Bill Plaschke writes:
I won't miss the games. Suddenly, I don't care about the games. It will be a while before any of us truly cares about the games. Baseball is closed, major college football is closing, maybe the NFL will soon be closed, and you know something? The only thing I miss about the games is that ritual that precedes them.

Lord, what I wouldn't give right now to hear a national anthem.

A nice, long national anthem. Doesn't matter if some of the lyrics are wrong, or the key is off, or the musician is one of those longhaired saxophone players who keep Lakers fans standing for five jittery minutes.

A national anthem, just one, echoing through a stadium of people feeling strong again, accompanying a game that will make us feel real again.

Reading about sports while your country is under attack is like reading a phone book. I scanned parts of two stories, folded the section back up, and returned to the TV.

During times like these, this is why the sports world is the first to turn the lights out.

We don't want anyone confusing ball and bat with life and death. We don't want our endless trivialities taking up space better used for things that actually matter.

This is where you turn for escape. But during times of national tragedy, there can be no escape. We can offer little insight. We can be of no help.

You know this, and so do I.

Yet we are both here today anyway.

Perhaps this is because we know that the sports world is also the first to turn those lights back on, a bright blaze under which a weary community gathers, a first stop in a long journey back to normalcy.

It was Babe Ruth who swung us out of World War I. It was Joe DiMaggio who helped us endure World War II.
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