Grab your favorite stuffed animal, lock your doors, and pull your covers tight.
Swine flu’s coming to a stadium near you.
For the past month, we’ve heard about the severity of the swine situation. The dozens of deaths worldwide. Its rapid encroachment into the States. How it disguises itself like a normal flu, only to leave you quarantined and craving Mexican food.
It’s all been enough to make nightmares out of Pumba.
But, to be honest, I wasn’t taking it too seriously. Not many people have been. But, now, that’s all changed.
Swine flu has reached the sports world.
And that means one thing ““ it just got real.
Slowly but surely the flu has been sneaking into sports, affecting competition at all levels. First there was the closure of professional soccer stadiums in Mexico in the wake of the outbreak, locking out fans from stadiums and other popular locations.
So instead of a game between two club teams in front of 105,000 soccer-rabid fans, all of Mexico watched on TV as their teams played in a stadium bigger than China’s Bird’s Nest, without one fan in the stands.
No crowd? No noise? That’s like playing the Super Bowl in a fish tank.
For Mexico City soccer fans, who are about as fervent as they get, being locked out only rubbed salt on the wound. Guadalajara won the silent game 2-1. But hey, nobody got the flu. Chalk it up as a moral victory for Mexico City.
Elsewhere in Mexico, the flu-inflicted sports pain continued.
The United Skim Tour, the governing body for professional skim boarders, canceled the annual Cabo Clasico. (I know what you’re thinking ““ I’d never missed a Clasico either.) It was supposed to have been an international competition of the top 100 skim boarders to help boost a flailing local economy.
But thanks to swine, not only did the UST have to bail, but it broke the bad news to Mexican skim boarding fans on Cinco de Mayo.
That’s like banning hot dogs on the Fourth of July, only worse. You can’t exactly replace a global boarding competition with hot pretzels and a float parade.
Fortunately, instead of the Clasico, the reigning world skim board champ is organizing a small-scale contest for charity. It’s apparently called “Cabo ’09 Sooo Sick.”
I hope that’s just sarcasm, not a prediction.
As you can tell, the ripple effect of the swine flu is massive. When dudes can’t even rip up some tasty swells in Cabo, that’s when you know you’ve got issues.
Here in the U.S., the swine flu has hit every state except Wyoming. This raises two concerns. One ““ this virus has got some smarts. There’s really nothing to do in Wyoming. And two ““ it got to Alaska? That’s just impressive.
Early this month, both Texas and Alabama temporarily shut down all high school athletic competitions following the discovery of likely cases within their states. It’s a good thing swine didn’t hit in the fall. Imagine the chaos of those states trying to shut down high school football. Walking through hell in gasoline boots would probably be more enjoyable.
On top of that, other states and counties have pressed the prohibition of postgame handshakes or high fives, even at the little league level. Some have pushed for a simple postgame cheer for the other team instead of bodily contact.
What’s next? A little postgame song and dance in kid-size biohazard suits? I mean, that would be way more entertaining.
But the point is, we start changing our sports culture just to deal with some pesky flu, and we’re letting the swine win. That’s just un-American.
Now let’s get back on the field and back on the waves before they start taking away hot dogs.
E-mail Feder at jfeder@media.ucla.edu if you’ve got a ticket to Cabo ’09 Sooo Sick.