The spread of the new coronavirus has forced the Japan High School Baseball Federation to cancel the 92nd national spring invitational tournament, which was to begin next Thursday at Koshien Stadium.
The cancellation announced Wednesday greatly disappointed the players, who had hoped to be able to step onto the hallowed ground of Koshien in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, even if there were no spectators.
The federation was saying on March 4 that it would move forward with preparations for holding the tournament behind closed doors, but it made a final decision to cancel because of the ongoing spread of the virus. This is the first time for an invitational tournament to be canceled.
The decision was made at an extraordinary steering committee meeting held Wednesday in Osaka. Federation Chairman Eiji Hatta said at a press conference, "We took all possible measures to prevent infection and obtained advice from experts, but we decided to cancel the tournament by considering the health and safety of the athletes most of all."
Sohseikan High School in Nagasaki Prefecture was to have made its fourth appearance in two years. Following the news Wednesday, manager Tatsuo Wasada suspended practice for a while and called the players together to tell them the tournament was canceled.
"It's hard to reboot your mind. It's tough, but we must move on," Wasada told the players, who listened with tears in their eyes.
The captain said in a halting tone with red eyes: "[Koshien] is the place our team had been aiming for. It's so disappointing."
On Wednesday, Hatta said the federation would consider measures to help players of participating schools step out onto the grounds in some way in the future.
Fans who had been looking forward to the tournament also expressed their regret over the cancellation.
The manager of a baseball gear store in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, said: "It's a shame. The tournament has long been a spring tradition. It might have been a once-in-a-lifetime event for those students. Now it's canceled, and I'm worried they might lose their motivation because of it."
Invitational tournaments have been suspended in the past, during World War II as well as in the post-war period of 1942 to 1946. The games were held in a simple form at the times of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. As for the National High School Baseball Championship held in the summer, it has been canceled twice in the past: in 1918 due to the rice riot and in 1941 for the war.
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