TOKYO, 19 September 2004 — Disappointed but mostly supportive baseball fans trickled into dormant stadiums around Japan yesterday to get ticket refunds as players went on strike for the first time in 70 years of league history.
The Japan Professional Baseball Players Association decided on a weekend strike late Friday after last-ditch talks to convince team executives to delay for a year the merger of ailing clubs Kintetsu Buffaloes and Orix BlueWave broke down.
The union opposes the merger because it would not only cost the jobs of at least 100 players and club employees but also possibly lead to a consolidation of Japan’s two professional leagues with more indebted clubs being weeded out.
Six games were called off yesterday and another six were to be scrapped today. Some fans collected ticket refunds at ballparks while others stayed away after the strike call was announced.
“Too bad the game is canceled, but if you think of the players, I agree with the strike,” Susumu Itayama, a 43-year-old office worker told Jiji Press in Sapporo in northern Hokkaido. Less than 50 fans came to collect ticket refunds at the Sapporo Dome, in northern Hokkaido, stadium worker Chizuru Kitazaki said.
The stadium was empty yesterday after the 1:00 p.m. (0400 GMT) match between the western Osaka-based Kintetsu Buffaloes and Nippon Ham Fighters was called off, she said. “There were Kintetsu fans that came all the way to Sapporo from Osaka and stayed overnight to watch the game,” she said. “For them, this must be really disappointing.”
About 80 showed up to get refunds in Tokyo’s Jingu Stadium, home of the Yakult Swallows, said stadium worker Yoshinori Nagafuchi. “I think most people learned of the strike on television so they are not showing up,” he said.
Players’ union Chairman Atsuya Furuta, the Swallows’ starting catcher, said Friday the union had pushed for a new club to be allowed to join pro baseball next year after the merger would cut the Pacific League to five teams from six.
But he said team executives ruled it out “as something impossible”. The players’ union has said it may strike again next weekend depending on further talks.
Both the Pacific League and the Central League, which is to retain six clubs, are loaded with money-losing teams.
