NEW YORK — Major League Baseball owners gave the go-ahead Monday to making a proposal to the players’ union that could lead to the coronavirus-delayed season starting around the Fourth of July weekend in ballparks without fans, a plan that envisioned expanding the designated hitter to the National League for 2020.

Spring training could start in early to mid-June, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.

MLB officials are slated to make a presentation to the union on Tuesday. An agreement with the players’ association is needed, and talks are expected to be difficult — especially over a proposal for a revenue split that would be unprecedented for baseball. Players withstood a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 to fight off such a plan.

“If you do anything that resembles a cap, that smells like a cap, you’ve given too much,” said Dave Stewart, a four-time 20-game winner who is now an agent and spent two years as Arizona’s general manager.

“A salary cap has been a non-starter for the players as long as I’ve been in baseball,” said David Samson, president of the Expos and Marlins from 2002-17. “I think when MLB is proposing a revenue split, it is with the full knowledge that the players’ union will automatically reject that.”

Each team would play about 82 regular-season games: against opponents in its own division plus interleague matchups limited to AL East vs. NL East, AL Central vs. NL Central and AL West vs. NL West.

Postseason play would be expanded from 10 clubs to 14 by doubling wild cards in each league to four.

Teams would prefer to play at their regular-season ballparks but would switch to spring training stadiums or neutral sites if medical and government approvals can’t be obtained for games at home. Toronto might have to play home games in Dunedin, Florida.

“We’ll see where we will be in July,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose state is the home of five MLB clubs and who has talked with baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Active rosters would be expanded from 26 to around 30. The All-Star Game, scheduled for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on July 14, likely would be called off, which would be a first since 1945.