Cubs: Five things to do without baseball; Coronavirus edition

Amid the Cubs and coronavirus COVID-19- one of the most culture-shocking and potentially dangerous pandemics in most of our lifetimes, Cubs baseball seems a bit trite and unimportant. Still, you’ve got some time on your hands, so…

For all of the people out there who are pissed off about no sports and specifically, no Cubs baseball- get a grip. At some point, life will return to some state of normalcy, and games will no doubt bring us relief, distraction, entertainment, and maybe even some healing as they have done in the past.

Whether it was 9/11, the Bay Area earthquake in 1989, JFK’s assassination, Hurricane Katrina, or WWII, sports have taken a back seat to major natural disasters and human-made ones on several occasions. In every case, sports helped bring America back, as they will no doubt do in 2020.

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has disrupted nearly all aspects of American life in the past few weeks, with more to come in the future, no doubt. Sports, and baseball specifically, are no exception.

With the call to postpone Opening Day and the season at large before it even got underway, MLB got this one right. As we’ve already seen in the NBA, high-profile celebrities and athletes aren’t immune to the virus, and can seemingly transmit and pass it on to others just as readily as any other segment of the population.

Ultimately, what does this mean for baseball as a whole and the Chicago Cubs specifically? What does it mean for the fans who have been waiting (what seems like an eternity, again) impatiently through another offseason? It means they’re going to have to find something to distract and entertain until we’ve “flattened this curve,” and baseball decides to start back up again.

When that is, no one knows, but a good gambler would probably be wise not to place any bets on it happening in the next month. For those of us who don’t have a rock or stamp collection to tend to, it means finding something to fill that time and silence that fanaticism- here are some suggestions if you’re in desperate need of a Cubs baseball substitute.