Japanese Roster for Game against Chinese Taipei announced

East Japan Earthquake Disaster Reconstruction Support
Game to be played on March 10 at the Tokyo Dome

Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) held a Press conference in Tokyo on January 26th announcing 24 players of "Samurai Japan" that will compete against Chinese Taipei on March 10 at the Tokyo Dome. The game is designated as East Japan Earthquake Disaster Reconstruction Support Game.

Title holders of the 2011 season including Sawamura Award recipient Masahiro Tanaka (Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles) Pacific League homerun title holder Takeya Nakamura (Saitama Seibu Lions), Central League MPV Takuya Asao (Chunichi Dragons) are included on the roster.

12,000 victims of last March's disaster will be invited to watch the game at the Tokyo Dome and part of the revenues will be donated to affected areas to support the reconstruction.

Team Manager Koji Akiyama commented "Looking ahead, I wanted to have young players experience an international game. We have good members here"

Pitcher: Yuki Saito (Nippon Ham), Yoshihisa Hirano (Orix), Masahiro Tanaka (Rakuten), Kazuki Yoshimi (Chunichi), Takuya Asao (Chunichi), Masanori Ishikawa (Yakult), Hirokazu Sawamura (Yomiuri), Tetsuya Utsumi (Yomiuri)

Catcher: Toru Hosokawa (Softbank), Ginjiro (Seibu), Motohiro Shima (Rakuten)

Infield: Yuichi Honda (Softbank), Hiroyuki Nakajima (Seibu), Takeya Nakamura (Seibu), Yuto Sakamoto (Yomiuri), Takahiro Arai (Hanshin), Kenta Kurihara (Hiroshima), Naoto Watanabe (DeNA)

Outfield: Seichi Uchikawa (Softbank), Sho Nakata (Nippon Ham), Yoshio Itoi (Nippon Ham), Tomotaka Sakaguchi (Orix), Yoshifumi Okada (Lotte), Hisayoshi Chono (Yomiuri)