Fans and players together appeal for 'nuclear weapons-free world' at new Hiroshima ballpark

Japan Press Weekly

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Fans and players together appeal for 'nuclear weapons-free world' at new Hiroshima ballpark

More than 20,000 Hiroshima Toyo Carp fans and players together called for a world without nuclear weapons at the renewed baseball stadium, New Hiroshima Municipal/Mazda Zoom-Zoom, in the atomic bombed city of Hiroshima on September 15. The event took place during a night game between the Hiroshima Tokyo Carp and the Chunichi Dragons.

After the fifth inning, John Lennon's "Imagine" was played and the spectators held green banners with the text of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration of Nobel Peace Laureates issued last May 17 by Nobel Peace Prize winners, including former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

Not only fans, but the Hiroshima Carp manager, coaches, players, and judges wore stickers for peace.

Before the game began and at every change of innings, the message of children calling "Fill the world with smiles, free the world from war" was displayed on the huge screen behind center field. High school students from the Hiroshima Peace Seminar made an appeal for peace when they took to the field.

This action was jointly called for by the Hiroshima Consumers' Co-operative Society, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, and the professional baseball club Hiroshima Toyo Carp. It was designed to hand down to Hiroshima's next generations the history of the old Hiroshima Citizens' Stadium and the Hiroshima Carp, which are the symbol of a reconstructed Hiroshima, as well as the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome.

- Akahata, September 16, 2009