Even though the FIBS (Federazione Italiana Baseball Softball) has taken steps to prevent the coronavirus from spreading as it postponed the start of the Serie A1 season until April 17, Italian baseball has hit hard by measures the Italian government took last night.

The other day, the FIBS decided to postpone the start of the season and to have practice games played without attendance until April 3rd. Also, players must be tested at the start and end of each training session. Perhaps the most stringent measure is the rule that players have to keep a meter apart. With this latter rule, it becomes impossible to play baseball.

But yesterday, the Italian government announced to lock down many Northern provinces to prevent the virus from spreading. This means that nobody can travel in and out of the appointed areas. Next to the region of Lombardy, the following provinces are hit by the travel ban: Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Rimini, Pesaro-Urbino, Alessandria, Asti, Novara, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Vercelli, Padua, Treviso, and Venice.

For now, Parmaclima and Collecchio are the only Serie A1 clubs that are in the area that is in lockdown. The eight other clubs can still travel around as long as they don’t want to go to the aforementioned eleven provinces.

The consequences are limited for the Serie A1 clubs for now but there are a lot of Serie A2 clubs that will be affected by the travel ban: Rimini (province of Rimini), Pesaro Baseball (province of Pesaro and Urbino), Oltretorrente Baseball (province of Parma), Comcor Engineering Modena (province of Modena), Sala Baganza Baseball (province of Parma), Settimo Baseball, Bollate BC, Senago Milano United, BC Settimo ASD (all from the province of Milan in the region Lombardy).

[EDIT] With the new measures of the government, the FIBS updated its rules today. Only training sessions will be allowed. Tournaments and friendly matches will be suspended. Also all the activities of the National Teams, Regional Selections and Academies will be suspended.