Dr. Anthony Fauci thinks some sports can come back — we help him find a few more

In an interview with Peter Hamby of Snapchat yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he thought there was a way for baseball and some other sports to return.

“Nobody comes to the stadium. Put [the players] in big hotels, wherever you want to play, keep them very well surveilled. ... Have them tested every single week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family, and just let them play the season out.”

We’re glad that America’s Doctor is on board, but why just baseball? There are plenty of other smaller competitions we’d love to watch (and bet on!), and ones we think can be handled safely as long as baseball is on that list as well.

Let’s take a look at what sports can come back, with some slight modifications, and get ESPN out of the reruns business as soon as possible.

Golf

It does seem as if golf could absolutely be played under the right circumstances as of now. A few weeks ago Dr. Greg Poland, a vaccinologist from the Mayo Clinic, was on ESPN Radio’s Dan LeBatard Show with Stugotz, and said he thought it might be fine as long as crowds aren’t there. Skip ahead to the 31:10 mark here to listen. It’s a light-hearted get-together, but he appears to think the logistics can be worked out.

Even Florida’s governor wants Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to “do the golf” (big sports guy, Ron?) in his state. As of now, golf is a protected activity in Florida despite a statewide safer-at-home order.

“I’d like to see Woods and Mickelson do the golf, or whatever, because that’s social distance ... You wouldn’t have a gallery there, you wouldn’t have crowds,” DeSantis continued. ”But to put that on TV, I think people have been starved for content.”

No matter your political leanings, I think we can all agree with that last statement.

As far as adjustments that need to be made, let’s have have everyone use one of these to actually physically remove the ball from the hole. And making the flagsticks and sand trap rakes out of copper, which kills most viruses on contact, would be a great extra precaution.

Dropping some extra hand sanitizer next to the ball wash on each hole wouldn’t hurt either.

Tennis

A sport where all the participants stand at least six feet away from each other at basically all times. You could even have the players change ends on opposite sides of the court. Plenty of tennis players have courts in their backyard on their manicured estates, so we can’t strap a few cameras in, add some Hawk-Eye technology and let Nadal, Feder, and Djokovic do it at home instead of Center Court? Who wouldn’t watch this??

The issue becomes the ball, which is touched by a player on every single play. Soaking them in anti-bacterial liquid probably effects the sport too much. Would it be unreasonable to put new ball in play on every serve? If the players retrieve the mishits, and each ball is then gathered and cooked in an oven located just off the court after every point where it’s played, we might be onto something here!

Bowling

Now we come to our best idea: two athletes competing on two different side-by-side playing areas at the same time, at least six feet away from each other and preferably further. The thing with bowling is the oil pattern, but you can replicate that on two different lanes using a machine. Give each bowler their own two lanes, and add at least two lanes in between.

Could we use a few Pete Weber crotch chops right now? Oh you didn’t know??

Darts

If you’ve never watched darts on TV, you’re missing out. It’s fantastic, compelling sports television, and often the drunken fans singing soccer songs while those on the stage aim for ONNNNNE HUNDRED AND EIGHTYYYYYYYYY makes for an incredible atmosphere.

So we can’t do the fans, but The GOAT Phil The Power Taylor against Michael Mighty Mike Van Gerwen? All of this all the time, but on opposites of the stage, and with two different announcers to keep us all safe please.

Archery

Same principle. South Korea dominates the sport, and they’re already getting back to sports such as baseball anyway, though of course without fans. Is it ideally what we’d like to be watching and betting on right now? Not exactly. But it’s better than my boss handicapping the Real Housewives of New York? Absolutely!

Auto racing

Six feet apart by the rules of the sport! The only alteration here is the pit crews, as having drivers come in and take four tires and fuel requires the guys in the box to stand pretty close to each other. So let’s race in heats as is done on Friday and Saturday nights across America at short tracks. Those tracks are in trouble already, and this could be a nice way to help them get back on their feet.

Dog Agility

You’ve probably seen videos of the best doggos running on see-saws and through weave poles like a slalom skier on four legs. Let’s have the owners and trainers out there ASAP! And besides, the adorableness of this sport can make all of us feel better in this time of confusion and difficulty.