(Reuters) – Just four days after the start of a season truncated by a coronavirus, Major League Baseball faced a serious obstacle Monday with the postponement of scheduled games in Miami and Philadelphia due to COVID-19 issues.
The Miami Marlins, who opened their season Friday in Philadelphia, were scheduled to return home Sunday before their first game on Monday, but postponed after several of their players tested positive for the virus.
The Philadelphia Phillies were scheduled to receive the New York Yankees on Monday, but that game was also postponed because the Marlins players were recently at their home. The Yankees, who played the first game of the season last Thursday in Washington, finished a three-game series with the World Series protective national championships on Sunday.
MLB said in a statement that the games were postponed while “it was conducting more tests on COVID-19” and that members of the Marlins’ travel organization were quarantined while the league awaited results. COVID-19 is respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
The coronavirus pandemic has devastated professional play around the world, delaying the start of seasons, forcing the cancellation or postponement of primary events, delaying the summer Olympics planned for Japan for a year and raising main questions about the dangers of fitness for athletes and others.
The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League are expected to resume pandemic seasons later this week. American school sports are also changing, with some fall festival-related meetings and others suffering to figure out how to do it.
According to an ESPN report, eight Miami players and two coaches tested positive after Sunday’s last test. This happened after four Marlins players gained positive effects on the team’s vacation to Philadelphia.
Before their first game of season, the Marlins in Atlanta on Tuesday and Wednesday last for exhibition games.
“The fitness of our players has been and will continue to be our number one purpose as we navigate those uncharted waters,” Marlins Chief Executive Derek Jeter said in a statement.
“To inform tonight’s opening of the house the correct resolution to make sure we take a collective break and review to perceive the total situation,” Jeter added.
Jeter said the club had conducted a test circular for players and staff, and that the team would remain in Philadelphia awaiting the effects of the tests, which were expected later on Monday.
Unlike the NBA, which has gathered its groups on a limited campus at Disney World in Florida, MLB’s maximum groups play in their usual stadiums and adhere to a schedule designed to restrict travel.
However, the Government of Canada has banned the Blue Jays franchise from betting on their home games in Toronto, posing the fitness hazards posed by players and staff traveling to places in the United States with a large number of coronavirus cases. The Blue Jays will have to play their best games at home in Buffalo, New York.
“It’s a super slippery slope,” Victor Matheson, an economics specialist who teaches at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, told Reuters.
“One of the challenges with major leagues in particular is that they play so many games, which means that hits their team for an era of moderate quarantine is a huge challenge in terms of time,” Matheson added.
The first game of the season was played in Washington last Thursday, a few hours after one of the nationals’ young stars, outfielder Juan Soto, came out of the opening day lineup after testing positive for the virus.
According to the MLB Operations Manual for the time overdue through the coronavirus, team members who test positive must have two negative controls at least 24 hours before they can return to the team’s facilities.
MLB had originally planned to open its normal season of 162 games in late March, but made the decision to postpone it due to the fitness risk posed by the pandemic, even though it all opted for a condensed 60-game schedule that began last Thursday. .
The National Hockey League is scheduled to resume its season on Saturday with an expanded 24-team playoffs at two venues in Canada. The NBA is expected to resume its season on Thursday, betting on a bachelor at Walt Disney World.
Reporting through Frank Pingue in Toronto; Additional reports through Amy Tennery in New York; Written through Will Dunham; Edited through Matthew Lewis
All quotes were delayed for at least 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of transactions and delays.
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