This week is going to be ugly. There's no getting around that. Every negotiation starts at opposite ends of a spectrum, and the chasm between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association is wide enough that as they navigate a return-to-play agreement to set the stage for the return of professional team sports in America, a fight is almost guaranteed.
Where these discussions go, and how the principals involved steer them, mark the most consequential moment for the sport since it barely averted a work stoppage in 2002. The coronavirus pandemic is altering the world.