Delaying First Pitch Debated in Baseball-Loving Japan

[cbayer]

By KEN BELSON
Published: March 20, 2011

TOKYO — As bodies are still being pulled from the rubble, as the effects of a nuclear crisis spread, as many companies and schools remain closed if they are standing at all, is it time to play baseball?

Just 10 days after an earthquake and a tsunami combined to upend Japan, the country is uneasily starting to debate how and when life will get back to normal, and whether it is appropriate to try so soon. And as the United States did in the days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the Japanese are contemplating whether baseball can play a role in comforting a reeling nation.

In a country where public disputes are muted and agreements are often choreographed behind closed doors, the dialogue has been uncharacteristically emotional and confrontational, with fans accusing teams of selfishness, owners publicly split, normally docile players challenging their bosses and government ministers bashing the overlords of the game.

The six-team Central League, including the dominant Yomiuri Giants, favored opening the season on time. If nothing else, hundreds of stadium workers would continue to collect paychecks. Ryozo Kato, the commissioner of Nippon Professional Baseball, invoked the palliative effects of the return of baseball to New York after the attacks, an analogy that irked sportswriters and led some fans to call for games to be boycotted.

more at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/world/asia/21nippon.html?_r=1&emc=eta1