NPB Pushes Back Season Start Again as COVID-19 Surges Again in Japan
As we continue to wait for the start of sports back in the United States, the world continues to keep an eye on how things are progressing the rest of the world. We’ve heard about the return of sports in other countries recently. The Chinese Professional Baseball League, a five-team league in Taiwan, got their season going on April 11 and it’s not the only league looking to get back to playing. In South Korea, the KBO hopes to resume spring training games next week with the hopes of getting their regular season underway in early May. Already, there are reports that ESPN is trying to negotiate broadcasting rights in an effort to bring some semblance of actual sports to their programming at this stage of the game, where the network is starved for viewers due to a lack of live sports.
Last week, we talked about potential options for Major League Baseball to get their season underway and touched on what seemed like a far-fetched option. That was playing games in Japan. This week, that option pretty much was dealt a death blow as the COVID-19 pandemic reared its ugly head again in the Land of the Rising Sun.
The Nippon Professional League, the top league in Japan and where major leaguers like Ichiro Suzuki, Yu Darvish and Shohei Ohtani, among others, plied their craft before coming to the majors, has seen their season delayed multiple times already. On Friday, the league made the decision to postpone their season start for a third time as the coronavirus has resurged in that country, with more than 10,000 diagnosed cases since the country declared a state of emergency last week. It’s the latest blow to the league, which has been trying to come up with viable options since the start of spring training with limited success.
The league was supposed to kick off play on March 20 this season, with the early start attributed to the Tokyo Olympics. That early start would have allowed for a three-week break in the middle of the season for players to take part in the Olympic Games. After the Olympics were postponed until next year, that didn’t really become a factor at this point in time. In March, the league made the decision to postpone the season start until early April. Then, earlier this month, the season was pushed off until late April. That was before Friday’s decision, which has now ruled out any games taking place at all in the month of May, meaning it is at least early June at best before things come back there.
In addition, the interleague games that have taken place since 2005 between the Central and Pacific Leagues, have been canceled for this season, removing 18 games from each team’s schedule. That means, at most, that teams will play 125 games this season. However, with the flare-up of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, it’s hard to foresee that number coming to fruition. It also makes for concerns regarding the return of MLB and what kind of schedule we’ll see should they return to the diamond here in the United States. There are reports that the season could be shortened to as much as half a season going forward.
While there is baseball on the other side of the world, it’s going to take some time before we see it make its way back to the diamond here. There are signs of hope but, at the same time, our thoughts and prayers go to those in Japan as they deal with another round of this ongoing pandemic. One can only hope that it’s merely a matter of time before things start getting back to normal.