National sporting events yesterday took a back seat to more important matters for the second straight day as the country began to recover from Tuesday’s devastating terrorist attacks.
Major League Baseball postponed Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s contests and no make-up dates have been announced. It is unknown if the games will be played at all. ESPN’s Peter Gammons, however, reported yesterday that baseball’s plan is to resume play on Friday, and reschedule the postponed contests after the end of the regular season.
Commissioner Bud Selig offered no confirmation for this report.
“I think many people would hope we’d start Friday,” Selig said. “But I haven’t made that judgment yet.”
Many players across baseball supported the league’s decision to temporarily postpone its contests. Casey Fossum of the Boston Red Sox told the Boston Herald that “there’s no reason we should be playing after all of this tragedy. Baseball should be the last thing on our minds.”
“It’s very petty to even think about playing a baseball game at this point,” Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves said. “I think everybody is focused on [this] and not on something as unimportant as a few September baseball games.”
The postponement of these games has temporarily halted several exciting pennant races and other developing stories as the season winds down. Barry Bonds remains at 63 home runs as he and his San Francisco Giants teammates wait in Houston to resume play against the Astros. The Giants are also in a tight NL West race with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and are at the top of a complicated wild card race with St. Louis, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
The status of this weekend’s National Football League games also remains uncertain at this time. A decision is expected to be made as to whether or not to cancel Sunday’s and Monday’s games after the league’s 9:30 conference call this morning.
“We are continuing to assess the situation and discuss it with many people, both inside and outside the NFL,” the league held in a statement released Wednesday afternoon.
The New York Jets have already expressed their concern for traveling this weekend, and believe the NFL should postpone this weekend’s fifteen games.
“I don’t understand why we’re here today,” Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde said. “I think all the games should be cancelled this week.
“The last thing we want to do is get on a plane and go to California for a game when all four of those planes that were hijacked were going to California.”
Many of this weekend’s college football games should be played, as the decision of whether to postpone the contests has been left to the commissioners of the 10 Division I-A conferences and their members. The Big East, Pac-10, and ACC decided to postpone their games. However, this weekend’s highly anticipated SEC matchup between No. 8 Tennessee and No. 2 Florida will be played in Gainesville as scheduled.
Members of both the United States and European Ryder Cup golf teams have called for the postponement of the event, scheduled for September 28-30 at The Belfry in England.
“We are due to fly out on Sunday next week to England, and my guess is that is too soon after this tragedy,” U.S. member Mark Calcavecchia said. “I think you can forget about the Ryder Cup for a few months, at least.”
More tragedy struck the sports world Wednesday when it was announced that Mari-Rae Sopper, women’s gymnastics coach at the University of California-Santa Barbara, was on the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon. This follows the announcement of the death of two Los Angeles Kings scouts, Ace Bailey and Mark Davis, both of whom were on one of the flights that crashed into the World Trade Center.
Information from ESPN.com was used in this report.
