South Korean Baseball League Season to Start May 5 Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

After weeks of exhibitions and practice, the Korean Baseball Organization is ready to open its season without any fans in stadiums.   

The league officially announced it will begin play on May 5 after delaying the original March 28 start due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Highlights of players wearing masks and hitting home runs into stands filled with cardboard cutouts have been popping up across social media over the last two weeks as the league began adjusting to a new normal. That trial run has given way to full league play. 

According to the Associated Press, the KBO still plans to play a full 144-game schedule, though it has nixed the All-Star Game, reduced the first round of the playoffs from a best-of-five series to a best-of-three and reserved the right to shorten the season should the level of COVID-19 infections surge. 

South Korea has been at the forefront of the global response to the pandemic, instituting widespread testing, contact tracing and immediate isolation of those infected, according to Max Fisher and Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times. That's allowed the country to rapidly flatten the curve of positive cases and allow for professional baseball to return. 

"Although it will start with crowd-less games," LG Twins marketing head Kim Kwang-hwan told the AP, "they will be able to show good performances to fans and also will be happy to play in front of them once the coronavirus crisis is past us." 

Media personnel who covered a recent game between the Twins and Doosan Bears used the empty stands to socially distance themselves with TV cameras and photographers set up in seats rather than in designated boxes at field level. 

Everyone who entered the stadium had their temperature taken, as well. Additionally, players have been advised to wear masks in locker rooms and report their daily health to the league via a smartphone app. 

First pitch on Opening Day will take place at 1:00 a.m. EST with five games occurring simultaneously and all 10 teams in action.