Our Daily Dread: All ball-buggy over this flu thing

The New York Times reports in its recent health section that, from altar wine to beer pong, everything's flu-accessable in today's world (linked here).

How about sliders, sinkers and spitballs?

There's Dr. Oz on the TV. If we only had a brain to figure out what he was saying about all this. He claims "hospitals are gearing up" because "this year's cold and flu season is shaping up to be one of the worst ever."

Not to scare anyone or anything. But when Dr. Oz is drawing more strange looks than Ozzy Ozborne, something's amiss.

But wait -- the Cleveland Cavaliers say LeBron James' flu was so serious recently, they were treating it like H1N1. James later said he thought he got the flu from having a flu shot.

That's not a Cavalier attitude.

We fear what we do not understand, we hate what we understand even less, we condescend to what we understand least of all.

Or something like that.

We hear that Jeff Weaver had the flu last week. It wasn't why he was left off the Dodgers' NLCS playoff roster, though. Joe Torre wanted another left-handed reliever. He could have used Weaver in the Game 1 loss when Clayton Kershaw started walking a tightrope in the fifth inning, but Weaver couldn't have pitched anyway. He was sick. So was Russell Martin, but he played. So was Don Mattingly, but he coached.

And spread germs.

It's germ warfare to consider, just as much as blowing on your hand on a cold night if you're a pitcher.

What if all this scarry stuff happens, and the World Series next week ends up as one big petri dish of germs to spread around? Could Bud Selig be walking into a problem much bigger than umpire ineptness?

It's nothing to sneeze at.

Last August, the first confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu to hit Japanese pro baseball happened to the Nippon Ham Fighters.

Get it. Swine flu. Ham Fighters.

Pitcher Naoki Miyanishi, outfielder Terrmel Sledge and coach Junichi Fukura had it. Catcher Shota Ohno and pitcher Takayuki Kanamori also had the flu, but it wasn't confirmed as H1N1. Another 22 players were tested.

In July, an 18-year-old from Kenosha, Wisc., an all-state baseball player, died from flu-like infection.

It's not just baseball. University of Washington hoops coach Lorezo Romar had only seven players for Monday's practice. The other seven were sick -- he said it was the worst illness he's had on a team since he began coaching in 1992 as a UCLA assistant.

Romar said none have been diagnosed with swine flu.

A half hour ago, the Associated Press reported that Cleveland Browns coach Eric Mangini said 12 players, including Pro Bowl nose tackle Shaun Rogers and five other starters, are home with flulike symptoms and he plans to adjust his practice. That's about 1/4 of their 45-man roster unavailable.

He implied that the players had not yet been tested for H1N1 virus.

"We're trying at the first signs of any kind of illness to get the guys home and out of the building," Mangini said. "We're working as hard as we can to promote things to prevent the illness and impressing the importance of things like sleep. It's that time of year and unfortunately we have quite a few guys who are dealing with it. We'll adjust practice, we'll work around it and continue to move forward."

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has already decided that if a team has at least six players knocked out because of illness -- if it's the flu, even more so -- they can get roster dispensation to add players.

So what about the fans at this point? If they're getting sick and don't show up, do the games go on?

This is hardly a tragic situation. Yet. But to hear everyone talk about it ...

President Obama said he got his flu shot Tuesday, and his family had already been vaccinated. He said he wanted to wait his turn before lining up to be vaccinated since kids, young adults, pregnant women and health care workers should be first in line.

Out of the way. I'm the boss. Give me that thing before someone gives me something else first.

Cough it up.

Be safe out there, sports fans. And athletes. And hospital emergency staffs.

And Mariano Rivera -- quit spitting on baseballs. It's condesending.

More on what NBA, MLB and NFL teams are doing about the swine flu (linked here)