For a day or two, it seemed like it might actually work. Baseball was back and, even if some of the familiar sights of summer were missing, there were actual players with bats and balls along with the cute cardboard cutouts of babies and dogs in the stands.
But there's nothing cute about the coronavirus. And nothing good about baseball's botched response to the first crisis of its strangest season ever.
The Marlins are done, or at least they should be. There's no way a team ravaged by the virus can even try to carry on, even if you accept the idea that 29 other teams should continue to chase a World Series title that means less with every positive test.