In Taiwan, in fact. The CPBL (Chinese Professional Baseball League) season is underway. They plan to open stadia to fans--only 1,000 to start--tomorrow. There are five teams in the league. Taiwan has a population of 24 million in an area that's a little bigger than Belgium and a little smaller than Switzerland. The parks normally hold from 12,500 to 20,000 fans at capacity.
And in South Korea. The KBO (Korea Baseball Organization) opened their season yesterday. The KBO has ten teams. The Lotte Giants play in Busan and the Sajik Baseball Stadium is the biggest in the league and holds 26,800 fans. South Korea is home to 52 million people in an area the size of Iceland, about three times the size of Taiwan. There are no fans at the games and no word yet on when that will happen.
Taiwan reports fewer than 500 cases of COVID-19 and six deaths. South Korea reports almost 11,000 cases and 256 deaths. That's a very different public health situation than here in the States. It does, however, give one hope that a 2020 MLB season could happen in some limited form. I'm not planning to follow the CPBL (although you have to love the Rakuten Monkeys) or the KBO (although the SK Wyverns play in Happy Dream Park) so you'll have to use the links I've provided if you are desperate for pro ball.
Bundesliga, the top professional football league (soccer) in Germany is slated to resume on the 16th of this month. All matches will be behind closed doors. This seems like a riskier proposition. Germany appears to be ahead of places like Italy, Spain, and the U.K., but they don't seem to be near the level of containment that Taiwan and South Korea have achieved. I wish them the best of luck.
Stay safe!
--M.C.
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From Ken Rosethal's piece at The Athletic:
"Nothing is official. Major League Baseball will discuss its plans for the 2020 season in a conference call with owners on Monday. If the owners give their approval, the league will present its proposal to the players’ union on Tuesday."
So we may have some news on Tuesday.
I hear from a friend of a friend that spring training will restart in June with a half season starting early July.
Supposedly the 2021 WBC was cancelled. It was to start in March, but of course there are qualifying tournaments before then and those could probably not be scheduled so all the dominoes fell. That's too bad. I was skeptical of the WBC at first but it has turned out to be a fun event and although not all that popular in the US it was a much bigger deal in other places. I like to see the sport grow internationally. MLB benefits from a bigger world audience (and talent pool).
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