Baseball's Opening Day reflects a politicized nation caught between Covid-19 and hope -... - 0 views
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If baseball is a metaphor for American life, Opening Day brought a tantalizing springtime hint of better days ahead, despite reflecting a nation divided by the polarized politics of a pandemic and Georgia's battle over Republican voter suppression.
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ongoing contact tracing postponed a game in Washington were a reminder of the still potent peril of Covid-19 as the country faces another infection surge.
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But the fact that there were fans in the seats at all to watch teams play ball underscored how much of the country is tentatively itching for a return to some semblance of normality after a grim winter of sickness and death and as millions of vaccines go into American arms at an increasing pace.
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The annual return of the boys of summer carries a sense of renewal and possibility. A similar feeling is being conjured by stunning and welcome news of the success of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
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The results emerged as vaccine distribution quickly ramps up across the country, with more than 150 million doses of vaccine administered in the US and eligibility for inoculations fast expanding to almost all age groups in many states. The Pfizer news also offered President Joe Biden a powerful weapon in his drive to convince a sizable minority of skeptical Americans to get vaccinated to enable the country to reach the herd immunity that is necessary to eradicate the virus.
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It's going to take widespread vaccination to drive the virus down sufficiently to allow a return to packed baseball stadiums later in the summer
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"That's a decision they made. I think it's a mistake," Biden said. "They should listen to Dr. (Anthony) Fauci, the scientists and the experts. But I think it's not responsible," Biden said in an interview with ESPN in lieu of throwing out the opening pitch before the Washington Nationals season opener.
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At least three players have tested positive for Covid-19 and another is considered a "likely" positive, Nationals manager Dave Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo confirmed during a video conference Thursday.
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The President also weighed into another controversy that encroached on the festivities of the first baseball games of the season — a new voting law passed by Republicans in Georgia that discriminates against Black voters and is based on ex-President Donald Trump's lies that the last election was marred by fraud.
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Trump also openly feuded with sportsmen and women who spoke out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in the racial reckoning that followed the death of George Floyd last year. At the same time as baseball was opening its season Thursday, the trial of the police officer charged with murdering Floyd entered its fourth day of testimony in Minneapolis.
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Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, meanwhile, lashed out at the campaign to shift the venue, accusing Biden of trying to distract attention from a flood of child migrants at the southern border, which Republicans say is the result of his more humane immigration policies."You know, he's focused on trying to get Major League Baseball to pull the game out of Georgia, which is ridiculous," Kemp told Fox News.
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The Georgia voting law may also be in the background at the Masters next week, the first men's golf major of the year at the Augusta National Golf Club. Racial issues were already to the fore of this year's tournament since Lee Elder, the first Black player to tee off at the Masters, in 1975, will be making his debut as honorary starter alongside Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.
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"I think today's professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that," Biden told ESPN. "People look to them. They're leaders."
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At Yankee Stadium in New York, which has been doubling as a Covid-19 vaccine site, fans had to show they were fully vaccinated or post a negative Covid test before passing through the turnstiles.
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Not all of the Opening Day challenges were caused by a pandemic and politics, however. In one sign of early season normality, the Boston Red Sox were rained out and will have to wait another day to welcome fans back to Fenway Park for the first time in 18 months.