As they bickered, their cities, ballparks and locker rooms became more treacherous, their game less essential.
The latter may soften the former, as baseball waited around long enough for the question to form — Is it worth it? Replacing the previous question — Can it help save us?
The coronavirus long ago dashed normal, then circled back to baseball a long weekend before the union rejected Major League Baseball’s 60-game proposal, so by Monday evening the commissioner was inclined to impose the structure of a season while some teams were counting up the recently afflicted.