It isn’t accurate to say there is “no baseball” this week, because, of course, the playoffs. It’s just that, for the first time in two and a half months, there is no Chicago Cubs baseball. In a normal year, we’d still have MORE than half the season left to go, plus a postseason to deeply disappoint us.
As it stands, we won’t see the Cubs back in action – if the world doesn’t fall apart sooner – for about 135 days, when pitchers and catchers are theoretically supposed to report for 2021 Spring Training.
Long time to wait. But you want to know something crazy? The time between Spring Training shutting down on March 12 and the Cubs’ eventual Opening Day for the 2020 season? That shutdown period?
It was also 135 days.
If we’re lucky, having done it before so recently, the wait won’t feel nearly as long or helpless this time around. We’ve got a month of postseason baseball, at least, and we can pretend the Padres are LIKE the Cubs, right? Then, we’ll have an offseason to sort through, which, while it’ll probably be very limited, is going to be more than the last shutdown was (there was a literal transaction freeze). And maybe there won’t even be massive fighting between the owners and players to be annoyed by! OK, that’s probably asking too much.
That is all to say, we’ve done this before. Recently! Back to a Cubs-less existence, hoping they can return in four or five months to a world less pinned down by the virus, and primed for a more complete and normal baseball season.