Inside MLB's 2020 season plan to play through a pandemic -- and where it could go wrong

Ten days ago, as Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association continued haggling over finances in return-to-play discussions, one official said the whole thing felt like "Game of Thrones." All this fighting over money and power when the real hazard for the 2020 MLB season -- the existential threat -- loomed elsewhere.

"The COVID 'white walkers' are real," he said.

With less than a week before players report to training camps in anticipation of a season set to begin July 23 or 24, baseball is grappling with the difficulty of playing a season in the midst of a global pandemic. Calling the task daunting does not do it service. The pervasiveness of the coronavirus, the spike in cases…