Major League Baseball season hits snag with two games postponed due to COVID-19

He said the club has conducted another round of testing for players and staff members, and the team will remain in Philadelphia pending the results. The pandemic has played havoc with professional sports worldwide, delaying the start of seasons, forcing the cancellation or postponement of major events, pushing the Summer Olympics planned for Japan back by a year and leading to major questions about health risks for athletes and others.

Just four days after beginning a truncated coronavirus-delayed season, Major League Baseball encountered a serious obstacle on Monday with the postponement of games scheduled in Miami and Philadelphia due to COVID-19-related concerns. The announcement was a potentially ominous development for MLB and other major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. The National Basketball Association and National Hockey League are scheduled to resume play this week after a hiatus of more than four months due to the pandemic.

The United States leads the world in coronavirus cases and deaths, with infections rising in numerous states. The Miami Marlins, who opened their season on Friday in Philadelphia, were scheduled to return to Florida on Sunday for their scheduled Monday home opener but put off traveling after a number of their players tested positive for the virus.

The Philadelphia Phillies were scheduled to host the New York Yankees on Monday but that game also was postponed as the Marlins players were recently in their stadium. MLB said in a statement the two games were postponed while it "conducts additional COVID-19 testing" and that members of the Marlins team traveling party were self-quarantining in place while the league awaits the results.

Critics quickly took aim at MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. "Remember when Manfred said players health was PARAMOUNT?!" Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher David Price, who opted out of the season due to the pandemic, asked on Twitter. "Part of the reason I'm at home right now is because players health wasn't being put first. I can see that hasn't changed."

According to an ESPN report, eight Miami players and two coaches tested positive after the latest round of testing on Sunday. That came after four Marlins players received positive test results during the team's trip to Philadelphia. "The health of our players and staff has been and will continue to be our primary focus as we navigate through these unchartered waters," Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said in a statement.

"Postponing tonight's home opener was the correct decision to ensure we take a collective pause and try to properly grasp the totality of this situation," Jeter added. He said the club has conducted another round of testing for players and staff members, and the team will remain in Philadelphia pending the results.

The pandemic has played havoc with professional sports worldwide, delaying the start of seasons, forcing the cancellation or postponement of major events, pushing the Summer Olympics planned for Japan back by a year and leading to major questions about health risks for athletes and others. U.S. collegiate sports also are in flux. MLB had originally planned to open its 162-game regular season in late March but postponed it because of the pandemic, eventually opting for a condensed 60-game schedule that kicked off last Thursday in Washington. But Washington's young star outfielder, Juan Soto, was sidelined for that opening game against the visiting Yankees after a positive coronavirus test.

'THE RAZOR'S EDGE' Unlike the NBA, which has assembled its teams in a restricted campus at Disney World in Florida, and the NHL, which has brought its teams to two sites in Canada, most MLB teams are playing in their usual stadiums and following a schedule designed to limit travel.

"They are kind of at the razor's edge at this point," Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing expert at Baker Street Advertising in San Francisco, said of MLB. "The last thing they would consider doing is cancelling the season, and I think they will exhaust every other possibility, whatever that might be. There is just too much money on the line." The NHL is due to resume its season on Saturday with an expanded 24-team playoff format in Edmonton and Toronto. The NHL registered no positive COVID-19 tests out of the 4,256 administered between July 18 and July 25, the league said on Monday.

The NBA is scheduled to resume its season on Thursday, playing at a single site at Walt Disney World. "One of the problems with Major League Baseball in particular is that they play so many games, which means that anything that knocks your team out for any sort of reasonable quarantine period is a huge problem in terms of scheduling," said Victor Matheson, a specialist in sports economics who teaches at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts.

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