VIRUS DIARY: Fantasy baseball, when real ball is the fantasy

CINCINNATI (AP) — "People ask me what I do in winter when there is no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” — Rogers Hornsby (1896-1963), baseball Hall of Famer

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Updating my brackets, I looked forward to a dream second-round game: the 1919 Chicago White Sox against the 1976 Cincinnati Reds. The two greatest players ever banned because of betting scandals, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose, on the same field!

The field is made of cardboard, a game played with dice and statistically accurate cards.

Instead of cleaning out the basement as planned two weeks ago in our self-isolating home, I returned upstairs carrying a box of Strat-O-Matic cards and drew up a March Madness baseball tournament with the best teams of all time.

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“The only church that feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the church of baseball.” — Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) in “Bull Durham"

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Opening Day is a big deal in Cincinnati: eclectic parade, office parties with hot dogs; block parties with live music. But the coronavirus outbreak forced baseball to postpone first games March 26 to no sooner than mid-May.

Right now, there's no watching from lawn chairs the grandkids' games of tee-ball, with kids piling on each other fighting for the ball while a coach windmills his arm to a confused runner. There's no coach-pitch, where dads learn the shame of accidentally striking out their own child. No Little League, where you start seeing slick fielding and savvy batting.

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“This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again.” — Terence Mann (James Earl Jones) to Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) in “Field of Dreams"

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source https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/VIRUS-DIARY-Fantasy-baseball-when-real-ball-is-15174010.php