 the coronavirus in the air to understand the global scale. Our broad conception of the pandemic is based on stay-at-home orders or the near-total economic shutdowns or working from home for weeks on end or, maybe, the total absence of live sports.
You can scoff and say you were tracking the virus since the Wuhan outbreak, but for much of the country, the wake-up call that COVID-19 was going to irrevocably impact daily life in America came when Utah Jazz big man Rudy Gobert tested positive on March 11, forcing the NBA to suspend play indefinitely. The other sports leagues quickly followed suit, ushering in an as-yet-unresolved era of undeniable abnormality.
Everyone in society has a personal responsibility to stay informed and modulate their behavior to protect at-risk individuals in their community. But you simply can’t have a uniquely accurate, independently established understanding of the pandemic — and you shouldn’t have to! This is why we have a government that includes a center for disease control. This is why we have state lockdowns and federally issued recommendations.
This is, like it or not, why politicians matter. And why it would be useful if we believed them to be altruistic actors with their constituents’ health and safety as a primary motivating factor.
Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it quite clear on Friday that he is spending at least some of his time, which should be used to work on solving the many pandemic-related problems, figuring out how to signal and celebrate that he has already solved them. He is prioritizing the optics of a mission accomplished over the unpopular reality that we’re still very much mired in the precarious and poorly understood grasp of the pandemic. He wants to use sports to convince people everything is under control — which is not only craven and premature but almost certainly deathly dangerous.
“I called the commissioner of baseball a couple of weeks ago and I said, ‘America needs baseball. It’s the sign of getting back to normal. Any chance?’” That’s how McConnell himself relayed a phone call he had with Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred.
“It would be a great morale booster for the country and an indication that we’re going to begin to get back to normal,” he said.
We don’t need signs or indications that things are getting back to normal — we need things to get back to normal! And we need politicians who are trying to figure out how to do that safely before they start planning their own ticker tape parades or practicing their honorary first pitches.
By virtue of his role as Senate majority leader, if not by virtue of merit, the Republican from Kentucky is one of the most influential people in the country during this moment of national crisis. This is not a political op-ed so I’ll let the political op-eds tell you that he is not making the most of the responsibility.
Talking publicly about how important it is to shush people’s very real fears and distract them from still-rising daily death tolls and disastrously unprepared healthcare systems, to symbolically smooth over the gaping socioeconomic fissures revealed in the past few months, is a shocking example of saying the quiet part out loud. If you’re a fan of the sport, you should take it as a personal affront that McConnell would conscript the quaint, unquestioned patriotism of baseball to do so.
He isn’t putting pressure on MLB to restart the season because he knows you miss watching games and he wants to make life a little better for the little guy. (Pressure, by the way, that they don’t need! Please believe Manfred will have players on the field as soon as it is either safe or socially acceptable — whichever comes first.) McConnell wants baseball back to serve as a flattering, soft-focus press release about how successful the response has been. It’s PR, sure, but it’s also something much more insidious than that.
Right now, messaging is more important than maybe ever. Not just to remain calm or to have faith that we’ll get through this together, but for substantively impacting public safety. For knowing what to do in these unprecedented times. This is not a country reeling from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, looking to sports as symbols of our resilience. There’s nothing to prove to the pathogens. Don’t let politicians tell you otherwise.
Recasting the fight to contain and effectively combat the coronavirus as one of spirit and staunch commitment to national pastimes is political malpractice. It’s also going to get people killed.
Iron Dog 2017 will go down in history as a challenging and rough race for all involved. Injuries where sustained from day one until day six and every day in between. The perseverance, desire to overcome and all out stubbornness to complete their goal is clear in each racer.
This 2,000+ mile race takes endurance, preparation, skill, training and a fair amount of luck. The men who where injured in 2017 pushed through tough odds. Some finally having to stop because of physical limitations, others where able to continue on to the finish line. All are successful and men to be admired.
Sunday morning February 19, 2017 35 Pro Class Race teams left the starting line. Shortly after leaving the line Team 12, Jason Moore and Robert Strick, where back in Big Lake repairing their sled after Jason cartwheeled multiple times on the trail near Flat Lake. He came away with just a few bruises and they where out on the trail again as soon as repairs where made.
Unfortunately for Team 12 their journey came to a close shortly after returning to the trail when Robert came off his sled at Big Swamp and landed on his shoulder. After catching his breath, they proceeded on down the trail, but due to severe pain and having to drive with one hand they made the hard decision to scratch.
Racers continued moving on down the trail and challenges where seen by all. Team 27 Tyler Drake and Shannon Jenkins came into Shell Lake in full race mode, and caught a ski sending Shannon into a tree. His left shoulder caught the force of the collision and resulted in ripped muscles and deep bruising. They continued on through McGrath and on into Ophir but the pain became too great and they where forced to scratch in Ophir.
Team 16 began the Iron Dog with previous injuries and didn’t make it far down the trail before more injuries were added to the list. Nick Olstad was riding into Puntilla when he hit a log. His crash caused a dislocated shoulder and broken shoulder cap on his left arm. With over 1800 miles to go in the race Team 16 kept on racing.
Sometimes it is of no human error that causes a team to be forced to scratch. Unfortunately for Team 18 Andrew Zwink, he caught a nasty case of the flu and couldn’t continue on down the trail. Andrew did not want to stop, but the effort of racing down the trail sick to your stomach pushed him and team mate Eric Watson to make the tough decision to scratch.
Just 72 miles from when the trail turns and heads towards the coast near the Poorman checkpoint two teams met each other in a head on collision. This is the one section of the trail where there is two way traffic. Team 5 passed Team 39 right outside of Poorman and continued on to fuel in Poorman then turned around to leave the checkpoint.
All the racers knew the dangers of this portion of the trail and were alert to their surroundings, when Team 5 came around the corner and saw Team 39 approaching them both teams attempted to swerve and avoid each other. Unfortunately the attempt was not successful. Jerrod Vaughn was leading Team 5 and his sled was completely totaled. He came away with an injured wrist and ligament damage.
Team 39 was mostly unscathed from the accident. Chad Dow did not even realize he was injured. “I made sure the ski’s where pointed straight down the trail and away we went.” It was not until the next day when Team 39 was forced to scratch.
Team 22 Dieter Strobel and Kurt Steiner came from North Dakota and Minnesota just to reach the start line. On the way to McGrath a hole was blown in their cooler. They continued into McGrath towing in. Due to working on their sled in temperatures -35 F and colder Kurt Steiner received severe frostbite on his thumbs.
They kept moving forward into their layover in McGrath. They came off layover and raced on to Galena. Only in Galena, after blowing another belt on the ice did they decide for the safety of Kurt, to scratch.
Team 31 Tim and Remington Lessard where running a phenomenal race until they hit a rough spot outside of Unalakleet and Tim was thrown from his sled. He doesn’t remember much from around that time, but his helmet shows signs of impact. The concussion he sustained forced them to scratch in Unalakleet.
One of the few teams from rural Alaska in 2017, Team 19, raced a phenomenal race all the way into and through Kaltag. As Harold Attla was following Archie Beetus out of Nulato he hit an “iceberg” and cartwheeled on his sled for three full 360 degree turns. He was able to hang on to the machine for the first two turns, but came off on the third turn.
As the machine came over the third time it pancaked him and smashed him into the snow and ice. Because his studded track was still spinning, at close to 70-80 mph, it ripped his Klim gear completely off. His track dug into his back, punctured both his helmet and safety vest and only because of the quality of the mandatory safety