The cherry blossoms are in full bloom everywhere, and it's truly a beautiful time of year for spring. The temperature has also risen a little, which is wonderful. This time of year, the pleasant weather and beautiful scenery fill me with hope and make my heart leap with joy.
The 100th anniversary friendship ceremony between the Vancouver Asahi baseball team and the Wakayama Toin High School baseball team was held recently and concluded successfully.
It was a deeply moving experience for all the speakers and participants, as the ceremony transcended oceans and time.
One of the speakers, Mr. Uchida, an alumnus of Wakayama Toin High School's baseball team, is a reporter for Nikkan Sports Nippon, and he wrote a wonderful article.

Here, we will introduce an excerpt from the article.

[Masaya Uchida's Wide-Angle Baseball Chance] A "Reunion" Across 101 Years of Time: Vancouver Asahi vs. Wakayama Junior High/Toin High School [April 1, 2022, 15:18]

The meeting began with the moderator's greeting, "Good evening, and good morning."

A friendship event connecting the Vancouver Asahi, a Japanese-Canadian baseball team that was active in Canada before the war, and the Wakayama Prefectural Toin High School baseball team was held online on March 27 (March 26 local time in Canada). The event connected Vancouver, Canada and Toin High School via the video conferencing system "Zoom".

The Vancouver Asahi team first visited Japan in the autumn of 1921 (Taisho 10). For about a month, they played against university and corporate teams in various locations. The only middle school team they played against was the former Wakayama Middle School (Wachu, now Toin High School), which was the winning team of the 7th All-Japan Middle School Baseball Championship (now the All-Japan High School Baseball Championship, the Summer Koshien Tournament) that summer.

The Asahi team had naturally disbanded with the outbreak of war between Japan and the United States in 1941, but it was reformed in 2014 as the Shin-Asahi (Asahi Baseball Association). Then, in 2021, the 100th anniversary of their match against Wakayama High School, they proposed a plan to visit Japan and rematch Toin High School, and preparations were underway. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the trip was postponed twice, and this time, an online exchange meeting was held. (For details, please click on the image.)