Nippon Professional Baseball — the Japanese major league — announced on Wednesday that it will hold all of its remaining spring training games in empty ballparks due to fears that fans might spread the coronavirus. The following day the Korean Baseball Organization went even further, cancelling the remainder of the KBO League’s spring training games in their entirety over coronavirus fears.
NPB’s regular season opens on March 20. The league is in wait-and-see mode regarding whether the regular season will be similarly impacted. The KBO League regular season is set to begin on March 28. The KBO will hold an emergency meeting of its executive committee next Tuesday to discuss potential changes to the regular season schedule. Yesterday Japan closed schools across the country due to the outbreak. It’s Rugby Union league recently cancelled over a dozen matches.
The 2020 regular season of both leagues was already scheduled to be halted during the summer for Olympics, which takes place in Tokyo. Yesterday, by the way, the organizers of the Olympic games pushed back on what they called mere “speculation” that the coronavirus epidemic could lead to their cancellation.
So yeah, things are going sideways out there right now. Please keep your head. And please wash your hands.
