Philadelphia, PA (My Sportsbook) - Major League Baseball players, managers and executives have been inundated the past week with questions about SARS, the respiratory condition which has been blamed for 16 deaths in the Toronto area.

In addition, at least 42 Beijing residents have died of SARS, otherwise known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome; and as of Thursday the World Health Organization reported more than 2,400 cases of it in China. On Friday, Chinese officials ordered 4,000 Beijing residents to stay at home under quarantine.

Outside of Asia, Canada has been the country most affected by SARS. As of late in the week, officials in Toronto noted there were about 250 cases of it in the area and some people were under quarantine. The WHO even advised people not to travel to Toronto.

Major League Baseball has worked quick to inform its community about SARS. Dr. Elliot Pellman, baseball's medical adviser, held a conference call on Thursday with teams on how to avoid SARS.

The league is obviously taking the right stance in not making a mountain out of a molehill at this juncture. There is no reason to move games from SkyDome. Angels pitcher Kevin Appier said he wants his team's series against the Blue Jays in Toronto from May 2-4 moved to Anaheim.

"You want to do your due diligence, but you don't want to overreact either," Patrick Courtney, the senior director of media relations, told The My Sportsbook.

Courtney said Pellman is keeping a close eye on the issue each day. Sandy Alderson, executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner's office, and John McHale, Jr., executive vice president of administration, are heading to Toronto this weekend to lend their support.

Players have been advised to keep a close watch on the situation and avoid public places where many people are in packed close together.

"It's a lot of things like washing hands and other public-like situations," added Courtney. "I think teams are doing things at their hotels. I think there are types of areas they may want to avoid."

The Kansas City Royals headed into Toronto for the weekend to play the Blue Jays, who returned to SkyDome after an 11-game road trip. It will be interesting to see the take at the gate for the next few weeks in Toronto. Other than Opening Day, the team has consistently had attendance figures in the mid-teens.

"As an organization, we have been monitoring this situation very carefully," said Paul Godfrey, president and CEO of the Blue Jays. "The safety of our players, staff, visiting teams and, of course, our fans is of paramount importance -- they are our family. Rest assured if there was a risk to the good health of those individuals, I would be the first to contact Commissioner Selig to have a game rescheduled. You'll recall, two years ago when there was a complication with the roof at SkyDome we cancelled a game even though, at the time, engineers assured us there was only a remote threat to the safety of our ballplayers and guests.

"To this point in the season, we have had over 162,000 fans come through SkyDome turnstiles to watch games against the Yankees, Red Sox and Twins. We have heard of no problems related to SARS from either those fans or the visiting teams."

While experts agree SARS, which is spread through coughing and sneezing or from direct face-to-face contact with a person who has it, is highly contagious, its mortality rate is comparable to influenza.

"Are we going to get it if we go in there? Probably not as much as anything else," Royals trainer Nick Swartz told the Kansas City Star. "We just had an epidemic of flu. Where did that come from?"

The Royals had 17 players come down with the flu earlier this month on road trips to Detroit and Cleveland.

As the media, what we don't want to do is overreact and make it like there's an epidemic in Toronto. There's no reason to cause panic, but to make people aware of the situation.

That's exactly what Major League Baseball has done.