The Yard wants to toast all of the classes of 2020. Being part of the class of 2020 is the rock star designation for your diploma and tassel. Unfortunately, it has been the worst of graduation seasons for this class. Graduating college is exciting and all that follows before what comes next. High School graduation is a seminal moment in most of our lives. What comes next is still at least 90 days out and most times years away. The high school senior is at the top of the heap for that magical summer following commencement. For the next 90 days after the walk, whatever is happening next is not happening now. Other stuff is. I did graduate in 1975 so that perspective refracts through a Pink Floyd prism. What a bummer of a summer for these graduates? For Senior Ditch Day, do the kids get together on a backchannel Zoom meeting when they are really supposed to be Zooming to Coach Skeese Chemistry lesson? John Krasinski did a nice job with the virtual prom on You Tube but if you cannot leave the house, how does one stay out all night? There are potential stories and the milestones that can occur on that night. Zoom cannot carry the emotional freight to the finish line. It might be a nice time for reflection this summer, but hedonism was a lot more fun and there is a lifetime of reflection ahead.
The mayor of Las Vegas Carolyn Goodman has made her position on the casino closure maniacally clear. It made for good TV but not much sound reasoning. It is chilling to see the strip completely closed except for the sanitation crews scrubbing the place down. Her crazy lady rant with Anderson Cooper did call attention to the insanity of closing a billion-dollar industry for COVID-19 which has infected less than 5,000 and killed less than 250 in Nevada at this time. The slot machines are sanitized down to the wingnuts. The strip will survive but there is another tier of gaming establishment that so far did not get bailed out like Caesars did. Dotty’s is one of these venues. Their revenue is 95% from video poker and alcohol. Smoking is required and we hear Dotty’s has some of the best secondhand smoke in the entire valley. The Governor’s lockdown orders have kept Dotty’s closed but we believe the virus wants no part of that place. Those customers have already cast caution to the wind about death and disease a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Ironically, Bella’s Hacienda Ranch in Wells, NV got their CARES grant approved. Bella’s brothel services were considered nonessential, but she is getting assistance to help Bella and the ladies weather the storm.
In previous lamentations, the absence of baseball in this whole pandemicky thing is most trying. The potential of this Dodger team was going to be fun and we hope it still happens. Baseball has always been a unifying force in the history of this nation. There might not be a more important inflection point in this country’s history than right now. The games may need to be played initially before television audiences only. The players are going to have to take a haircut on their salaries that are in part derived from the turnstiles and concession stands. Salaries are paid per game played by the team. All salaries were based on fans in the stadiums and 162 games. The collective bargaining agreement does not cover pandemics that interrupt the schedule. Reality is looking like it may be August start, play 100+ games and go to the playoffs.
Baseball was not in session when Jackie Robinson day was celebrated nationally on April 15, 2020. The celebration was muted with the shutdown. It was in the news but all of the planned festivities to be shared across the nation were suspended along with baseball. Jackie famously broke the color barrier for Major League baseball. He could have easily broken into the NFL with his two UCLA teammates, Woody Strode and Kenny Washington. Strode and Washington played less famously for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946. Regardless, they all took risks at a time when the government offered scant protections for blacks. Baseball fought integration but finally relented. The National League was the first to embrace these talented athletes who had been banned based solely on the color of their skin. Over the two decades that followed Robinson breaking in 1947, fifteen of the next twenty MVP awards in the NL were won by African Americans. Integration changed the trajectory of baseball forever. It is shocking to think that eighty years after the Civil War, people of color were first allowed to play in an MLB game. The Negro leagues had historic talents who never got to play in our national past time. It is hard to comprehend these historical truths in this time and space.
And it is a strange time and space that we are all in these days. Two things we seem to have plenty of are time and space. When physical interaction with other humans is parsed, the amount of time that is made available is quite remarkable. With smart phones, Zoom and other social media, we can remain spatially apart while staying connected at a digital level. We were already evolving in that direction and the coronavirus just changed the trajectory. What it will look like when we come out of the other side, no one can know. It will be different, and the differences will be revealed disruptively to our norms. Hopefully, there are lessons learned, antibodies discovered, and a vaccine developed from this event horizon. The fictional dystopian dramas that have entertained us on the big screen, invaded our homes screens in real time these past several weeks. There has been expansive creativity shared and heroism displayed that reinforces our human persistence. Opportunities will arise as we emerge from our collective cocoons. We are in it to win it! Clutch those you hold dear when safe to do so. Get ready to launch!
Out and about: Please make sure that we all tip the shit out of all our servers when we get back to being served. Hail to all of the people that bring us food, and drink, who cut our hair, who provide us our services. Their “in-shelter” lost revenue is lost forever.
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