Major League Baseball has decided to suspend spring training and delay the start of the regular season by at least two weeks amid concerns for the outbreak of the coronavirus:
MLB is Pushing start of season back by minimum of two weeks and will continue to monitor and see when is best to resume. Spring Training games cancelled as of 4pm ET today.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 12, 2020
ESPN's Jeff Passan widely expected this move to hit throughout the day, calling it a mere “formality” before the league rolled out this mandate.
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher David Price expressed some urgency regarding this move, a feeling Passan said is shared by many around the game of baseball:
For anyone questioning MLB's potentially suspending spring training, I'll refer to David Price as he walked into the Dodgers' facility about an hour ago: "It's gotta happen. This is so much bigger than sports. I've got two kids."
That feeling is shared by many, many in the game.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 12, 2020
MLB is following a wave that's going across all sports, starting with the NBA, which suspended its season after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. His diagnosis was followed by teammate Donovan Mitchell, who found out on Thursday.
The National Hockey League has also suspended its season, expecting to resume sometime in the spring, but with no clear outline as to when.
The United States Soccer Federation also canceled upcoming matches for the men's and women's national teams for the next two months, due to the concern of the virus' spread across the world in international competitions.
There is a large expectation that all sporting events could be canceled by the end of the week, given the number of panels advising against large gatherings of people.