Antinuclear appeal from baseball stadium: Peace Night Game Hiroshima is held on August 6
Aug. 7, 2022
by Taiki Yomura, Staff Writer
On August 6, Peace Night Game 2022 in which an appeal was made to eliminate nuclear weapons, took place at Mazda stadium in Hiroshima’s Minami Ward. Players from the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, the professional baseball team, wore a badge featuring the A-bomb Dome and the pigeon on their uniform’s sleeve, and played a game.
When the bottom half of the game’s fifth inning ended, the stadium’s spectators held a special newspaper colored in green or red in unison. Those sitting in seats placed at a height of 25 meters, the same height of the A-bomb Dome, held the newspaper in red, drawing “the peace line” at the stadium in green. Before the game started, and the time between innings, the peace messages were introduced from citizens and high school students. Ryo Sasaki, 34, a third-generation A-bomb survivor and singer and songwriter living in Miyoshi, threw out the ceremonial first pitch and sung the national anthem alone.
This special game was organized by the team, Co-op Hiroshima, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, the Hiroshima Electric Railway, RCC Broadcasting, and the Chugoku Shimbun. It has been held around August 6 every year since 2008, marking the 15th anniversary this year. Hironari Yokoyama, president of Co-op Hiroshima, said, “Amid the severe international situation such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is significant that we appeal for abolishment of nuclear weapons from Hiroshima, the A-bombed city.”
(Originally published on August 7, 2022)
On August 6, Peace Night Game 2022 in which an appeal was made to eliminate nuclear weapons, took place at Mazda stadium in Hiroshima’s Minami Ward. Players from the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, the professional baseball team, wore a badge featuring the A-bomb Dome and the pigeon on their uniform’s sleeve, and played a game.
When the bottom half of the game’s fifth inning ended, the stadium’s spectators held a special newspaper colored in green or red in unison. Those sitting in seats placed at a height of 25 meters, the same height of the A-bomb Dome, held the newspaper in red, drawing “the peace line” at the stadium in green. Before the game started, and the time between innings, the peace messages were introduced from citizens and high school students. Ryo Sasaki, 34, a third-generation A-bomb survivor and singer and songwriter living in Miyoshi, threw out the ceremonial first pitch and sung the national anthem alone.
This special game was organized by the team, Co-op Hiroshima, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, the Hiroshima Electric Railway, RCC Broadcasting, and the Chugoku Shimbun. It has been held around August 6 every year since 2008, marking the 15th anniversary this year. Hironari Yokoyama, president of Co-op Hiroshima, said, “Amid the severe international situation such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is significant that we appeal for abolishment of nuclear weapons from Hiroshima, the A-bombed city.”
(Originally published on August 7, 2022)
