Baseball Hall of Fame-Elect Andruw Jones Recalls Days in Japan

Los Angeles, Jan. 20 (Jiji Press)–Andruw Jones, a former Atlanta Braves star who was elected to the U.S. National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday, recalled his days playing for a club in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan. In 2013, Jones contributed to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles clinching its first Pacific League and Japan Series titles, giving encouragement to local people struggling to recover from a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. “I went to Japan and we won a championship over there and that was a highlight of my career…I played every day and I enjoyed every day,” Jones said in an online press conference. In January 2013, soon after arriving in Japan, Jones was moved by a visit to a junior high school in Natori, Miyagi, which was severely damaged by the 2011 disaster. He then started donating 50,000 yen per home run for children who lost their parents in the disaster. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]