It's March 16, and spring training hasn't begun. The Cincinnati Reds wear green uniforms for their St. Patrick's Day game every year. This year, the green uniforms will continue to gather dust.
Disgust is rampant among baseball fans. "I'll still go to the games, but I won't cheer and I won't yell," one fan wrote in a letter to The Sporting News. "I'll just sit and watch. I won't say a word."
And then March Madness became the madness of March 4. Playing in the semifinals of the Big West tournament, Loyola-Marymount's Hank Gathers collapsed after a slam dunk. The NCAA's leading scorer and rebounder from a year ago, Gathers was a blue-chipper, a can't-miss, a superstar-to-be.
Every fan saw the picture of Gathers prone at midcourt while his weeping mother stood over him. Every fan saw the picture of Gathers' best friend, LaSalle's Lionel Simmons, being consoled by his mother during a game after he had heard the news.
An autopsy on Gathers' body showed a heavily-diseased and scarred heart muscle.
This was no fantasy world. This was no escape from reality.
It's been a sad few months. Sports fans have scarred hearts, too.