Delay to the Start of the Baseball Season?

These are issues that will be discussed in the coming days. Initially, only this weekend's games were canceled, but Lotte has extended their stadium shutdown to the games on the 15th and 16th as well while they do a more detailed check of the stadium. Reports from Sendai about K-Stadium have been vague at best. (Note, this is based on this morning's paper - Gen at Yakyu Baka tends to keep more up-to-date translations of the news going.) Both Ochiai-kantoku and Oh-GM have expressed their concerns about starting the season on schedule.

The committee in charge of the Spring Invitational Koshien Tournament has announced that team placement drawings will still be held on schedule on March 15. Teams unable to make it to the drawing will be provided with a representative. The tournament itself is still on schedule, but a new working committee forming today will discuss the issue going forward.

Good post.

From what I can understand, an extraordinary meeting held yesterday/last night decided that the Pacific League will delay the start of their season and the Central League will go ahead as per the original schedule. My Japanese isn't the best so maybe someone else can confirm that, but that's how I read it.

That was the preliminary decision, to have the Pacific League delay the start and the Central League to start on time. But they did say that there would still be further meetings and the decision may change.

After the M6 earthquake near Mt. Fuji yesterday evening, I'm wondering if the gods that created the archipelago have been upset by Chunichi's "heartless" decision to go on. Mother Earth will hunt you down, Morino.

[For the sarcasm impaired, that last paragraph was meant as a humorous jest. Personally, I'd like to see things start getting back to normal sooner rather than later, and can understand the Central League's desire for the same. At the same time, I understand that things are not back to normal and many people are worried out of their minds for their own and loved ones' safety. I'm sure my hair is whiter after this week.]

The biggest problem that the Pacific League faces is where will Rakuten play home games? The Tigers have already extended an invitation to call Koshien their temporary home. I personally like the idea of the Eagles taking Hard Off Stadium, who was trying to lure the BayStars to set up permanently there, as a secondary home for this year and perhaps into the future. It would be a very good test to see if they can sustain a franchise.

Nonetheless, I don't think that this decision is necessarily a final one. But this is the current direction that things are headed.

The Pacific League confirmed Friday that it would delay the start of the schedile until April 12.

Since the Central League met to say they'd be sticking to the schedule some of the players and the players union have been up in arms. The fact they're holding yet another extraordinary meeting today suggests that they might now be listening to the players and my gut feeling is a postponement now seems highly likely.

Is it true that the Central League's season that they rescheduled just last weekend is probably going to be rescheduled yet again with more meetings scheduled for Thursday and Saturday this week?

First they were sticking with the 25th, then pushed it back to the 29th and now they're going to change it again? How about getting it right first before making an announcement? They're messing around ticket holders.

Yes, there are more meetings today and Saturday. They agreed to play only day games in the Kanto area for a while, but the players' union is adamant to start the CL season on the same day as the PL season. That's a bit odd, considering all the years that the two leagues started playing on different days anyway.

Exactly, hypocritical attitude. The Pa league always used to start before the Ce League until recently. Anyway, the govt/players union got their way. The rest of us have gone back to work and got on with things. What's the players' excuse? They blew the opportunity to entertain and cheer up the suffering.