Will Major League Baseball be the first team sport to resume play, post-crisis?

Could be possible, if a plan to start in Arizona next month comes to fruition.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports on the details being discussed between MLB and the player’s union:

The plan, sources said, would dictate that all 30 teams play games at stadiums with no fans in the greater Phoenix area, including the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ Chase Field, 10 spring training facilities and perhaps other nearby fields. Players, coaching staffs and other essential personnel would be sequestered at local hotels, where they would live in relative isolation and travel only to and from the stadium, sources said. Federal officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the National Institutes of Health have been supportive of a plan that would adhere to strict isolation, promote social distancing and allow MLB to become the first professional sport to return.

The May return date depends on a number of concerns being allayed, and some officials believe a June Opening Day could be more realistic, sources said. Most important would be a significant increase in available coronavirus tests with a quick turnaround time, which sources familiar with the plan believe will happen by early May and allow MLB’s testing to not diminish access for the general public.

That’s quite a long time away from wives and kids and other family members, as Passan notes later in the story. Arizona isn’t the worst place to be sequestered, but I’d imagine anybody would go stir crazy eventually if your life consisted of nothing but playing a game, going to the hotel, and then a couple of hours to yourself before doing it all over again.

Passan also dropped a couple of bullet points regarding things that might change as a result of social distancing and other COVID-19 precautions we’re currently following:

  • Implementing an electronic strike zone to allow the plate umpire to maintain sufficient distance from the catcher and batter
  • No mound visits from the catcher or pitching coach
  • Seven-inning doubleheaders, which with an earlier-than-expected start date could allow baseball to come closer to a full 162-game season
  • Regular use of on-field microphones by players, as an added bonus for TV viewers
  • Sitting in the empty stands 6 feet apart — the recommended social-distancing space — instead of in a dugout

It would be really weird, but it would be sports. It would be a start in getting back to a normal life, and you’d kickstart an important sector of the national (and global) economy as well. The NHL and NBA have discussed other similar proposals (moving all the teams to one area), so it seems like this is inevitably where we’re headed.