Reese Kaplan -- Awaiting Baseball in Virus Lockdown

It’s very difficult to draw a parallel to what’s happening with baseball right now.  I remember vividly the period following the attacks on 9/11 of 2001 when the country went into its last lockdown of sorts, though that one was only about 10 days in duration.  Now we’re told 2+ weeks is a mandatory self-quarantine of anyone who dares to leave their hometown.

I’m not going to try to equate a religious/military style attack with a viral problem for which there is yet no prevention nor cure.  We’re all doing the things we’re being asked to do -- congregating in smaller groups, washing hands frequently, hopefully coughing and sneezing in a somewhat controlled manner so as not to spread germs to anyone else, and working from home when possible.

The interesting thing is that after the stores got over their initial supply and demand problems for frequently purchased items like milk, eggs, paper towels, toilet paper and cleaning products, slowly they are working back towards workable distribution.  Sunday, for example, I wandered into the Walmart Neighborhood Center (a supermarket-only version of the larger Super Center). There I was able to buy two 18-packs of fresh eggs. Then as I wandered towards the paper section I saw an armed security guard standing there, but the truly amazing part was they would hand out one 10-pack of toilet paper and one 4-pack of paper towels to anyone who respectfully waited on line.  Cleaning supplies, unfortunately, are still a work in progress, as is distribution of large containers of bottled water.

A later trip to Albertsons led me to the water aisle where they had not only purified and spring water in gallon containers, but also a small supply of gallons of distilled water which I use for a medical device and my wife uses in her machine-of-life, her Keurig coffee maker.  They were similarly out of Lysol and similar cleaning products, but it is great progress over the first few days. 

During a long call with my brother in New Jersey this morning he made me feel jealous for having reached the 60 year old mark of age in that he was able to bypass the line that wrapped around the supermarket to get first crack at necessary supplies.  I’ll have to wait until September for that permission, but I certainly hope we’re long past this state of affairs by then.  

It is interesting for me to see the state of buying during this period of crisis.  Some socialist will make an interesting study about what people buy in bulk to feel secure.  In this mostly Mexican-heritage area you could see the dearth of rice, beans, spicy condiments and other staples of cooking.  Cereals were pretty thin as were a great many meat products. Canned good sections looked like a Thanksgiving eve catastrophe.  Some folks say the bulk buying is about feeling some sense of control over things that are beyond our authority to manage.  

Somewhere lost in all this coronavirus pandemic news blitz is information about baseball.  The Korean league is starting to practice together again (and video is available showing ex-Met Chris Flexen on the mound).  The Mets sent three guys down to AAA -- Andres Gimenez, Ali Sanchez and Tyler Bashlor. There are still 32 people in the closed-down big league camp which must reduce its number to 26.  Assume Yoenis Cespedes and Jed Lowrie will hit the injured list, so that leaves four more cuts to make. Whenever the season resumes, so too will the bickering about how the club is run.  I miss that!