After a months-long hiatus, baseball is (mostly) back. The last games of spring training took place Wednesday, and Thursday is opening day.
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- The Washington Nationals will kick things off against the New York Yankees, and the LA Dodgers will face the San Francisco Giants. [USA Today / Aria Gerson]
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- When the Nationals-Yankees game gets underway, a familiar face will be throwing out the first pitch: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the prominent disease expert in the federal government, is set to open the season at Nationals Park Thursday. [NPR / Rachel Treisman]
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- The Nationals will be missing one of their star players, however. On Thursday, ESPN reported that Juan Soto tested positive for Covid-19. [Twitter / Marly Rivera]
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- Baseball usually starts in the spring for a 162-game season, but that didn't happen this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The league is set to play only 60 games, and teams will be playing to empty stadiums instead of a crowd of fans. [NYT / Tyler Kepner]
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- But the stadiums won't be completely dead: At least one broadcaster says it plans to add virtual fans to games, and ESPN says it will include "crowd audio." [Variety / Brian Steinberg]
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- One team, the Toronto Blue Jays, won’t even get the chance to play in their own empty stadium. Over the weekend, Canada decided that the risk from the US coronavirus outbreak was such that the Blue Jays won’t be allowed into Canada to play. [AP / Rob Gillies]
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- Still, baseball teams will be traveling for their games. When the NBA officially restarts next week on Thursday, they won’t even be doing that. Instead, players congregated in Orlando, Florida, earlier this month, and they will live and play inside a “bubble” there for the rest of the season. But the bubble may be hard to maintain, as Florida currently has a large coronavirus outbreak. [Vanity Fair / Tom Kludt]
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- The NBA isn’t the only sports league to bubble up for its postseason. The NWSL’s month-long bubble will draw to a close with a championship match on Sunday, and so far, no positive coronavirus tests have been reported. [WSJ / Louise Radnofsky, Rachel Bachman, and Ben Cohen]
 - Things are looking less promising for the NFL. The football season isn’t set to start until September, but at least 59 players have already tested positive for the coronavirus. Players have also been vocal about the league’s failure to implement sufficient safety measures. [Axios / Jacob Knutson]
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