By Joshua Garcia
Like so many aspects of our lives prior to the lockdown of the United States due to the coronavirus, sports has changed completely. In the last two months, the stars on television went from Lebron James and Kawhi Leonard to Doctor Anthony Fauci and Govenor Andrew Cuomo.
Anthony Fauci is no stranger to athletics, in his past going toe to toe with Fordham Preps own Donnie Walsh who would later become the front office architect for both the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks. Fauci, as the point guard for Regis in Manhattan, got the best of the future NBA front man in a game not many gave them a shot at winning.
During one of his now famous daily pressers from the White House, Donald Trump reminisced about that very game, “Everybody loves him. You know he was a great basketball player. Did anybody know that? He was a little on the short side for the NBA but he was talented,” Trump said. “He won a game, I read this story, he won a game that was unwinnable against a great team and his whole team said, ‘We can’t beat this team’ and he went in and they won the game.”
Doctor Anthony Fauci was praised by President Donald Trump for his past sporting heroics, but it may very well be his future moves which last in lore even longer. With much of the country yearning for its national past time, MLB is concocting daily solutions to the relaunch its league and stay in line with local and national public safety procedures.
As Doctor Fauci has continually given his expertise as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he weighed in on the attempts to begin professional sports in some capacity, more namely his personal passion, baseball. Fauci as he conducts more and more baseball related interviews adds to his view of a 2020 MLB season that correlates to his goal of mitigation during this pandemic.
While speaking with the YES Networks Jack Curry Doctor Anthony Fauci added some elements to his original prognosis of the MLB’s malady, saying he could envision a scenario where baseball would be played in front of fans this season. Fauci stuck with his intial prescribed solution of using a couple of cities in lowly affected states while sequestering players, but this week tacked on a possibility of also putting baseball fans back in some of those parks.
Elaborating on the new idea of allowing fans in low number of covid 19 cases localities, Doctor Fauci stated that the only way that would be even feasible is if fans practiced social distancing in the stadium and committed to wearing gloves ans masks during MLB games. Fifty percent capacity at most if there is to be fans at all, but again Fauci clearly stated, “I think it’s more likely that you’re going to have more of a television baseball than a spectator baseball.”
Whichever route Comissioner Rob Manfred and MLB choose to take, one thing is for sure, one of thier biggest fans and proponents is in the White House in Doctor Anthony Fauci. Gushing with pride from a Pennsylvania Avenue pulpit when discussing his hometown World Champion Washington Nationals and his desire to watch them defend their crown, Doctor Fauci gave one last seal of approval. “People say, you can’t play without spectators….Well, I think you’d probably get enough buy-in from people who are dying to see a baseball game.”
