USA Today The series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins in Puerto Rico on May 30-31 has been relocated because of concerns of the Zika virus, MLB announced on Friday. The two-game series will shift to Miami’s Marlins Park. MLB said in a statement they “had no choice” but to relocate the games after “after numerous players expressed concerns about contracting and potentially transmitting the Zika virus to their partners.”

Good for the MLB not pimping its players out to the hottest new buzzword virus.  Now that this precedent has been set it will be interesting to see what kind of global expansion the MLB continues with going forward.

While the NFL continues to have games in London, the logical move for the MLB would be countries south of the United States where so many of today’s players are from.

Given today’s news that the MLB is willing to adjust, would players fight playing in other countries such as the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, or Cuba for similar reasons?

Side Note: Lets go next level on their official statement.  The MLB said players were concerned with transmitting the virus “to their partners.” “Partners” was the word that jumped out at me because they did not go with “wives.” Was the MLB PR department just being inclusionary and playing it safe or is there more news to come out of the Pirates and/or Marlins clubhouse??