'The first step': Yankees, Nationals players all kneel before national anthem in MLB opener

WASHINGTON — Though it was the novel coronavirus that delayed Major League Baseball’s Opening Day by nearly four months, the social reckoning that occurred along the way could not be ignored before it was time to play ball.

In a coordinated gesture between the reigning World Series champion Washington Nationals and New York Yankees before the first major league game played this year Thursday night, players clutched a black cloth that winded from the Nationals’ first base line around to the Yankees on the third-base line.

Then, before a pre-recorded...