TOKYO (AP) — Members of Japan’s World Baseball Classic team honored the victims of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe on the two-year anniversary of the disaster.
The team held a moment of silence before a Monday morning practice at Tokyo Dome.
Pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, who plays for a team in Sendai, a city hit hard by the disaster, said: “We’ve been able to return to our normal lives but there are a lot of people still struggling to return to a normal life.”
More than 300,000 people remain displaced and very little rebuilding has begun along the battered northeastern coast, where the tsunami swept away entire communities.
Japan won the first two versions of baseball’s global tournament and has qualified for the March 17-19 final round in San Francisco.
