Poor air quality caused by the Canadian wildfires again threatened to impact Major League Baseball's calendar on Tuesday, but the Cubs played on. Earlier this month, MLB had to postpone several games planned for the northeast region.
On Tuesday night, the Cubs are playing host to the Philadelphia Phillies. There was some question as to whether or not the game would be played, but it's a go. That's despite Chicago having an Air Quality Index of 255, or "very unhealthy," according to AirNow, a website that is formed by a "partnership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Park Service, NASA, Centers for Disease Control, and tribal, state, and local air quality agencies."
To put Chicago's air quality into perspective, its AQI was the worst in the world Tuesday afternoon, according to CBS News. Fellow big-league midwestern cities Minnesota and Detroit also ranked in the bottom 10 for air quality. The Twins and Tigers are both on the road, however, meaning their games won't be impacted, at least on Tuesday.
As Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune noted on Twitter, this is not a decision that can be made on a team level. Only MLB's commissioner's office and the MLB Players Association can postpone games because of air-quality concerns.
AirNow's forecast has Chicago's air quality improving on Wednesday and Thursday. The Cubs and Phillies are slated to play three games, all of the night variety, in this series.
