Baseball is precariously back on the field
South Korean league prepares for May start. Date has been pushed back several times.
South Korea may be far ahead of the curve in containing the novel coronavirus, so much so that the 10-team Korean Baseball Organization is playing intrasquad games with an eye toward an early May start to the season.
But the foundation on which the KBO hopes to build a season seems as unstable as it does in the U.S.
“I don’t know when the season will start, because one outbreak, and the KBO could be shut down,” former Angels catcher Hank Conger said by phone Tuesday from Busan, South Korea, where the Huntington Beach native is in his first season as catching instructor for the KBO’s Lotte Giants.
“They’re so cautious with everything that I truly believe if one player on one team gets it, they could delay it for another month, and everything just falls apart. You know how easily it can spread inside a clubhouse.”
That KBO teams are on the field while every U.S. sports league is shut down is a testament to South Korea’s successful efforts — at least, compared with most other countries — to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. Laboratories began preparing in February for the possibility of widespread transmissions. By early March, an average of 12,000 patients a day were tested, many at free, sameday mobile testing stations and the 50 or so drive-through clinics.
“The biggest thing here, is when the virus broke out, the whole country put a pretty strict lockdown on everything,” Conger said. “The government issues a daily text message to tell people that, ‘Hey, there’s an outbreak here, an outbreak there, try to stay inside as much as possible.’ They were super proactive about it.”
The Giants were in Australia for spring training when the pandemic broke out in South Korea, delaying the team’s return by two weeks, until mid-March. By then, all major public facilities were closed. Protective face masks were mandatory as Conger learned when he tried to open a bank account.
“I forgot my mask because I came straight from the field with my translator,” said Conger, who played with the Angels from 2010 to 2014. “I walked in, and everyone literally was staring at me, the workers, the people who were waiting in line for a bank teller.
“One of the ladies came up and told my translator, ‘Hey, I’m sorry but we’re pretty strict right now, and he needs to wear a mask if he wants to enter the building.’ So I had to walk a half mile back to the baseball field to get my mask.”
The start of the 144-game KBO season, originally scheduled for March 28, has been pushed back several times. The plan now is to begin a sixgame exhibition season April 21 and the regular season in early May.
The Giants, whose roster includes former major league pitchers Dan Straily and Adrian Sampson, have been practicing six days a week and playing three or four intrasquad games, which are streamed on YouTube.
As they enter 26,800-seat, open-air Sajik Baseball Stadium, players and team employees walk through an infrared camera that measures body temperature. Players wore face masks for the first week, but most scrapped them in late March.
“We were trying to be super cautious about everything, but a lot of guys were having a tough time breathing,” Conger said. “It’s a distraction, especially when you’re at the plate and you can feel your breath bouncing back onto your face.”
KBO officials are discussing the possibility of opening the season without fans. Or they could limit the number of fans so they can socially distance themselves from one another. The Giants have one of the most passionate followings in the KBO, where fans often sing and chant, but Conger can’t imagine folks packing the stadium anytime soon.
“Even with temperature checks, that’s a lot of people being right next to each other,” said Conger, whose parents were born in Korea. “Especially with the Korean culture, how everyone’s very cautious.”
There hasn’t been a positive COVID-19 case yet among KBO players or employees, but each step toward the season and a return to something resembling normality still seems precarious.
The start of the Nippon Professional Baseball season in Japan, scheduled for April 24, is on hold after three players tested positive. Could the KBO suffer the same fate?
“At that point, do you have to test all the other players?” Conger said. “That’s the biggest scare on everyone’s mind now, if a player or a coach gets it. That’s when I think a lot of stuff might fall apart.”