This past week, the Japan High School Baseball Federation announced they cancelled the Summer Koshien tournament for 2020, which was a huge blow the baseball in Japan.
Understandably, it would be impossible to organize games and travel for all schools while the Coronavirus pandemic is ongoing. Some prefectures are not as heavily affected, but several were still in a state of emergency and even students have been living an irregular life.
From schools meeting online to practices done differently, there have been too many problems to solve in order to have a Koshien tournament, which includes how prefectural tournaments can't take place everywhere.
In what has been a year of non-stop COVID-19 coverage and discussions, Japan has hit some good news when some state of emergencies were lifted in various prefectures. From a sports standpoint, the joint task force of NPB and the J-League were given the green light to have fan-free games.
The state of emergency in the Kanto area looks like it will be lifted, according to several reports. With the result of this, NPB announced their Opening Day happening on June 19.
Since our last post on this blog, the only significant sports league to resume play is the Bundesliga in
Germany.
NPB's initial goal was thinking about the economics as they already saw a loss in revenue playing preseason games with empty seats. However, it's clear today that NPB Commissioner Atsushi Saito is in the process of announcing a season and organizing 2020 waiting for the state of emergency to be lifted.
As already mentioned, both the J-League and NPB were cleared to resume activities with both leagues having different resume/start targets in mind. The J-League paused their season on February 25 while NPB began playing without fans in preseason on the 29th of the same month.
The only significant NPB cancellations are the All-Star game, Farm (Fresh) All-Star game, Interleague play, as well as any irregular locations for the ichi-gun and ni-gun games.
It's very likely that the Climax Series will be cancelled in the Central League, where the first place team will face the Pacific League CS winner in the Japan Series. Rumor has it that the Pacific League will have a shorter regular season in order to keep their CS intact.
While three Hanshin Tigers players tested positive for COVID-19 and had the initial scare, all of them have been discharged and recovered since.
It was on May 19 that teams began practicing in a full manner while the COVID-19 cases have continued to go down. June 19 has been announced as the Opening Day for NPB.
With the state of emergency soon to be lifted, NPB players, coaches and fans can be ready for games to count once again. NPB and the J-League returning doesn't save everything given the how the Summer Olympics were put on hold to 2021, but having games again provides hope and a sense of normalcy for what has been a 2020 year of awkward pauses in life.
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