THE fans came back, and even if their money was no good at arenas and stadiums, their credit cards and payment apps certainly were. Though the sports we watch brought with them a façade of “back to normal” as the pandemic-altered 2021 came to a close, a new reality took root this year: Every game, every practice, every season is a positive test or outbreak away from being postponed or compromised or canceled. Nobody can take any of this for granted anymore. That’s one of the many ways the Covid-19 pandemic carved away at the “old normal” in 2021, a year in which sports came back from the total…