Amid coronavirus surge, KBO's Hanwha Eagles to play home games without fans

By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, Aug. 18 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean baseball club Hanwha Eagles announced Tuesday they'll play upcoming home games without spectators, in response to a nationwide spike in the coronavirus.

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) club said home games set for Thursday and Friday, and on Aug. 27 and 28 at Hanwha Life Eagles Park in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, will be closed to fans.

The Eagles said the metropolitan government of Daejeon asked for the ball club's support in strengthening prevention and control measures for COVID-19.

Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province were placed under stricter social distancing guidelines Saturday, joined the following day by Busan, the country's second-largest city. Five KBO clubs in those areas -- Doosan Bears, LG Twins and Kiwoom Heroes in Seoul, KT Wiz in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, and Lotte Giants in Busan -- will play before empty seats until further notice. And on Sunday, the SK Wyverns decided to close their home park in Incheon, just west of Seoul, for their six-game homestand this week.

The Eagles are the seventh among 10 KBO teams to revert to crowdless games.

While Daejeon isn't subject to stricter measures being implemented in Seoul, the city took a preemptive step in trying to prevent further spread.

South Korea reported 246 new cases Tuesday, with 235 of them being local infections. The country is poised to adopt even tougher preventive measures in the capital region.

The KBO season began on May 5, rather than the originally scheduled March 28, because of the COVID-19 outbreak, and teams didn't have fans in the seats until July 26 -- at 10 percent of the stadium capacity, at that.

Then starting last week, the cap on the crowd size was raised to 25 percent. It barely lasted a week, though, as the nation braces itself for a new wave of infections.

jeeho@yna.co.kr
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