THE CHEAP SEATS WITH STEVE CAMERON: Use your brain when in public

First of all, let me make one thing clear ...

I am NOT comparing sports to our wider life, to families and society.

That’s separate and bigger issue.

So, if it appears I’m scolding a player, team, or league for how it’s handling this coronavirus, please don’t think I’m referring to the nation as a whole.

One last reminder: I’m only talking about sports here.

For everything else, listen to health experts and maybe light a candle.

Now then, sports ...

Specifically, I’m addressing this COVID-19 outbreak among the Miami Marlins, which has risen to 17 cases as I write this — although there are some staff members in that group.

Major league players were given a 113-page book of protocols, basically explaining how they’d have to behave in order keep MLB’s 60-game season alive.

I GUESS it was folly to expect most young ballplayers to read 113 pages of anything, but teams could have given their athletes instructions that no one could miss, like ...

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

And then, the manager calls them together every day and, in the case of the Marlins, says: “Guys, Miami and other places are on fire with the virus right now. Go home. Wear a mask if you go into a store. Stay out of crowded places, because ...

“If one of you gets this damn thing, we’re all liable to get it.

“And when that happens, either the batboy will be playing first base or the season’s liable to be called off — and your paychecks will go with it.”

Even that kind of tough love didn’t last a week with one or more of the Marlins’ 20-somethings.

Somebody got infected with the coronavirus — maybe because he couldn’t resist an invitation to a crowded nightclub — and now you have a whole batch of cases.

Memo to the Marlins (and everyone else, pretty much) ...

Except for front-line medical people who are exposed to COVID-19 up close every day, the rest of us can come pretty close to guaranteeing we don’t get this thing.

Not a cinch, but we can give ourselves a heck of a chance.

Stay out of crowded places. Wear masks when there are strangers around. Remember social distancing and hand-washing.

It’s not that hard, and here’s the thing ...

If you’re a college or professional athlete, you WILL be in a locker room or clubhouse, so if just one bonehead has ignored all the common sense suggestions, there’s a heck of a chance he’s going to infect a lot of people in those close quarters.

IT’S NOT like athletes are being asked to meet impossible standards of caution.

The Korean Baseball Organization (which a lot of us watched for fun when MLB was in that labor brawl) has been ticking right along.

The NC Dinos are still leading by 5 1/2 games over Doosan — and that’s 67 games into the season.

Not only that, but just this week, fans were being allowed into Korean ballparks.

The league started with 10 percent of capacity, or roughly 2.500 to 3,000 people at most games (every fan received a temperature check at the gate), and the idea was that if things proved safe and workable, the KBO intended to raise that percentage of fans gradually.

At the moment, the league has temporarily halted attendance at games because of a virus spike across the nation — but the plan is to get fans back in the ballparks as soon as possible.

And meanwhile, the games will go on.

It’s not just Korea, either.

Soccer is being played in England, Germany, Italy and elsewhere.

None of those teams have been locked in a bubble and they have to travel to road games — and yet hasn’t been a “Marlins-style” outbreak in ANY of those leagues.

So why in the world can’t athletes in the United States exercise the same type of common sense?

Keep going to those jammed nightclubs, guys, and your season will be over before you get to a dozen games.

The fate of our sports is in the hands of the players.

Please THINK a little, ladies and gentlemen.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.

Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball, once per month during the off season.