A Big Day for Chicago Sports Fans Who May Have Needed It

A trinity of sports victories befell Chicago on Sunday, when three of the city’s teams won important games.On Sunday, the Bears rallied a fourth quarter comeback to topple the Detroit Lions, Cubs pitcher Alec Mills threw the league’s second no-hitter of the season against the Milwaukee Brewers, and the White Sox swept the Detroit Tigers to finish a three-game series as American League leaders.

For a city gripping with the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest, the comfort, camaraderie and escapism of watching professional sports might be good for the spirit, according to Frances Sutton, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Ohio State University.

“Understandably, people are really happy to have them back, even if it means changing up their social rituals,” Sutton said. “Because during the time when they were gone, we really didn’t have that normalcy that we use almost to keep time to rely on during what was already a very, very tough time.”

Sutton and Ohio State University professor Jeffrey Cohen co-authored the article “Why Are Sports Fans So Bereft Without Live Games?” in the anthropology magazine Sapiens on May 27.

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