Editor's note: Like you, NBC Sports Bay Area insiders, reporters and analysts are feeling the sports void during the coronavirus stoppage. They'll share their thoughts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in "What I Miss About Sports." Next up in the series: Giants reporter Amy Gutierrez.
The 2020 San Francisco Giants season would have marked my 13th covering the beloved men in orange and black. I feel a true void at this time, and a sense of overwhelming sadness.
Of course, it’s a compilation of the coronavirus (COVID-19) affecting our entire population, attempting to figure out how to shelter-in-place with a family of four, concern over my 70-year old parents, in-laws and 97-year old grandfather.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
I miss hugging people, shaking hands, having our neighbors over for a glass of wine, sharing a secret, and the freedom from consistent fear.
Will our economy recover? Will my children ever go back to school? Will I have a job to return to? I’m guessing most of you reading this have had similar, if not identical, concerns.
So what do I miss about sports? Besides everything? It’s simple. I miss the balance and perspective sports provide our society during difficult times. Sports have always served as a source of entertainment, but they can be and often are so much more.
Listen and subscribe to the Giants Insider Podcast:
San Francisco Giants
Sports are therapeutic, they are an escape and they are chock-full of triumphant stories. Who came home after a terrible day at work and forgot about their trouble when they turned on the tube on June 13, 2012, to watch Main Cain twirl a perfecto?
Who had a loved one that fell ill during the 2010, 2012, 2014 World Series runs and hung on every game of the playoffs with them because it brought them a few hours of relief and joy?
Or who went on their first date to a Giants game when Tim Lincecum took the mound on June 25, 2014 and authored a no-hitter? And who’s to say that couple didn’t go on to get married on a boat in McCovey Cove and name their firstborn “Freak,” boy or girl?
While sports is a coveted source of reliability providing routine and security, it also connects those of us who might never have found each other, had it not been for that particular game, on a random day, when your seat was next to their seat and now you’re lifelong friends.
[RELATED: Why Giants' farm system continues to rise in Law's eyes]
The best way for me to describe life without sports right now? Lonely. I miss my broadcast family. I miss the team. I miss the fans. I miss the energy. I feel like I have always been grateful for the job I ‘get to do,’ but I will never see it in the same light now that it’s been taken away.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. And hopefully, very soon, we’ll hear the words so many of us are longing for: "Let’s play ball."