MLB: There’s hope for baseball yet; just look at the KBO League
By Manny Gómez
Only weeks after postponing the start of the season because of the coronavirus outbreak, the KBO league is kicking back into gear. There’s hope for MLB yet!
For MLB fans, March 2020 will be forever be remembered in infamy. It is the month in which the novel coronavirus pandemic shut down the entire world of sports for an indefinite amount of time. This left baseball fanatics worried not only about their health, but also about when their greatest distraction would return again.
Fortunately, for baseball fans, the KBO League, South Korea’s version of our big leagues, is providing a sense of hope the likes of which these last 2-weeks felt would never be possible.
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Less than a month after postponing the start of the season over coronavirus concerns, a few days ago KBO teams revamped workouts in hopes of resuming play soon. Though it’s not apples-to-apples, South Korea has been widely praised for the handling of the pandemic, this should provide MLB fans with a sense of hope.
In more promising news, Tampa Bay Rays infielder Choi Ji-man of South Korea plans to return to the United States to continue his preparation for the 2020 MLB season. His plan, according to Yonhap News Agency, is to undergo tests for COVID-19 at Incheon International Airport before departing. Then, “regardless of the results, Choi will quarantine himself for two weeks.”
How does the Rays infielder have access to COVID-19 tests, you might be wondering? Well, weeks after the outbreak in Wuhan, China, the South Korean government approved testing systems. As a result, Korean companies produced a system that could test up to 10,000 people per day.
Currently, while South Korea is beginning to soften up social distancing restrictions, the United States await the worst of the outbreak. Don’t worry, however, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
Just look to South Korea.
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For more information about the novel coronavirus, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.