New York — Major league baseball plans to recommend that its teams visiting Toronto in the coming weeks take precautions against the dangers of SARS.
The 10 teams visiting Toronto through the all-star break in mid-July will be advised against signing autographs, visiting hospitals, using public transportation and mingling with large crowds in the area.
Elliot Pellman, baseball’s newly hired medical adviser, will hold conference calls Thursday and Monday with the teams to provide information and take questions about severe acute respiratory syndrome.
The Toronto Blue Jays open a nine-game homestand Friday, beginning with the Kansas City Royals. The Jays are currently in Tampa.
Attempts to reach Jays president and CEO Paul Godfrey were not immediately successful Wednesday, but he told the Toronto Star that the SARS scare is keeping people away from Blue Jays games.
“Our day-of-game sales have also been affected,” he said, declining to give specific numbers. “The walk-up crowd is down.”
Calling it an “overreaction” by the public to “high-intensity media attention” he said there had been several cancellations of bus charters from the U.S.
Baseball spokesman Rich Levin said Pellman would make the calls “to settle people down” about SARS.
“He wants to bring people up to speed and to assuage their fears,” Levin said. Word that baseball was taking precautions was first reported by the Washington Post.
The World Health Organization has advised that people should postpone unnecessary travel to Toronto because of SARS.