The weirdest year in Major League Baseball history starts Thursday night. The game that fancies its season a marathon will engage in an outright sprint during the 2020 MLB season. The sport that night after night packs fans into stadiums will play with no crowds. Amid a global pandemic, in a country where the coronavirus continues to spread with impunity, baseball will imbibe a confusing cocktail of uncertainty, skepticism and hope, fully embracing a show-must-go-on mentality.
Around the sport, there is pride that it reached the point where a season is reality and unease about what playing that season means.