We Could Live in This Pandemic Purgatory For a While

It’s still better, much better, than the alternative

On Tuesday night, I went to a baseball game. I am a professional sportswriter, so I’ve sat in the press box for a couple of games during the pandemic, but that’s no way to enjoy a baseball game, even one with no other fans allowed. No, Tuesday, I sat in the stands, in seats I had paid for, with my nine-year-old son, drinking a beer and watching my St. Louis Cardinals beat the Miami Marlins 4–2. It was a gorgeous night in south Florida, the retractable roof was open, we even almost got a foul ball. It was wonderful. It was almost like normal.

It wasn’t the Before Time normal. There was, as with every other stadium open for fans in Major League Baseball, reduced capacity — there were 4,952 fans in attendance, which, all told, isn’t that much more than the perpetually losing Marlins have when they’re at full capacity — and there were no occupied seats within 15 feet of my son and me. We all wore masks throughout, and loanDepot Park had ushers circulating, making sure we kept those masks on. There were no beer vendors, no common areas for commingling fans to gather, no players signing autographs pregame. Most of the concession areas were closed, leading to longer lines, and the bathrooms (the men’s, anyway) roped off two-thirds of their urinals to make sure everyone kept their distance from each other. During any time before March 2020, it would have been impossibly awkward and uncomfortable. My favorite thing about going to a baseball game is that I can take a deep breath and a step back, that I can relax for a little bit. That wouldn’t have been happening had it been like this in March 2020.

But it’s not March 2020. It’s April 2021, and we have all been through so much, and had so much taken away. What would have been strange, even unacceptable then, now feels like a revelation. Because at the game on Tuesday, I didn’t care about having to wear a mask, or longer concession lines, or having to buy tickets in a two-person pod. I was just grateful to get to go to a baseball game at all. I’d rather not have to deal with all those things, but they are mere minor inconveniences, the miniscule price I have to pay to enjoy something I haven’t been able to enjoy for more than a year now. It was fine. It was…