Rogers, Jan Howard, Bill Withers, Carl Dobkins Jr., Millie Small, Betty Wright, Phil May, Bonnie Pointer, Vera Lynn, Benny Mardones and Charlie Daniels; rapper Huey; jazz pianist Freddie Cole (brother of Nat King Cole), jazz drummer Jimmy Cobb, rock keyboardist Max Crook; songwriters Bill Martin and Kenny Young, and film composers Johnny Mandel and Ennio Morricone.
* Authors: Historian Richard Reeves, Beat Generation poet Michael McClure, comic book writer Dennis O'Neil, comic book artist Joe Sinnott, The Graduate writer Charles Webb, and baseball biographer Lonnie Wheeler.
* Journalist: Hugh Downs.
* Politics: Nixon and Reagan Administration aide John Sears, former Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, Lewinsky scandal whistleblower Linda Tripp, former Arizona Governor Jane Hull, former Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O'Neill (no relation to Paul O'Neill the Yankee), former FBI Director William Sessions, JFK sister and former Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith.
* Others: 1950s "Quiz Show Scandal" whistleblower Herb Stempel, 1940s quiz show champion turned philosopher Joel Kupperman, Diners Club credit card pioneer and film producer Matty Simmons, radio talk show host Barry Farber, photographer and Beatles insider Astrid Kirchherr, and scandalous teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau.
Obviously, nobody born since March 12, 2020 is yet famous in their own right. But U.S. soccer team star Alex Morgan had her 1st baby on May 7, following former national teammate Hope Solo, who had twins on March 4, before everything shut down.
Also becoming new parents (not necessarily for the 1st time) during the shutdown have been actresses America Ferrera, Chloë Sevigny, model Iskra Lawrence, Dancing with the Stars dancer Karina Smirnoff, and singer Grimes and her boyfriend, tech mogul Elon Musk, who, after 5 kids with his ex-wife, named this child X Æ A-Xii -- or "Ash."
March 12, 2020: Everything in North American sports shut down. July 8, 2020: It begins again. Whether it will keep going, or have to be shut down again, remains to be seen. After all, Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is a fool, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a megalomaniac, and Donald Trump is both.
Anything can happen.
It's 2020. Anything has already happened.
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