Could the MLB Season Hit the Land of the Rising Sun?
As the curve seems to be flattening here in the United States regarding the spread of COVID-19, the hopes that professional sports will return is driving the hopes and dreams of the population. With that would come the eventual start of the major league baseball season. Opening Day was scheduled for March 26 only to be pushed back after MLB followed the other major pro sports and delayed their season on March 12.
Since that point in time, there have been a variety of potential options pitched in an effort to get the baseball season underway. We’ve talked about a couple of them: there was the plan that would have the league solely based in Arizona with all 30 teams playing around the state. There also has been a plan kicked around that would house teams where they hold spring training to create the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues, which would turn the normal divisional alignments upside down and set up some bizarre divisions in 2020. At least those two concepts, while they have their issues, have some merit. For example, teams would play in the United States.
That, while it hasn’t been overly favorable in some of the chatter that has come out, at least that we’ve heard, would have to be considered much more palatable than the most recent crazy option that has been pitched to get the season going. According to ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian, the concept of playing the entire major league baseball season in Japan has been floated. One has to play spoiler to this one as it simply doesn’t make a ton of sense when you get right down to it. Let’s take a look at reasons why this doesn’t make much in the way of sense and why you shouldn’t expect to see your favorite team playing most of their games in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Time Difference: Let’s start with a pretty easy one. Japan is 13 hours ahead of the east coast of the United States, which puts it 16 hours ahead of the west coast’s population. When the 2019 season opened in Tokyo between Oakland and Seattle, first pitch in those games were at 5:05 am ET (2:05 am PT), which isn’t exactly the most conducive time to draw in fans. It’s also hellacious for the body clock of the players, who are used to playing their games in an evening time slot, barring the day games at Wrigley Field, Even then, those games are still nine hours later than first pitch in most of the games in the Windy City.
The NPB Isn’t Playing Right Now Either: Japan’s top baseball league, Nippon Professional Baseball, was scheduled to kick off their season back on March 20, six days before MLB was to throw their first pitch. Thanks to COVID-19, that was pushed back to April 24. According to recent reports, Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, declared a state of emergency for seven prefectures of the country until at least May 6. As a result, the NPB closed their main office temporarily in Tokyo as they continue to figure out a viable course of action to try and get their season going. The virus hasn’t skipped over the league as three members of the Hanshin Tigers tested positive for COVID-19 previously.
COVID-19 Cases Building in Japan: While the numbers seem to be starting to trend in a positive direction here in the United States, things seem to be going in the opposite direction in Japan. The country has seen a surge in the last few weeks of COVID-19 cases, making one concerned if it’s a second wave or if things were just swept under the rug previously. When the decision was made to postpone the Summer Olympics to 2021 on March 24, there were just 1,140 cases of COVID-19 reported in the country. As of Tuesday afternoon on the east coast, that number had nearly septupled to nearly 7,700.
Lack of Places to Practice Social Distancing: Japan has a population of 127 million people in a space smaller than the area of the state of California. That leads to a pretty hefty population density and makes it almost impossible to maintain the social distancing that has been effective in other countries. Throw in that eight of the NPB’s 12 teams are impacted by the state of emergency declaration and it makes it a pretty safe bet that MLB wouldn’t be comfortable trying to make the move across the globe to try and get the season going.
The Union Wouldn’t Go For It: This one is likely the most important factor in it all. Even if all the other issues weren’t a factor in this situation, the owners would still have to get the MLBPA to sign off on such a concept in order to even remotely consider it. We’ve heard rumblings that players don’t want to be quarantined and isolated from their families for three or four months as it stands and that would be if the games were held in Arizona and Florida. Can you imagine most of the current crop of players making the decision to travel halfway across the world without their families, friends and loved ones to play baseball? It’s highly unlikely and when you factor in the other issues, it seems that this isn’t going to be something that the union would remotely even consider budging on.
There have been a ton of options bandied about and, while we’re no closer to an actual answer as to what the concept might be that ends up getting baseball back in the hearts and minds of fans and on the televisions across the country, there are at least concepts being considered. There are reports that the KBO could start spring training games again as early as next week with the regular season getting underway in early May. Should that happen as expected, it would give the rest of the world something to point to as a success and give a rough blueprint of what to emulate. It also would give us a look at what we can expect as a fan experience going forward.
