The NBA season is suspended.

The NHL has postponed their games.

MLS will be playing zero soccer games for the foreseeable future.

NCAA March Madness has turned into March Sadness.

NCAA athletics across the board have been canceled.

And as it pertains to this blog, Major League Baseball Spring Training has been canceled while the regular seasons for both MLB and Minor League Baseball has been delayed by at least two weeks.

We have legitimately never seen something like this in the history of sports. COVID-19, a new Coronavirus, is taking the entire world by storm and all of the sports leagues in this country and many of the leagues across the globe have taken the precaution and in the NBA’s instance, reaction, to the disease.

Look, I’m not going to act like I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the science behind COVID-19, not even a little bit. The most science I have in this thick skull of mine is the engrained knowledge that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

However, I have four thoughts and feelings that have taken the forefront of my brain as all sorts of other chaos is going on in there:

• This sucks for the players that have worked so hard to get to the point they current sit at in their athletic careers. From high school freshman playing in their first season, to college seniors missing their final ride, to minor leaguers battling for every paycheck, to pitchers in their mid-30s fighting back from Tommy John Surgery. I feel so bad that they don’t get to compete in the sports they love.

• This sucks for the fans that count on sports as their escape from the chaos or monotony of their everyday lives. Sports, while purely entertainment for fans everywhere, serve such a huge part of the lives of many. The start of the baseball season means so much to those people.

• This sucks for the service workers. There is so much more that makes sports operate efficiently than just the players and coaches that take the field every day. How do you think the stadium looks as nicely as it does? How do you get that brew and dog every time you sit down in your season ticket chair? The roles these people serve exceed more than I could ever type out, but they rely on the checks they get cut during the season for their work. Without sports, those paychecks are up in the air. That is unless ownership does the ethical thing and pays the hardworking folks anyways.

• This is the correct decision. Listen, I know it sucks. I just wrote three out of the hundreds of reasons why this is so upsetting. I hate it. But it’s also smart and an obvious decision. This is a dangerous disease that the United States just can’t afford to allow to infect the at-risk folks that live here. Some things are just bigger than sports, and while that has been said many of times through the course of our history, sports have always been there to help with those bigger issues. This time we will have to find a way to get through this without the guidance of the ever-comforting athletics we submit our lives to.

While I have you, I want to get my word in that you should absolutely educate yourself in the best way possible. I am someone that dives headfirst into learning all there is to learn about a situation such as the Coronavirus and I will be the first to admit that I wish I could understand it all even more than I already do. There are plenty of local hospitals and medical professionals that have come out with their lists of symptoms, preventative measures, and advice. While that doesn’t hurt, my advice to all of you is to take advantage of the CDC and the WHO. Those two agencies should be the place you go for your information on how to deal with this process, and you should be able to gain any knowledge at those places that you could ever need.

Stay healthy everyone. Sports will be back soon enough.