Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that Boston Red Sox pitcher Hector Velazquez, who is in Japan to play in the 2018 Japan MLB All-Star Series, had posted video footage on his Instagram account evoking the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The MLB apologized for Velazquez's actions.
According to MLB, the 29-year-old Velazquez posted video footage of the city, including the Atomic Bomb Dome, with subtitles that read "Atomic bomb!" and a graphic of a bomb on his Instagram account on Monday after he arrived in Hiroshima for the fourth game of the series.
Velazquez talked to reporters at Mazda Stadium in the city on Tuesday before the fourth game, saying he wanted to apologize not only to all the people of Japan, but to all those in the world. Velazquez also said he just wanted to convey what happened in Hiroshima to his friends and acquaintances in his homeland of Mexico through photographs and video footage, but that the way he did so was wrong.
Members of the MLB team, including manager Don Mattingly, 57, on Monday visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in the city to offer flowers at the cenotaph for victims of the atomic bombing.
MLB said Velazquez had never intended to convey the wrong message to the people of Hiroshima. The organization also said that it was certain he was fully aware of his wrong actions and regretted them.
The Corporate Communications Department of Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings stated: "This conduct by an MLB player is intolerable, as it tramples on the feelings of many people, particularly atomic bomb survivors and the citizens of Hiroshima. We deeply apologize as an organizer of the 2018 Japan MLB All-Star Series. We ask MLB to take resolute measures so that a similar incident will never happen again."
The Yomiuri Shimbun is one of the organizers of the baseball event.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
