Road to Tokyo Olympics: NPB declares Wednesday, 28 April to be 'Samurai Japan Night'

Road to Tokyo Olympics: NPB declares Wednesday, 28 April to be 'Samurai Japan Night'
27/04/2021
The pressure and hopes of the nation are on the Japanese National Baseball Team to win their first Olympic gold medal on home soil.

Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) has declared Wednesday, 28 April, to be 'Samurai Japan Night', as part of the build up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where national team manager Atsunori Inaba will be aiming to guide the squad to gold on home turf. The Japanese National Baseball Team has never won an Olympic gold medal, but the pressure will be on the home nation to win the six-team Olympic baseball tournament.

Samurai Japan Day

Takahiro Arai, the former NPB All-Star who represented Japan in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, will officiate the ceremonial first pitch of the Central League game between Hiroshima Toyo Carp and Yokohama DeNA Baystars, scheduled at Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium in Hiroshima at 6pm local time. Items autographed by Arai will be made available to the fans who follow the former slugger on social media.

The first 5,000 fans will receive a Samurai Japan Tote Bag.

Japan is currently ranked the No. 1 baseball programme and leads WBSC World Rankings both in men's and women's baseball. Samurai Japan won the WBSC Premier12 2019, while Madonna Japan is the six-time Women's World Cup defending champion.

Tokyo 2020 – Olympic Baseball