CANTLON’S CORNER: THE AMERICAN PIE OF SPORTS 

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – The words from the iconic Don McLean hit from the summer of 1971, a paean to the terrible day when Ritchie Valens, JP “The Big Bopper” Richardson, and the legendary, Buddy Holly, all died in a plane crash in an Iowa cornfield en route to their next show and the cascading world that descended from that day.

On rising up on March 13, 2020, the worldwide sports landscape changed. It was stilled, quiet, unearthly, and seemed totally devoid of even a pulse.

The ice sheet at the XL Center stood glistening clean. The sounds of skates digging in were gone. The hum of the Zamboni shaving and resurfacing of the ice, no more as they have been sent into hibernation. The squeak of sneakers on hardwood, the three-pointers launched with a brilliant arc bringing hopes of glory are now but a misty dream.

The sound of baseballs being crushed by a wooden bat, the fleet-footed, and sure-handed infielder, who sought to snare that ball. Those long drives now ride alone on a breeze of a warm spring day,

America and the global sports world were left wondering in rapt funeral amazement, have sports died?

The English Premier League was the last world sports body to toss in the white towel when players and coaches from Liverpool and Chelsea tested positive for the Wuhan Flu, which is also known as Covid-19.

This landscape is hard to process.

As a long-time sportswriter opined, “What does a sportswriter do when there are no sports to cover?

Everyone hopes that this moratorium on our sports will be temporary,  but it does have the feeling of the start of a funeral dirge, or maybe bagpipes in sorrowful harmony.

The potential human cost is real and that those who developed the virus, it is very uncertain prognosis some may recover and sadly some will not. The full scale and picture is still yet unknown.

The economics of the sports industry teams and players are real. In the coming days, the associated ancillary businesses might be a catastrophe. When 30 days is spoken of as the minimum possible period of time was heading into choppy, very unchartered waters.

The workers at the arenas faced immediate hardship. The restaurants, pubs and other local eateries surrounding sports venues will see a dramatic fall off.

Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, said it would be cheaper for him and the country to keep these employees on payroll than it would be to send them off on time-consuming unemployment lines and vagaries of that experience.

The NCAA is already talking about extending eligibility to spring athletes who lost their entire schedule dashing dreams of playing upon the bigger stage.

Drafts to be held, contracts to be signed, the games stopped, but the business side still goes on while we all waiting for the signs we can resume entering our communal cathedrals.

We search like a light bean in the midnight sky, for the stars above will the joy and warmth of the games and the people that we encounter, friendships formed can they stay intact in our magic happy space? 

Now, for ten years we’ve been on our own

And moss grows fat on a rolling stone

But, that’s not how it used to be

When the jester sang for the king and queen

In a coat he borrowed from James Dean

And a voice that came from you and me 

The seasons ended in quiet prose as the collegiate playoffs were set to begin for UCONN hockey. A month from now, the hope of the return of the annual rite of spring Wolf Pack postseason hockey.

That scene was to be kicked off with a celebration of the 2000 Calder Cup team in our Roman amphitheater to turn cold, gray days to ones of a vivid blue sky and warm sun to add fuel to a spring fire, now rests in a place of celestial purgatory. 

Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
‘Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
We started singin’
Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye
And singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die

We will know soon if are days of sports, of sweet divine deception, will resume. Hopefully, like all the other sights and sound spring bring forth from Bradford pears in bloom, cardinals that return to our castles, bluebonnets fields, the smell of freshly cut grass, but the sporting landscape and of life has inextricably changed dramatically and maybe permanently.