Quittin' time

You can't blame the guy, really. You win the World Series after losing to a bunch of cheaters the last two times, you're gonna want to savor the moment. And you're gonna want to do it with your teammates.

And so there was Justin Turner out on the field with the rest of the Los Angeles Dodgers last night, hugging guys, putting his hands on the trophy some of his teammates would soon be kissing for the cameras, wide grin creasing that Grizzly Adams beard. 

You could see that grin because he wasn't wearing a mask.

You could also see it because he was out there not very long after the Dodgers were informed he had tested positive for the Bastard Plague, after which Turner was removed from the game and put into isolation.

And after that, the Dodgers wrapped up the Series with a 3-1 win aided greatly by Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash, who pulled his cruising starter, Blake Snell, because the hypotenuse of the co-efficient of x times y, carry the one, told him he was supposed to. 

Analytics, man. You could almost hear Old Hoss Radbourn and the Big Train and Bob Gibson stomping around up there in the great beyond, wondering how the hell a bunch of pocket protectors and lab coats managed to hijack America's Pastime.

In any case, Snell got yanked, the Dodgers won and out came Justin Turner from the shortest isolation in history. It was reckless and irresponsible and completely understandable, and who knows how many people in the Dodgers orbit will wind up getting sick because of it.

And, yes, I suppose pointing that out just makes me a pearl-clutcher these days. Because what happened on that baseball diamond last night was, as baseball so often is, an accurate reflection of what's happening in America right now.

Which is, we've officially surrendered to the Bastard Plague.

The White House itself has waved the white flag, saying we can't control it and therefore will just have to live with (or die with it, as Joe Biden accurately noted). We're closing in 230,000 deaths in eight months and the virus is raging at April levels again all over the country, and we just ... don't ... care.

And so the President of the United States, who fiddled while Rome burned in this deal, still gallivants around the country, making jokes about mask-wearing to his mobs of unmasked, socially-undistanced minions. Telling the nation he's tired of all this so, what the hell, it's quittin' time. Party on, dudes!

Meanwhile the Plague, which doesn't know how to spell "quit," keeps filling up ICUs and making people sick and occasionally killing them.

And all because the President and the nation he allegedly leads didn't have the stomach to wear a mask and shelter in place when it was necessary to do so. We did it for awhile, and then we got tired of it. And then, following the President's example, we started ridiculing the scientists,  calling state governors who actually were trying to fight the spread "dictators" and plotting to kidnap or kill them, spinning old wives' tales and holding them close as gospel.

Because, you know, freedom. Or something like that.

Some folks will look at that and hold it up as proof of America's greatness, that we can beat back a pandemic simply by pretending it's over.

Other folks will look at that and say, "Damn, are we stupid."

Y'all know where I come down.

Damn, are we stupid.