monday, april 6 , 2020. the washington post eZ sU C9
Once we can root, root, root for the home team again, here’s what MLB could do
Have y ou ever
tried t o reschedule
an Olympic
Games? Sure,
many of us have
postponed
weddings — and
there are at l east two I should
have canceled a ltogether — but
those are much smaller a ffairs t o
manage. T he Olympics? That’s
got to be the biggest e vent i n the
world, even larger t han a “Duck
Dynasty” E aster egg hunt.
Meanwhile...
Have y ou ever tried to push a
Major League Baseball season
back into autumn and w inter? It’s
a scheduling and l ogistical
nightmare — too many games t o
fit into too tight of a c alendar.
Pitchers and fans won’t l ike the
weather, a nd, of course, the
Houston Astros’ video equipment
might freeze o ver.
So International Olympic
Committee a nd MLB officials,
used to waking u p around noon
before strolling to the b ank with
those oversized checks usually
reserved for Publishers Clearing
House winners, a re n ow
scrambling t o get their money
trains back on track.
I guess the IOC had the less
difficult task: It s imply plopped
the 2020 Summer Games i n To kyo
into the same time frame in 2021.
Ah, i f it were o nly that easy.
So many factors — housing,
venues, food s ervices, security,
vendors and more. Do you know
how many sporks h ave to b e
reordered for the Olympic V illage
commissary? Those babies j ust
disappear; s porks are always the
first item to walk out of t he supply
closet.
Heck, rebooking f lights —
airline c hange f ees alone will kill
you — is a financial s train.
It’s a m assive jigsaw p uzzle,
and e very piece must fit. T here
are 32 sports, plus golf; you can’t
just say, “ We’re all good schedule-
wise e xcept for s wimming —
swimming d oesn’t w ork t hat
week, so, okey-doke, we’ll drop
swimming.”
NBC, naturally, will still bethere to televise the 2 021 v ersion,
but t hat still leaves a 7,777-hour
gaping crater in i ts s chedule this
July 24 t o Aug. 9.
Sadly, NBC only has t hree
viewable properties: the
Olympics, “The Voice” a nd
“A merica’s G ot Ta lent.” And, sure,
America’s got talent, b ut I don’t
know if my b eloved, beleaguered
homeland h as enough talent t o
fill all of the network’s n eeds.
(Column i ntermission: With
everyone safer at h ome at t he
moment, my immediate family i s
rather t ired o f hearing my d ulcet
tones ranting day and n ight; our
pit m ix, Daisy, is the o nly one who
never leaves the room when I’m
talking. So I have started the
Couch Slouch p odcast — f or real,
folks — available on your favorite
podcast app. Seeking two-legged
listeners.)
As f or MLB, i t is contemplating
a lot of less-than-optimal options.
There i s still a glimmer o f hope
for a June 1 or July 1 s tart, with
the p ossibility of p laying initially
at e mpty stadiums — so, for theMiami Marlins, it w ould be your
typical Opening Day.
MLB m ight use s pring training
parks in F lorida a nd Arizona,
quarantining the t eams i n those
areas a nd operating with no
crowds u ntil t he pandemic a llows
otherwise.
In a ny c ompacted scenario,
every day is precious, which
means... d oubleheaders a re
back, baby! I assume they will still
be separate admission b ecause,
even though b aseball fans w ill
have no money, t he 1 percent still
needs to make up for lost
yachting-and-penthouse r evenue.
Speaking o f which, super agent
Scott B oras — “super a gent” i s a
euphemism for “uber-wealthy” —
floated a p roposal, a nd b ecause
he negotiated 1 billion dollars’
worth of contracts this offseason,
he has considerable financial
interest i n this.
Boras wants a s ummer start,
and w hen the temperatures drop
in the fall, he points to 11
stadiums that are either d omes or
warm-weather s ites in whichpostseason games could be
played. He e nvisions a neutral-
site World S eries, with G ame 6
being p layed on C hristmas.
Christmas? The NBA’s holiest
day? Wow. Maybe they s hould
play Game 7 in Bethlehem.
Various models have 1 62-game,
144-game or 100 -game seasons.
Or — here’s a thought — they
could just skip to t he postseason
directly. Have Joe Lunardi s eed
the t eams 1 to 30, t hen engage i n
autumnal March Madness. Call it
September Insanity!
My s olution? Play t he e ntire
season on S trat-O-Matic: No
weather worries, and the Astros
can’t s teal signs.Ask The Slouch
Q. President Trump spoke
Saturday w ith executives from
the N FL, MLB, the NHL, the NBA,
the WNBA, t he P GA, the LPGA,
WWE, NASCAR and others, b ut
the P BA w as not included. What
gives? (Larry Snider; Seattle)
A. Underground bowling is
flourishing. The White House hasits o wn alley — POTUS should try
it some time.
Q. A re you going t o follow t he
government’s p olicy and award
all the p eople who write you the
$1.25 o r just me? (Bruce Kanter;
Laurel)
A. The government’s check
should cover you.
Q. T he Santa Anita Derby was
postponed because of t he
coronavirus p andemic. If the
horse wears a mask, why should
this be a p roblem? ( Mitchell
Shapiro; Rockville)
A. Pay t he man, S hirley.
Q. Under t he new NFLPA
agreement, d oes gambling
revenue include a ll receipts at
what will s urely b e the Oakland-
L.A.-Oakland-Las Vegas R aiders
Wedding Chapel? (Victoria
Dailey; Alexandria)
A. Pay t he lady, Shirley.you, too, can enter the $1.25 ask the
slouch cash giveaway. Just email
[email protected], and if your
question is used, you win $1.25 in
cash!Couch
Slouch
norman
Chad
PRO FOOtBALL
Record-setting kicker
Dempsey dies at 73
T om Dempsey, who became a
record-setting NFL kicker
despite being born without toes
on his kicking foot, died
Saturday in New Orleans of
complications of the novel
coronavirus. He was 73.
Dempsey was one of several
residents who contracted the
disease at a senior living facility,
and he had been dealing with
Alzheimer’s disease and
dementia since 2012. At least
15 residents at Lambeth House
in Uptown New Orleans have
died after being stricken with the
virus, according to the Times-
Picayune.
Dempsey, who also was born
without fingers on his right
hand, overcame incredible odds
to become a kicker for the New
Orleans Saints, and he became
well-known in 1970 when he set
what seemed like an unbeatable
NFL record with a 63-yard field
goal. The kick beat the Detroit
Lions, 19-17, on the last play of
the Nov. 8, 1970, game, breaking
the previous mark by seven
yards and standing as the league
record for decades. After
Dempsey’s record was equaled a
number of times, Denver’s Matt
Prater made a 64-yard field goal
in 2013.
— Cindy Boren
COLLege BAsKetBALL
Kentucky point guard Ashton
Hagans will enter the NBA draft
and forgo his final two seasons of
eligibility.
The 6-foot-3 Hagans was the
SEC defensive player of the year
as a freshman and became one of
the country’s best point guards
this past season. However, his
time at Kentucky ended in
controversy as he argued with
forward Nick Richards and
Coach John Calipari and
reportedly refused to reenter in
the second half of a home loss to
Te nnessee. Calipari downplayed
the incident afterward.
Hagans averaged 11.5 points,
6.4 assists, 3.9 rebounds and
1.9 steals last season....
Te xas moved quickly to hire a
new women’s coach, luring Vic
Schaefer away from powerhouse
Mississippi State.
The move came two days after
Te xas dismissed eight-year coach
Karen Aston, who had only one
losing season in her tenure and
led the Longhorns to the Sweet
16 or beyond four times. Aston
had reached the end of her
contract, and it was not renewed.
Schaefer will inherit a Te xas
program that went 19-11 last
season but will lose four of its
top six scorers next season.
Schaefer, 59, was 221 -62 at
Mississippi State, and the
Bulldogs lost in the NCAA
championship game in 2017 and
- Mississippi State was 27-6
and ranked ninth before last
season was cut short. He also led
Mississippi State to one of the
greatest upsets in women’s
basketball history when the
team beat Connecticut in the
Final Four in 2017, ending the
Huskies’ 111 -game winning
streak.
MOtORsPORts
William Byron led the most
laps in NASCAR’s first two
virtual races and had nothing to
show for his gaming skills. The
third time out, he got the win.
Byron easily won the iRacing
event at virtual Bristol Motor
Speedway, where NASCAR would
have been racing before the
novel coronavirus pandemic
caused sports to shut down.
— From news services
and staff reports
DigestBY CINDY BORENWhat, in a time of a global
pandemic, can one person do to
make a difference besides follow-
ing the usual advice about physi-
cal distancing and good hygiene?
For one ultra runner, the answer
was simple: Run.
David Kilgore, a 2 8-year-old
runner who lives in the Bronx
near Yankee Stadium, headed
south with his g irlfriend when the
outbreak began, preferring to
shelter in his hometown of Palm
Bay, Fla., with his family rather
than in a small New York apart-
ment. He also figured that would
allow him t o keep training even in
the face of the growing cancella-
tions of races, including the
7 2-mile Georgia Death Race that
he had hoped to use as a spring-
board to the Western States
1 00-Mile Endurance Run, which
also was canceled. Because he can
work remotely in his job with On,a Swiss apparel and running shoe
company, r elocating was easy.
“With everything being called
off and me a lso being an athlete as
well as working for On, I have a lot
of races, and I was trying to think
of a way to still stay positive and
challenge myself,” he told The
Washington Post. “I was talking to
one of my buddies, Brenden
Clarke, who is a photographer and
videographer, and I said, ‘What if I
ran 100 miles?’ And he said, ‘ Dude,
that’d be awesome, and I’ll shoot
it.’ ”
From there, the i dea took off.
“I was t rying to think of a way to
do something with it and help
others,” Kilgore said. “A bout a
month ago, I saw on some of the
social channels that you could
walk and be live with someone
else. Once you go l ive, you can chat
with people around the world,
almost like a FaceTime. I thought
it would be really cool if I was
running a long and I could connectwith them and get them working
out, either inside or outside, be-
cause I know not everyone can go
outside right now.”
Because he works for On, he
knows how retailers are strug-
gling, so he made a donation page
to help them and New York City
health-care workers. “I intro-
duced this idea to Caroline [Slaw-
son], one of our social managers at
On, and she expanded on the
idea,” he said, “and honed in on
the New York City area.”
The result was a GoFundMe
page to purchase gift cards from
struggling New York stores that
specialize in running apparel,
“stores that I typically work with
on a daily basis,” he wrote on the
GoFundMe page. “Those Gift
Cards will then be donated to
[NYC Health + Hospitals] to pro-
vide front line medical workers
supportive footwear while they
are working long days keeping m y
city healthy.”Running his first 100-miler,
Kilgore set out with his girlfriend,
Molly; his mom, Dorothy; and
Clarke in a van at 4 a.m. March 27,
heading for unpopulated areas
near Palm B ay i n east-central Flor-
ida. “They’d drive for a bit, stop
and hop on a bike, and Brenden
was shooting along the way,” he
said. “I had m y phone the majority
of the time, and I was going live
every five to 10 miles. I would run
with people from all over the
country a nd all over t he world.
“I think that was one of the
coolest things. I had people check-
ing in from Spain and Belgium
and Switzerland and all over the
United States. G etting to run with
them or while they were doing
at-home workouts was just one of
the supercool things that hap-
pened, and hopefully [it was] in-
spiring to everyone else. It was
really cool to hopefully bring a
little bit of positivity into this
time.”Despite temperatures in the
90 s, he finished in 17 hours
47 minutes 47 seconds and has
raised more than $ 15,000.
Kilgore, a University of Florida
graduate, ran for the United States
at t he 2019 Trail World Champion-
ships and had a personal best
2:27:59 in l ast year’s N ew York C ity
Marathon, good for 59th overall.
Five days after his lengthy run,
Kilgore reported that he felt fine,
but the coronavirus probably will
change his training. Although he
was “still going out to places that
are remote,” he said Wednesday,
“the last few days I haven’t seen
one person out.” Later Wednesday,
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is-
sued a stay-at-home order. Kilgore
was ready t o adapt.
“I’ll probably switch to in-
house workouts and stuff like
that. Maybe strength work,” he
said. “Maybe even take a little
downtime and u se the t readmill.”
[email protected]Ultra runner raises money for virus relief with 1 00-mile e≠ortphone from his home in Upper
Marlboro. “They’re talking about
baseball going to be extended out,
and who knows a bout basketball
and hockey? It w ould be nice to see
everyone again, just to give each
other a hug.”
Copeland has worked at t he
arena since it opened in 1997 as
MCI Center. Allen began working
there just six years ago, but she
feels the same sense of community.
“The Capital One employees are
a family,” Allen said. “This
situation is difficult emotionally as
well as financially. But what
Mr. Leonsis did alleviates some of
the stress on the financial part,
and we’re grateful. But we miss
each other. To n ot see these p eople
that you generally see at l east 20
times out of a month?”
None of us can see all the people
we want to right now. And these
teams, they will come under m ore
pressure to give the longer this
crisis goes on. But at t he start —
and quickly — Leonsis and his
partners did the right thing. That
matters.
[email protected]For more by Barry svrluga, visit
washingtonpost.com/svrluga.announced o n “Grant & Danny”
that he would give $100,000.
By the end of the day, l isteners
had called in with more than
$32,000 in donations to the
Nats4Good Community Response
Fund, money that will be doled out
to groups such as 4P Foods, which
is leading a coalition of groups
that is supporting local farms and
businesses so the food supply
chain can hold up.
“We stand at t he ready t o give
again,” T al Alter, the CEO of
Washington Nationals
Philanthropies, w rote in an open
letter.
The easy thing is to say, “ They
should do more.” But know that
not all teams are handling things
this way. T he Boston Bruins
reduced pay for 82 full-time
associates and placed another
68 employees on leave. That’s j ust
one example.
Back to our workers at C apital
One Arena. There will be no
Capitals playoff games for the
foreseeable future, games that
would have brought more income.
Who knows w hen the next event
will be held there?
“I’m sitting here watching
television,” Copeland said byBut there are other tentacles,
too. A group representing
1,200 folks who work at Nationals
Park but are employed by
contractors — not the Nationals
themselves — held a conference
call with reporters Thursday,
trying to pressure MLB and the
Nationals to pay employees for
contractors that staff the ballpark
on game days — warehouse
employees, concessionaires and
the like. The contracted workers at
Capital One Arena a re in the same
situation. There’s n o one this virus
hasn’t t ouched, and even if you’re
not sick, it can feel impossibly
hard.
We’re here, though, to look for
the good. Thursday was supposed
to be the Nationals’ h ome opener.
The team couldn’t p lay. S o it
partnered w ith its flagship radio
station, 106.7 the Fan, for a day-
long radio drive to pour money
into a covid-19 relief fund it
established the week before with
$100,000. G eneral Manager Mike
Rizzo opened the morning by
saying he would match every
dollar listeners donated during
the 9 a.m. hour with “The Junkies.”
Manager Dave Martinez called in
with a $7,500 gift. Max ScherzerCopeland both said they are
equipped to get by without t he
extra work. Allen, 55, has a full-
time job as a program analyst for
the federal government. Copeland,
58, retired three years ago from his
job at D.C. Superior Court.
“I was more concerned for other
people, for co-workers who don’t
have other jobs,” Allen said.
That’s t he point: concern for
other people. This is all
complicated, and as wealthy as the
people who own professional
sports franchises are, they’re not
bottomless pits of cash,
particularly with the revenue lost
from games that aren’t p layed and
seasons that are teetering on the
edge of being canceled. There’s
uncertainty for all of us.
But what you’re looking for are
signs that, through all of this,
people are helping each other.
In t he early stages of the
pandemic, Major League Baseball
pledged $1 million per team to
cover game-day e mployees — for a
while. The Nationals are using
their share to support employees
who would have worked this
weekend’s s cheduled series
against the New York Mets —
ushers, ticket-takers, etc.Just m ore than
three weeks ago,
the Washington
Capitals were
scheduled to play
the Detroit Red
Wings at C apital
One Arena. A
hockey g ame!
What a lovely and quaint concept.
That g ame — and so many
across the country and across
sports — was postponed the
afternoon of March 12. The
Capitals haven’t s kated since.
But as the novel coronavirus
pandemic alters our lives in so
many ways, it’s a r eminder that a
crisis can reveal something about
character. That’s o bviously the
case with the health-care workers
who are risking their own safety t o
help others a s we try to get
through this thing. But it pops up
in places you might not expect,
too.
“Initially, w hen we found out we
weren’t g oing to be working for
March, we were like, ‘Wow, what
do we do now?’ ” Deneen Allen
said.
Allen is one of 850 part-time
workers who staff events at C apital
One Arena. She works as a
marshal on the event level, helping
secure areas off-limits to fans and
presenting a smiling face. And a
couple of weeks ago, Monumental
Sports & Entertainment, which
owns the Capitals, the Wizards
and the arena, answered her
question: She would get paid for
not working.
“We are just so appreciative,”
Allen said.
These times, they are testing all
of us. Monumental CEO Te d
Leonsis passed this one — and
easily.
“I figured they would take care
of f ull-time employees,” s aid
Kenneth Copeland, who serves as
a supervisor during Capital One
Arena events. “But I was surprised
they extended it to part-time
employees — surprised and
excited.”
The last Capitals regular season
home game was scheduled for
Thursday night. The Wizards were
supposed to host the Philadelphia
76ers on Friday night and had two
more home games before their
regular season wrapped up
April 15. In a ll, Monumental said it
would pay $1.2 million to those
850 part-time workers, which
works out to more than $1, 400 per
person for hours that just
evaporated.
That’s a s timulus check but not
from the government. And it
matters.
Now, t o be clear, Allen andAt least around here, sports franchises really do take care of family
Barry
SvrlugaPatrick smith/agence France-Presse/getty images
Monumental Sports & Entertainment is paying 85 0 part-time workers who normally staff games and other events at Capital One Arena.