Major League Baseball makes its long-delayed return this week, kicking off an abbreviated 60-game season that promises fans some glimmer of normalcy during a most abnormal summer. Things get underway Thursday night with the defending World Series champion Washington Nationals hosting the New York Yankees, and the Los Angeles Dodgers facing the rival San Francisco Giants. Squeezing in a shortened season followed by a lucrative playoff schedule is critical to MLB, which lacks some of the financial guarantees of the National Football League and National Basketball Association and likely faces labor unrest next year. But ... (full story)