Coronavirus: Start date of professional baseball in Japan delayed again
The start of baseball season in Japan has again been delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nippon Professional Baseball hoped to open play in May, but team officials decided Friday that the season will not start before the end of May. There is no firm date in place for the beginning of the season, the Associated Press reported.
Additionally, per the AP, NPB officials decided to nix interleague play — which removes 18 games from each team’s schedule. The result, as currently constructed, is a 125-game regular season for the 12-team organization, which includes six teams out of the Central League and six more from the Pacific League.
The leagues began incorporating interleague play in 2005. The NPB season culminates with the Japan Series, a matchup of the top teams from each league akin to the World Series in MLB.
Opening day for both the Central and Pacific leagues was originally set for March 20. That start date was earlier than usual to account for a three-week break scheduled to take place in the summer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
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However, the spread of the coronavirus caused a delay. The start date was first pushed to April 10 and then to April 24. Now, NPB has no target date, but it won’t have to include the three-week Olympic break into the schedule after the 2020 Games were postponed to 2021.
How other pro baseball leagues are operating
Meanwhile, Chinese Professional Baseball League — Taiwan’s four-team league — opened play last weekend without fans in the stands.
Elsewhere, the Korean Baseball Organization (South Korea’s 10-team professional league) is set to open preseason play on Tuesday and hopes its regular season will soon follow in early May.
The league, which plays a 144-game schedule, is taking major precautions to ensure the safety of its players.
Per Korean news outlet Yonhap, the KBO is mandating all players must have their temperatures checked twice before games and recommending players wear masks “in all areas of the stadium during games except for the field and dugout.” Additionally, KBO has banned spitting outright and warned its players about barehanded high-fives and handshakes. Meanwhile, umpires and club employees (front office, trainers, etc.) will be required to wear masks and plastic gloves.
If a player shows any symptoms, he will be immediately quarantined:
If a player shows symptoms of COVID-19 during the preseason or regular season, the player will be immediately quarantined, and the stadium where his team last played will be closed for at least two days. And if he tests positive for the virus, a government-appointed epidemiologist will conduct contact tracing and determine others who will be ordered into two-week quarantine.
The KBO will not immediately halt play in such an instance, and it will instead hold a meeting with team executives to explore that possibility, depending on the extent of the ailing player's contact with others in the league.
KBO’s original opening day was March 28.
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