Will virus crisis clean up the action?

"It is unhygienic … I think we should have to avoid that at maximum," D'Hooghe said. "The question is whether that will be possible."

More genteel pursuits like tennis and golf have proved that it is, although both Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia handed over hefty fines for leaving something besides sweat out on the course.

Basketball and hockey are stuck indoors, but only one of them said no to spitting.

Puckheads defend hockey's choice by arguing players who get a tooth knocked out during a game shouldn't have to swallow blood. Fair enough. But if you've ever watched a game and seen how much blood, sweat and tears they voluntarily share on the bench, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the National Hockey League has been hit twice in recent years by outbreaks of mumps.

But that's about to change. The coronavirus has pulled the rug out from underneath just about everything in sports, and better sanitation shouldn't require a seismic cultural shift. Just rise at some ungodly hour and catch a Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) game on ESPN.

The KBO is at the vanguard in the return of live sports. It checks players' temperatures twice daily, requires umpires and trainers to wear masks and gloves, and banned spitting, handshakes, fist-bumps, high-fives and perhaps most noticeably, a live audience.

That's been replaced by banners picturing fans－also wearing masks－stretched across every row. In a spectacularly complicated nod to social distancing, the opening pitch was rolled to home plate by a youngster wearing a uniform inside a clear balloon made up to look like a baseball.

Dan Straily, an American-born pitcher with the Lotte Giants of the KBO, said the game lacked so much energy, it reminded him of "weekday games in Oakland". Still, he had only one real complaint.

"I want someone to find me a game in history where baseball players did not spit on the field," Straily told NPR.

Get used to it.

AP Via Xinhua