Unlike the NBA or NHL, Major League Baseball's season had not yet begun when COVID-19 first came to America. The MLB season typically starts around the end of March and ends around early November. When the NBA and NHL postponed their seasons, MLB was only in the Spring Training portion of their schedule. Nevertheless, MLB decided to follow the other sports league's lead and postpone the start of their season. The MLB's response to the pandemic was seen as really interesting by many sports fans, because they would actually have to start their league's play, instead of continue it.

When MLB eventually did decide start their season, the teams played in their own arena, rather than a bubble. This decision was not made out of negligence or lack of concern over player health, but rather out of necessity. Due to no prior regular season games being played, MLB had no excuse to exclude any of its teams from playing. All 30 MLB teams ended up playing regular season games for the league. Roster size was also a huge issue for the MLB. A normal MLB roster, not counting many of the teams' players in minor league affiliates, contains 40 players. Due to the nature of the sport of baseball, it is very hard to field a team with fewer players. Unless MLB wanted to rent out or create an entire city just for this one season, then the most feasible option was having no bubble at all.

Unsurprisingly, MLB encountered a few bumps along way with their bubble-less strategy. A few games into the start of the season, the Miami Marlins had a major outbreak of the virus. Shortly thereafter, many other teams had similar widespread outbreaks. For a while, it looked like the MLB season would have to be postponed yet again. But MLB, ultimately, found a way to make things work. League officials were able to postpone games when necessary and reschedule them to later dates when possible. The MLB World Series ended a tiny bit later than they usually do, but all playoff games scheduled eventually ended up being played. At the end of the season, the Dodgers won their 7th World Series by beating the Tampa Bay Rays. In many ways, MLB set up the model that the rest of the sports world would eventually follow.

Although MLB players also participated in BLM protests, the primary social movement that affected the MLB season was a labor dispute. The NFL, NBA, and NHL all have major unions, but the Major League Baseball Players' Association is probably the strongest of them all. As a result, baseball players are probably treated better than any other athlete in a major sports league. But this also means that MLB and the MLBPA get into a lot of labor disputes that impact seasons. Entire baseball seasons have been cancelled in the past because the two could not come to a collective bargaining agreement. It is thus no surprise that tensions would arise again when talks about starting the MLB season began.

For a while, fans fear that the season would not start at all. The primary dispute between the owners and the players was over how much money the players should make for the 2020 season. The MLB did not want to push their season that far past their normal end date of early November, so playing a full 162 game schedule was out of the question. Owners also worried about the vast amounts of money that they would lose from not having any attendance during those games. This led owners to demand that season be significantly less games and that the player make significantly less money than what was stipulated in their contracts. Players agreed that the season needed to be shortened, but disagreed on how short the season should be and how much money they should be paid. As would be expected, this dispute raged for a very long time.

Eventually, MLB and the MLBPA came to an agreement. The season would be shortened to 60 games, which was longer than the 48 games that the owners wanted, but much shorter than the 114 games that the players initially proposed. The players did, however, get their full salary for each game played, something that the owners did not originally want to give them. This agreement allowed a shortened MLB season to be played from the end of July until late November. However, a future labor dispute seems to be on the horizon, as neither the MLB nor the MLBPA addressed all of the issues on their docket in this agreement.