Athletes uneasy on empty venues
As U.S. sports leagues weigh whether to bar fans from ballparks and stadiums to help stall the coronavirus outbreak, San Francisco Giants pitcher Jeff Samardzija can tell players what that feels like. “It’s not very fun,” he said. Samardzija pitched for the Chicago White Sox in a 2015 game played without fans in Baltimore because of civil unrest in the city. It is a scenario that already has become common internationally and could happen in the U.S. if there’s no slowdown to the spread of the COVID-19 strain that has infected more than 100,000 people worldwide.
NBA sent a memo to its teams Friday warning them to prepare for possibly hosting games without fans.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred plans to discuss the coronavirus with team owners in a conference call Monday. At this stage, Major League Baseball still plans to open the season in 21⁄2 weeks.
Lakers star LeBron James said Friday: “I ain’t playing if you don’t have the fans in the crowd.”
Added Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young: “I don’t see that happening. I couldn’t play.”
Said White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson: “Boring. Boring. We get the energy from our fans.”
The women’s world hockey championships set to begin this month in Canada were canceled Saturday, and Division III NCAA basketball tournament games were held at an empty Johns Hopkins venue in Baltimore this past weekend.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., said it will host an ECAC men’s hockey quarterfinal series against Harvard this coming weekend without fans in response to two coronavirus cases in the region . ... Formula One’s Bahrain Grand Prix will run this month without spectators as the island kingdom fights a coronavirus outbreak . ... Sacramento Sheldon High — which withdrew from the state boys’ basketball tournament when the Elk Grove Unified School District canceled all school activities over coronavirus fears — was reinstated to the tournament pending further information from the school district, the California Interscholastic Federation announced.