Major League Baseball’s pandemic-shortened 60-game season is finally upon us this evening, months after the league shut down in the original version of spring training as the result of the arrival of COVID-19 in the United States. The virus isn’t under control in the vast majority of the country, with only the northeast having kept percentages of positive tests and total number of hospitalizations in check over the past several weeks. In many other states, ones in which a big chunk of major league teams play, things are getting worse.
Against that public health backdrop and the significant economic impact the pandemic has had on millions of people in the country, the league is set to begin the season with a game between the Nationals and Yankees shortly after 7 PM this evening—on the same day that Juan Soto, who had been actively participating in summer camp all week, received a positive result for COVID-19 from a test he took two days ago.