Opinion: '2020 in a nutshell,' MLB opener a reminder the sport will take a backseat to dark reality

WASHINGTON — They tried playing Major League Baseball in 2020 for the first time Thursday night, and the result was about as you’d expect.

Sunshine gave way to a thunderstorm of biblical proportions.

The game’s most joyful moment – the raising of a championship banner – was instead an exercise in dissonance.

One of the sport's brightest young stars was banished from the ballpark, thanks to the same scourge that has bound many of us to our homes, stripped of our livelihoods, roped off from our loved ones.

And the reality every sport must face – that games will be contested without those who love them the most – became even more apparent when every meaningful moment was greeted with virtual silence.

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Oh, the talent of the world’s greatest players could not be denied. The New York Yankees beat the Washington Nationals 4-1, with Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole stacking power on top of power to subdue the reigning World Series champions.

Until a wild display of thunder, lightning and rain short-circuited the game in the top of the sixth inning, it was a fine display of baseball.

Yet the undertones of playing for the first time amid a global pandemic that’s killed 144,000 Americans were undeniable.

Consider that the Nationals on this Opening Night raised the banner from their 2019 World Series title, like every winner before them, and were decked out in gold-trimmed uniforms, the threads of champions.

Yet it felt not so much like a moment of joy as a solemn ritual, coming in an empty ballpark, no full hearts in the stands to accompany the soaring tones of the music.

Even the Yankees – without a pennant since 2009 – found themselves taking some pity on their opponents.

“It was strange with a team celebrating a world championship,” Yankees slugger Aaron Judge mused, “and there’s no fans to celebrate with them.”

Also missing was one of the parties most responsible for that banner flying above Nationals Park. Juan Soto, the Nationals’ 21-year-old superstar, tested positive for the coronavirus, learning of his result just hours before Thursday’s opener.

Soto hit 34 home runs last year. Drove in 110 runs. Hit five postseason home runs, including three in the World Series, and bedeviled Cole, then a Houston Astro, in a Game 1 pounding.

There would be no rematch.

Soto’s positive test cast a pall over the season before it could get started. By night’s end, the Nationals were hopeful his absence may not be long – the Washington Post reported he tested negative in a rapid-result test administered Thursday – but its greater meaning was undeniable.

“That’s 2020 in a nutshell, kind of. A very, very emotional day,” says Washington Nationals closer Sean Doolittle, who had been encouraged with recent improvements in testing protocols after voicing concerns over early problems. “Things have been going very, very well. Everyone’s been following the protocol.

“It was an important reminder of just how dangerous – and how you can be doing all the right things – and there can still be a positive test. There was a lot going on before the game, along with the other things that kind of surround with opening day.

“We hope Soto is still asymptomatic and we’re happy the 2020 season is underway.”

His face belied his words, and well, that may be a theme at certain times this year.

They’re going to try and jam in 60 games and then expanded playoffs before October’s over, this at a time a significant percentage of schools across the USA won’t welcome their students into classrooms.

Hours before the Nationals and Yankees got going, the country’s 4 millionth positive COVID-19 test was recorded. With Soto and more than 100 other big leaguers now among them, the game has changed.

Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez was far closer than six feet to the nine men who batted for the Nationals on Thursday, and while Soto is Washington’s lone positive test this week, the concept of asymptomatic spread was certainly on Sanchez’s mind.

“I did want to be careful when I understand the situation, when someone was positive on the team,” Sanchez said. “I wanted to keep my distance from the other hitters.

“There’s a couple Latin ballplayers I know over there, but I still want to keep my distance.”

Indeed, fraternization is another victim of the virus, with Yankee manager Aaron Boone and Nationals manager Dave Martinez stopping just short of a pregame handshake when pregame introductions brought them in proximity behind home plate.

Two hours later, the rain came, hard. For nearly two hours, the clubs tried to wait out a damning radar report before the game was called.

Yet even the art of lazing around during a delay was disrupted. Clubhouses are now bereft of sofas and tables. Locker stalls are six feet apart.

Boone said his players spent the delay “everywhere” to kill time and stay away from each other.

And so it will go. Finally, there are real, live results for this Major League Baseball season. Yet what’s missing is never too far away.

“The crescendo for the big pitch, the crescendo for the big swing, and the drop of energy in the stadium when the opposing team has success,” Cole said when asked what was missing without paying customers.

“It would have been that quiet in the stadium when Giancarlo hit that (two-run homer) if there were fans in the stadium. You know what I’m saying?”

All too well.