MLB postpones Yankees, Phillies games due to unhealthy air quality in New York, Philadelphia

Major League Baseball postponed Wednesday night's games in New York and Philadelphia due to unhealthy air quality.

Canadian wildfire smoke that turned New York's skyline an eerie hue of orange early in the afternoon produced an air quality index that reached 392 near Yankee Stadium as team and MLB officials met to determine the status of the game against the Chicago White Sox.

That AQI is firmly in the "hazardous" threshold - any reading of 301 or higher - as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency. Air-quality postponements are handled by MLB, not host teams, and they rescheduled Wednesday's game as a traditional doubleheader beginning Thursday at 4 ET.

The Phillies-Detroit Tigers game will be made up Thursday - previously an off day for both teams - at 6:05.

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It's the first such postponement since September 2020, when two games between the Mariners and Giants were moved from Seattle to San Francisco due to wildfire-related smoke. That postponement came one day after the Mariners and Oakland Athletics played a doubleheader through a haze that produced an AQI between 198 and 240.

“I’m a healthy 22-year-old,” said Jesus Luzardo, one of Oakland’s starting pitchers that day. “I shouldn’t be gasping for air or missing oxygen. I’ll leave it at that.”

The game in Washington (Diamondbacks-Nationals) is on for now. The AQI in Washington cities was a bit better - 185 compared to 210 in Philadelphia - as of 4 ET Wednesday afternoon.

Minor-league games in Syracuse on Tuesday and Wednesday were among the first to postpone; air quality in Central New York remained in the 280 range Wednesday.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Yankees, Phillies games postponed due to unhealthy air