Home Juan Soto tests positive for COVID-19: How far we’ve come since March
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Juan Soto tests positive for COVID-19: How far we’ve come since March

Chris Graham

washington nationalsRemember how we all reacted when word came down that Rudy Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19?

How different it is to the reaction to the news that Juan Soto just tested positive.

When Gobert tested positive back in March, you knew sports was over for the interim, however long an interim it would be.

I was at the ACC Tournament. Fans were interacting with me about the games from my seat at courtside at the Greensboro Coliseum, and I couldn’t even pretend that any of what was going on in front of us mattered.

The response to Soto isn’t that.

It’s more along the lines of: when can the Nats get Soto back?

Was it a false negative, as seems to have been the case for Jimmie Johnson?

Who hits third for the champs tonight?

It’s about the sports part of the news, not the, do sports go on?

Soto is just the first big name who will test positive for COVID with sports returning.

The timing stinks from a player and team standpoint. The 2020 MLB season is 60 games. Assuming he misses up to two weeks, that’s roughly a fourth of the season.

With the NBA set to return next week, for a sprint finish to the regular season, then playoffs, a key guy contracting COVID could be his team’s doom.

There won’t be any Michael Jordan scoring 38 to win Game 5 with the flu this season.

Maybe next season, as we learn to live with COVID being something else that we have to deal with.

We’re already coming along from where we were four months ago.

Story by Chris Graham

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Chris Graham

Chris Graham

Chris Graham is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, TikTok, BlueSky, or subscribe to Substack or his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].

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