MLB Tour and 2003 Predictions

Just reported that Mariners & A's trip to Japan has been cancelled. Bummer.

Hey, I heard that MLB is going to cancel the trip because the two teams do not want to fly to Japan at this time.

I was going to follow this up this morning by saying that Nikkan Sports had reported that the tour was cancelled on their front page. But re-reading the article, I couldn't tell if they were expecting it to be cancelled or if the decision was going to be given by noon today (not sure what time zone).

I checked the Japan Times to see if a follow up was there, and just got this article which stated that the games were still on - the exact opposite headline from Nikkan. So, I decided to wait for more information.

Now several others have posted that it is in fact cancelled.

What I don't understand is how a country that's at war (or will be at war) is safer than Japan. Even without the war, I feel perfectly safe to walk through a park late at night here, but wouldn't even consider it while in the U.S. (Crime in the U.S. by its own citizens is a bigger threat than political terrorists.)

Seems like the concern was more of leaving families behind in the US, from the players' perspective at least.

I don't understand how much safer the players will be States-side. The September 11, 2001 attacks were on New York and Washington by U.S.A. domestic airliners.