Nippon Professional Baseball will not host interleague contests this season with the start of the campaign still delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the circuit announced in an online news conference on Friday.
The league came to the conclusion after a teleconference with representatives of all 12 clubs earlier in the day.
“As you know the (national) government has declared a state of emergency for the entire country, not only five, six cities (in which the declaration was originally made). Considering the physical conditions of the players and other factors, we have to abandon the idea of starting our season in May,” NPB Commissioner Atsushi Saito said. “And taking the season schedule through the Japan Series into account, we reached a conclusion to not host interleague games this year.”