Life in a pandemic is like sports with instant replay

Call me old-school, but almost all of this instant replay in sports to determine if the right call was made is exhausting. Seems to me that sports involve humans, humans make mistakes, and it is usually humans who are hired to be umpires and refs. Of course the performance of refs and umps is not why we are watching, and MAYBE there are a few cases where sports are made better by the use of instant replay – say, was that ball really fair when it went over the home-run fence? But really, is it necessary to review a judgment call (say, pass interference) to see if it is still adjudged to be a penalty, by the consensus of reviewers?

In Major League Baseball the strike zone is “. . . that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap” plus is determined by “the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.” Hunh? I have only a vague idea what that means, but whatever it means, I am 100% confident that with a computer and three cameras (or maybe four – to accommodate left- and right-handed batters) balls and strikes could be called more consistently than by the best human umpire. If MLB was serious about shortening the game, as they claim to be, rather than selling more air time and beer, and about getting all the calls right, that home-plate ump would be leaning on the backstop until he’s needed to call a close play at the plate.

And the last time I watched a basketball game it took several hours to play the last 30 seconds of the game, because at every stoppage of the clock the three refs, and a ref at the scorer’s table, and heck maybe even a NASA scientist or two, conferred to make sure there were 12.5 seconds remaining in the game rather than 12.4 seconds. (Um, I mean “remaining on the game clock.” Clearly there was still at least a half hour remaining in the game. Hell, that game may still be going on.)

To me it seems as though all of this instant-replay munching sucks much of the life outta the game. The clock is winding down, our guy is dribbling down court, frantically, and releases a moon shot that unimaginably goes in. YES! WOO HOO! Hug me, baby! WE WON! Oh, wait? Did he get it off in time? I thought he did, didn’t you? Now all the refs confer. Check it out on the big screen – it looks like the ball left his hand before the clock struck 0:00. Ooh, but when you look at it from this angle . . . . And fifteen minutes later the head ref motions that the shot . . . counted. Or didn’t count. Whatever. Where’d we park?

And so now, with life. Should we go into that store? OK, let’s go for it. Mask, gloves . . . let’s just scurry over here to get that . . . ARGH. Did that person just sneeze? Was it towards us or away from us? Should we ask someone if they saw which direction? Maybe review the security camera?

But here’s the real situation that burdens me. We stay pristine for two weeks, going nowhere near anyone, to gain the privilege of driving 200 miles to see the world’s most magnificent granddaughter and her dear parents. Of course, if I made them seriously sick I’d have to kill myself. So, we are so careful! My wife pretty much has to use public restrooms along the way but we men have creative if chancy options. (“Your honor, I beg of you – I have no history of public indecency and I thought I was well curtained off by the car doors being open on either side of me.”) So we have our visit and we have a marvelous time. The grandbaby is as cute as ever, so verbal, so fun, so loving, so interesting. We have good meals, enjoy their swimming pool, have a cocktail or two and enjoy some laughs. Great visit!

But . . . now we have to wait 14 days to see if the whole trip was really such a good idea. Given that there are two of us who visited, and the median incubation period for the virus is 6.5 days, we can maybe start to celebrate at the one-week mark – one of us would be sick by now if there was any of the covids around. And then it is day 9, and then day 12, and then, after two weeks . . . woo hoo! It really WAS a great trip, wasn’t it?! Where’d we park?