How sports looked different in 2020 - Yahoo Sports

(Albert Corona/Yahoo Sports illustration)

We spent so much of 2020 apart from one another. We stayed in our homes, wary and uncertain, as days stretched to weeks and weeks to months. We waited in silence for something, anything to change.

And then everything changed.

Stadiums became hospitals and polling stations. Voices rose up in unison, often from unexpected venues, to demand equality and justice for all. Sports weren’t just sports anymore — they were a desperately needed release, a platform for social messaging, a chance to recapture some bit of pre-pandemic normalcy.

The games returned, but the stands remained mostly empty. The Lambeau Leap became the Lambeau Loneliness. Stuffed animals and cardboard cutouts silently watched an entire season of baseball. Screens of fans rejoicing in their homes were an unsatisfying replacement for actual live fans reveling courtside. Fake crowd noise couldn’t cover up the silence.

This was a year literally unlike any other in sports history. In 2021, we’ll be back together again, and louder than ever before. Here, courtesy of Albert Corona, is a look at how the sports world looked a little different in 2020. — Jay Busbee

(Editors note: Use the purple dot to scroll across each photo.)