Welcome back, sports fans! Fans are finally getting to go see their favorite teams and athletes again. They are so grateful that, in the NBA, they spit on players, throw bottles or popcorn at them, yell racist taunts and run onto the court. At the bucolic PGA Championship, fans engulf Brooks Koepka, attack his surgically repaired knee and grab Phil Mickelson’s head in celebration, forcing him to make a pretty impressive swim move before reaching the 18th green and making his last few shots. “Slightly unnerving,’’ Mickelson called it. “But exceptionally awesome.’’ Meanwhile, the Chicago White Sox finally have a World Series-ready team and are in first place, so the fans erupt in the bleachers with women brawling and throwing punches. Is this the new normal everyone was talking about? That’s the big question. I’m going to go with no, at least not to this extent. But yes, things have changed for good. Maybe “for good’’ is the wrong word. Let’s go with “permanently.” Did you really expect the return to go smoothly? This was just so predictable, as our collective psyche has been pent up for a year in COVID isolation. What the hell is happening here? The temperature […]