Bubbling over

You want to say, "Sure, this will work." That's what you want to say.

Because if you don't say "Sure, this will work," or "Maybe this will work," or "There's a chance this could work," you're just a crotchety cynic who doesn't want this to work. You want sports to go away -- even though they were your livelihood for four decades, even though it was a livelihood you considered yourself fortunate beyond words to pursue.

I don't know how to process the logic behind that. Perhaps because there isn't any.

What I do know is that's what I'm hearing from certain corners of social media right now, simply because I'm wondering how this is all going to work. And because the skeptic in me wonders if it can.

I wish that skeptic would starve to death, frankly. Unfortunately people keep feeding him.

And so to the NBA bubble in Orlando, where everything the skeptic suspected would happen is happening. They haven't even started with the games yet, but already Kawhi Leonard's showed red for the Bastard Plague and Russell Westbrook's showed red and one of his Rocket teammates, Bruno Caboclo, inadvertently broke quarantine.

And then there's Richaun Holmes of the Kings -- exhibit A for what the Blob suspected was going to happen.

Holmes is back in quarantine now after leaving the "bubble" to take a food delivery. I don't want to say I knew this was gonna happen, but I knew this was gonna happen.

It's why the NBA was outside its mind to make Orlando the site for its bubble to begin with. You couldn't pick a worse place to conduct its Weird Thrown-Together Thing (I'm sorry: "resumption of the season") if you threw a dart at a map blindfolded. Really, guys, Florida? Ground zero for the Bastard Plague? Come for the sunshine, stay for the hospitalization?

Not the best strategic move when the bubble you envision is not, and cannot be made, leak-proof. And so there will be more Richaun Holmeses, who likely just wasn't thinking when he stepped outside to take that delivery. Some of them will be inadvertent; some will happen because these are healthy young men and you can't keep them sealed off from the world indefinitely without them going stir crazy.

So, again, the skeptic wonders how this all works. The NBA, MLB, college football, the NHL's "Stanley Cup playoffs." And high school football.

The latter maybe makes me hate the skeptic worst, because I love high school football. I want them to figure out a way to do it. I want them to find a solution that doesn't involve possibly infected kids breathing on each other for 48 minutes on a Friday night. I just don't know what it is.

What I do know is our low-wattage Secretary of Edukashun has no solutions, only dictates. She wants kids filling up classrooms again, and she'll yank your funding if you don't comply.

But don't come to her or the administration she serves for help, because they've got none to give. Only magical thinking and the usual browbeating.

Already, however, educators not conversant with fairy dust are exercising the smartest option, which is to ignore the Edukashun secretary. The school system which includes North Central High School in Indianapolis is delaying in-classroom instruction for the time being, and has suspended all sports. Portage High School has suspended all athletic activities. I suspect they won't be the last.

To which I say this: Dammit.