Coronavirus, go away and bring my St. Louis Cardinals, live sports back to me
This weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals would be playing the Cubs at Wrigley Field and the Blues would be playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
I’d be in front of a TV, day and night, watching a St. Louis sports doubleheader.
The only thing better would be NCAA March Madness basketball games, for the weekend TV trifecta. Maybe Illinois or Saint Louis University would be playing.
I miss watching sports on TV. That first week of coronavirus cancellations, I sat in my living room watching Gomer Pyle on the big screen TV, and I thought to myself, “So this is it for awhile.”
And I was right.
Golly, as Gomer says.
That night, I surfed from channel to channel, out of habit. There are what seems like 1,000 channels on my cable TV package. But I couldn’t find one channel worth stopping at, because, well, no sports.
Back to Gomer, I went. Then Andy Griffith, Hogan’s Heroes and Green Acres. Entertaining, in a nostalgic way. But I’d rather be watching the Blues, Cardinals, Billikens, Illini or Battlehawks, instead.
During this sports freeze, I have become better at watching non-sports shows on TV. The only show I can binge watch is Family Feud. I like Monday nights on CBS. The Neighborhood makes me laugh. I enjoy Blue Bloods on Friday night, too.
TV-wise, it’s like I got to 1966 and said, “That’s enough. The heck with it.”
I have not ventured into the world of Netflix and other stations. Not yet, at least. Why? When there are sports on TV, well, I don’t need it.
My wife, Colleen, watches a lot of drama police-related shows. FBI. NCIS. She figures out who’s guilty ahead of me. That’s why I enjoy Gomer Pyle, Andy Griffith, Family Feud and sports. There’s not a lot to figure out.
On a Saturday night, Fox Sports Midwest showed a rerun of a a rerun of a St. Louis Blues-Toronto hockey game. You would have thought it was the playoffs. I am OK watching reruns of old baseball, basketball and hockey games. No stress. No yelling at the TV. No getting up and walking into another room, saying, “I can’t watch it anymore ...”
Golf tournament repeats are OK, too. Is there anything more therapeutic than watching golf on a Sunday afternoon? You can take a nap and not feel like you missed anything.
In the meantime, I will work to remain safe and continue to watch whatever is available on TV, except for political debates, infomercials, cooking shows, or shows about fixing up old houses.
Ready for the return of sports and how
Games will resume when it’s safe for games to resume. Right now, none of us know whether that will be in May, summer or next season.
I look forward to watching sports again. Live games. Talking to the TV. Counting the number of times the Cardinals strike out in a single game, or take called strikes.
Yelling aloud when the Blues take a careless penalty or miss a breakaway shot. Enjoying the analysis of Dan McLaughlin, Tim McCarver, John Kelly, Bernie Federko and Darren Pang.
Getting up nervously and pacing out of the room while muttering, “I can’t watch it anymore ...”
I’m kidding, of course, but you know that by now.
I will be binge watching sports when it comes back.
Gomer is an old friend, and Steve Harvey’s cool, but for me, they’re just not Darren Pang, Dan McLaughlin or Tim McCarver.
