The NBA and NCAA cancelled spring games because of Covid-19. MLB has postponed the start of its season, also. Except for times of war and attack, such interruptions are very rare. The NFL, for example, which is currently considering what to do about opening the 2020 season, is in its 101st year. The league started two years after the devastating Spanish flu that killed an estimated 50 million people. It has continued to play its games as usual over that century with the exceptions of WWII years and union strikes. It even continued to play during the 1957-1958 pandemic of H2N2 Asian flu that killed an estimated 116,000 in the United States and a million people worldwide.
But today, sports stadia normally filled have become empty caverns. And with good reason, as “social distancing” becomes the preventive medicine not only of choice, but also of desperation. Of course, the stadia will open after the virus wreaks its worldwide havoc, a destiny that seems inevitable, given both the many locations where crowded communities and poor infrastructure persist and the number of people who fail to heed the CDC’s warnings about crowding continue to think socializing at parties and bars is more important than preventing Covid-19’s spread. Look, for example, at the recent riots of University of Dayton students who objected to the school’s closing.
Although we have no way of knowing—short of some startling archaeological find—the times when similar epidemics devastated Mesoamerica prior to the arrival of the Spanish and the smallpox epidemic they carried to the New World, we can assume that the people of the Mesoamerican past suffered the ravages of diseases from time to time. We know, for example, that plagues plagued Rome and Athens, for example. No doubt there was some time when the Coliseum’s and Greek amphitheater stands stood empty.
So, the discovery of a stadium that was used for almost two centuries starting about 3,400 years ago in the mountains of Oaxaca makes me wonder about any disruptions those Mesoamericans of the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. might have experienced. The ball court discovered by Victor Salazar Chávez and Jeffrey Blomster at Etlatongo, coincided with the time when “trade between regions ramped up.” * In short, the rudiments of globalization go way back, showing that even as people spread farther apart to inhabit diverse environments, they tended to come together for their mutual benefit. Ironically, it’s in coming together for mutual benefit that the regional and now the global community pass along diseases.
Did the games at Etlatongo ever stop for disease? We don’t know, but surely over almost two centuries there had to have been some devastating disease, such as lupus vulgari and tuberculosis that we know affected Aztecs before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. Surely, their predecessor Mesoamericans weren't immune to epidemics.
No doubt any epidemic is tragic for individuals while at the same time being only a nuisance for the majority of infected people. Unfortunately, those for whom Covid-19 is a nuisance can be vectors that carry the disease to others, a point, I’m sure, that everyone paying attention to the current news understands.
I’m guessing that sometime during the 175-year history of the Etlatongo ball court, the crowds dwindled because sickness kept people in their homes or put them in their graves, not because people practiced social distancing as a preventive step. During those ancient times, however, there were no means for mitigating the effects of an epidemic and no knowledge of microorganisms. Those ancient people might not have been flippant about a threat, rather, just ignorant about its cause. Ours is not a time, as medical people keep telling us, to be flippant about a threat because we actually understand its nature.
Did those ancient athletes and fans feel disappointment when the games were cancelled? Probably. Are there people who would, even with today’s accumulated knowledge, go to a stadium or bar or concert regardless of the threat simply because they choose the games over safety? No doubt. Look at the recent St. Patrick’s Day celebrants who have gone to bars and restaurants even when the large parades were cancelled. Look at the numbers of young who, not realizing that life is precariously balanced on a narrow thread of time, choose to mingle in close proximity. I assume that some of them will escape the disease and that others will learn the single lesson on which I center this website:
This is not your practice life.
*Wade, Lizzie. 13 Mar 2020. 3400-year-old ballgame court unearthed in mountains of Mexico. AAAS online at https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/3400-year-old-ballgame-court-unearthed-mountains-mexico Accessed March 16, 2020.
But today, sports stadia normally filled have become empty caverns. And with good reason, as “social distancing” becomes the preventive medicine not only of choice, but also of desperation. Of course, the stadia will open after the virus wreaks its worldwide havoc, a destiny that seems inevitable, given both the many locations where crowded communities and poor infrastructure persist and the number of people who fail to heed the CDC’s warnings about crowding continue to think socializing at parties and bars is more important than preventing Covid-19’s spread. Look, for example, at the recent riots of University of Dayton students who objected to the school’s closing.
Although we have no way of knowing—short of some startling archaeological find—the times when similar epidemics devastated Mesoamerica prior to the arrival of the Spanish and the smallpox epidemic they carried to the New World, we can assume that the people of the Mesoamerican past suffered the ravages of diseases from time to time. We know, for example, that plagues plagued Rome and Athens, for example. No doubt there was some time when the Coliseum’s and Greek amphitheater stands stood empty.
So, the discovery of a stadium that was used for almost two centuries starting about 3,400 years ago in the mountains of Oaxaca makes me wonder about any disruptions those Mesoamericans of the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. might have experienced. The ball court discovered by Victor Salazar Chávez and Jeffrey Blomster at Etlatongo, coincided with the time when “trade between regions ramped up.” * In short, the rudiments of globalization go way back, showing that even as people spread farther apart to inhabit diverse environments, they tended to come together for their mutual benefit. Ironically, it’s in coming together for mutual benefit that the regional and now the global community pass along diseases.
Did the games at Etlatongo ever stop for disease? We don’t know, but surely over almost two centuries there had to have been some devastating disease, such as lupus vulgari and tuberculosis that we know affected Aztecs before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. Surely, their predecessor Mesoamericans weren't immune to epidemics.
No doubt any epidemic is tragic for individuals while at the same time being only a nuisance for the majority of infected people. Unfortunately, those for whom Covid-19 is a nuisance can be vectors that carry the disease to others, a point, I’m sure, that everyone paying attention to the current news understands.
I’m guessing that sometime during the 175-year history of the Etlatongo ball court, the crowds dwindled because sickness kept people in their homes or put them in their graves, not because people practiced social distancing as a preventive step. During those ancient times, however, there were no means for mitigating the effects of an epidemic and no knowledge of microorganisms. Those ancient people might not have been flippant about a threat, rather, just ignorant about its cause. Ours is not a time, as medical people keep telling us, to be flippant about a threat because we actually understand its nature.
Did those ancient athletes and fans feel disappointment when the games were cancelled? Probably. Are there people who would, even with today’s accumulated knowledge, go to a stadium or bar or concert regardless of the threat simply because they choose the games over safety? No doubt. Look at the recent St. Patrick’s Day celebrants who have gone to bars and restaurants even when the large parades were cancelled. Look at the numbers of young who, not realizing that life is precariously balanced on a narrow thread of time, choose to mingle in close proximity. I assume that some of them will escape the disease and that others will learn the single lesson on which I center this website:
This is not your practice life.
*Wade, Lizzie. 13 Mar 2020. 3400-year-old ballgame court unearthed in mountains of Mexico. AAAS online at https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/3400-year-old-ballgame-court-unearthed-mountains-mexico Accessed March 16, 2020.
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