The announcement that MLB would resume play in July had been out for scarcely half an hour when another story popped on the radar: Three players on the Colorado Rockies had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The second news item did not have a direct effect on the first one. But it did serve as an unfortunate reminder of a key point. The battle for a baseball season did not end when the league finished negotiating. Instead, it’s just getting started, driven by a threat far out of either owners’ or players’ control: COVID-19.