We live in a five-tool pandemic: invisible, fast-spreading, resistant to antibiotics. The gods started it with Pandora, whose name meant “all gifted,” and now we’re besieged with the “all gifted,” a generation of exceptional child athletes. As early as age five, youth baseball players become symptomatic, surpassing major league all-stars in throwing, fielding, running, hitting, and hitting with power. But unlike the other viruses, this pandemic is only deadly to the children who don’t catch it.

I live in a hot spot. In St. Louis, Missouri, cases of exceptional athletes are soaring. On July 21, 2020, in an effort to minimize the spread of coronavirus, St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page declared all youth competitive sports cancelled for the summer and fall. White, wealthy suburban parents went ballistic. A petition representing hundreds of teams and thousands of parents called for the immediate resignation and capture of Page, wanted for “spreading fear and fiction” (Fox2Now St. Louis) and denying parents—children—the right to play, i.e., perpetuate their dominance over the suburban social hierarchy. But this contagion started long before suburban parents took to the streets to reinstate youth sports.

Work in progress