With fall officially arriving this week, we are now into our third season of ‘COVID-company.’ It hasn’t been fun, but most of us are coping the best we can. September is the year’s most significant transitional month with warm summer days turning to cool autumn mornings with the harbinger of an arriving winter all to close behind. This September, those meteorological moments are about the only recognizable entities of the year’s ninth month.

Sports wise, this month doesn’t make much sense. For the first time on record, the nation’s four professional sports leagues are all engaged in either regular season or playoff games. The NBA and NHL live in bubbles, playing their games in empty arenas, with plummeting television ratings. The NFL has only two teams (Jacksonville and Kansas City), allowing limited fans in the stands at their games, with TV productions devoting almost as much time to off-field activities as on. MLB will begin their 16-team expanded playoff format next Tuesday, excluding just 14 of their teams following its brief 60-game regular season.

Those playoffs will begin Tuesday, September 29, with the eight teams in each league being matched up on a 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, and 4-5 basis. Each best-of-three series will be played at the home field of the higher seed.

Once those winners have been determined, MLB has announced those games will also be joining the ‘bubble bunch.’ To add more assurance, they will be able to complete its playoffs, MLB will be hosting games at sites in Texas and California. The National League playoffs will be held at Minute Maid Park in Houston and the new Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas. The American League games will be played at Dodger Stadium and PETCO Park in San Diego. Globe Life Park has been selected to host all the games of the 2020 World Series.

As for me, my baseball bubble was burst a long time ago, even in a shortened 60-game season. As a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates, this season has bordered on the un-cheer-able. Both teams are at the bottom of their respective league standings, with the Pirates having the distinction of owning the worst record in MLB.

Most nights, I will turn on the TV and watch a Buccos team that has committed the most errors in baseball, has walked in the most runs with the bases loaded, and is last in runs scored, slugging, and on-base percentage, has the worst inter-league record, and is ranked last among the 30 MLB teams in team power ratings.

As I grumble at the TV about their ineptitude, Jean asks, “Why do you keep watching?” Does team loyalty have anything to do with it? There will be no October for this frustrated fan.

Collegiately, it could be rationalized that the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 Conferences are either smarter or more money-conscious than everyone else in pushing ahead with their respective power football seasons. Although at this writing, it appears that the new Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren will be caving to pressure to reverse the August edict to cancel the fall 2020 season.

An announcement (most likely already made) will create an about-face to allow the Big Ten to conduct a football season with an anticipated mid-October start. Does such a decision to give a green light to play stem from the league presidents and chancellors being swayed by new medical and testing information, or have they caved under the avalanche of outrage – to saying nothing about the loss of that very green TV revenue.

On that subject, a recent article penned by Chip Scoggins raised questions as to the league’s pending reversal.

“Pressure to reverse the decision — or at least provide more insight — has come from many angles. Players took to social media to voice their displeasure. Coaches ripped the league publicly. Parents of players protested. Even President Trump got involved by calling Warren to discuss the matter. Legislators from six states sent Warren a letter asking to overturn the decision. The Nebraska attorney general also sent Warren a letter essentially demanding transparency. It’s naïve to think that degree of pushback had no effect on the Big Ten’s willingness to revisit its decision.

“Does anybody think for a second that Warren and university presidents saw college football being played elsewhere and didn’t think, why them and not us? Were we wrong? This will look really bad if other Power Conferences pull this off, and we didn’t try.”

Locally, the recent court decision handed down by U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, declaring Governor Wolf’s pandemic edict on public gatherings to be unconstitutional, may clear the way for school districts to permit a larger number of fans to attend sporting events. October may become more open with Wolf’s ban on no more than 250 people able to attend outside events overturned.

As has been reported, each school district has determined their own policies as to the number of fans they will allow at their sporting events. It is a complicated scenario as the roster size of teams, bands, cheerleaders, and game personnel varies from school to school, as does the physical capacity size of each school’s stadium. There is no ‘one size fits all,’ any more than there is a concrete answer as to what is the best thing to do to allow the athletes to play the games and the fans to watch in a guaranteed safe environment.

It hasn’t been a sweet September.