Sanriku Railway Co. and food giant Nestle Japan Ltd. announced Nov. 6 that they have teamed to form an amateur baseball club in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, to invigorate the region still rebounding from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Sanriku Railway Co. and food giant Nestle Japan Ltd. announced Nov. 6 that they have teamed to form an amateur baseball club in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, to invigorate the region still rebounding from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
“We hope this will help give momentum to the rebuilding of the region and serve as an opportunity to make people happy,” Masahiko Mochizuki, president of Sanriku Railway, based in Miyako, said after the announcement.
The railway, whose lines run along the coast that was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami, finally resumed full operations in April.
Nestle Japan has been supporting Sanriku Railway by putting up its ads in a bid to facilitate the recovery of its business.
The idea for an amateur baseball team came about when the city of Miyako began planning to build a new baseball field to replace Taro baseball stadium in the city by March 2016, which was severely damaged by the tsunami.
To be called Sanriku Tetsudo Kit Dreams, the team will be made up of 29 players from Sanriku Railway staff members and local residents living near the railway lines.
Miyako Mayor Masanori Yamamoto was named manager of the team and Seattle Mariners pitcher and former Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles standout Hisashi Iwakuma has been tapped to be general manager.
“We want to inject our energy into supporting reconstruction (in the Tohoku region) through the team,” Iwakuma said at a Nov. 6 news conference in Tokyo.