Column: 9 things we know to be true about sports in 2020, including the Sportsperson of the Year and women breaking barriers everywhere

The two-minute warning for 2020 has arrived, and with one month remaining in the worst year ever, here are nine things we know to be true.

1. Michael Jordan is the Sportsperson of the Year.

The 60-game baseball season was too short to produce a viable candidate. Giannis Antetokounmpo, the MVP of the NBA season, saw his chances flame out in the playoffs, and the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup with no real superstars. The obvious choice may be Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, but the one sports figure who truly put his stamp on this pandemic-marred year was someone who didn’t even play. When you look back at 2020 years from now, you’ll no doubt think of former Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan. The 10-part Jordan documentary, “The Last Dance,” had everyone’s attention for five weeks from mid-April through mid-May during the sports shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. MJ and Co. kept the flame flickering for sports fans until baseball and basketball resumed play in the summer. When we needed him most, Jordan came through in the clutch. Again.

2. The blackballing of Colin Kaepernick continues.

If the Denver Broncos can lose four quarterbacks to coronavirus protocols and still can’t find a way to give Kaepernick a shot, America’s most prominent athlete/activist has no chance of returning to the NFL. The Broncos even reportedly added another quarterback Monday — Kyle Shurmur, the son of Broncos offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur. Kaepernick, meanwhile, tweeted a video of his workout last week, saying it was “1,363 days of being denied employment.” Ironically, it’s no longer considered news when someone kneels during the national anthem before an NFL game, as quarterbacks Deshaun Watson and Matthew Stafford did during the Thanksgiving game in Detroit.

3. Women rule in 2020.

From the Miami Marlins naming Kim Ng as MLB’s first female general manager to the Chicago Blackhawks hiring Kendall Coyne Schofield as the first female player development coach in their 94-year history to Vanderbilt kicker Sarah Fuller becoming the first woman to participate in a Power Five college football game, barriers are suddenly being broken everywhere in the sports world. Now how about a female commissioner?

4. Exhibition games are obsolete.

Most baseball teams played only a couple of exhibition games before the restart, and the NFL canceled all of its preseason games. Now the NBA is starting its 2020-21 season with only two to four exhibition games per team, from Dec. 11-17, before the regular season begins. This should be the wave of the future even after the pandemic ends, though it probably won’t be. MLB still has a full slate of Cactus and Grapefruit League games scheduled for February and March.

5. Boxing’s only hope is for Mike Tyson to fight into his 70s.

The final numbers haven’t been revealed, but Tyson’s pay-per-view spectacle against Roy Jones Jr. is expected to outdraw the Deontay Wilder-Tyson Fury rematch last February, and everyone seemed to enjoy watching Tyson box at age 54. In other words, the sport should be able to survive a couple more decades as long as Tyson sticks around and doesn’t run out of old men to fight.

6. Snoop Dogg has a new career.

The other clear-cut winner of the Tyson-Jones pay-per-view was TV analyst Snoop Dogg, who compared the two boxers to his uncles fighting at a barbeque. The rapper took a break from his lucrative career filming TV commercials to add his expertise to the fight, and he was trending on Twitter afterward. Actress Gabrielle Union tweeted: “I wanna hear @SnoopDogg be a commentator for every sport. Basketball, football, luge.” The sport that needs him most, however, is baseball. Snoop Dogg would be a perfect replacement for John Smoltz alongside Joe Buck.

7. Violating COVID-19 protocols is a felony in the NFL but a misdemeanor in MLB.

The New England Patriots and New Orleans Saints received massive fines for COVID-19 protocol violations Sunday, while the Saints also gave up a seventh-round draft pick for a maskless locker-room celebration. The league previously punished the Tennessee Titans and Las Vegas Raiders for similar violations. Meanwhile, MLB found no reason to discipline Justin Turner or the Los Angeles Dodgers after Turner was removed from Game 6 of the World Series for a positive test but later returned to the field to pose for a team photo without a mask. MLB also gave the Chicago Cubs only a warning after team executives violated mask-wearing protocols at Wrigley Field during the playoff opener against the Miami Marlins.

8. ‘Wednesday Afternoon Football’ needs to stay.

Sorry about the Baltimore Ravens’ COVID-19 outbreak, but glad to have another day of the week with a football game to watch, especially with no NBA or NHL games. The unbeaten Pittsburgh Steelers deserve to be seen, even if the Ravens roster is depleted. Tuesdays and Wednesdays should be reserved for all rescheduled games from here on out. While the return of college basketball is much appreciated, all of these nonconference matchups resulting in blowouts aren’t going to help viewership.

9. The biggest loss of the Hot Stove League is the Scott Boras presser.

MLB canceled the general manager meetings in November because of the pandemic, along with next week’s annual winter meetings. That doesn’t mean free agents won’t eventually be signed and trades won’t be made. But it does signal the end, at least temporarily, of one of the Hot Stove League’s greatest traditions — reporters cramming against each other with outstretched hands holding digital recorders at a Boras news conference, straining to hear the agent’s bad puns and metaphors about baseball’s marketplace. Unless Boras decides to Zoom with the media, this may be the blandest offseason in decades.

———

©2020 the Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.