Baseball: Japan training camps open in upbeat mood

Japanese pro baseball’s first day of official training began Wednesday across southern Japan amid relaxed coronavirus countermeasures and an air of anticipation ahead of March’s World Baseball Classic. Samurai Japan, which will begin its WBC training camp in Miyazaki on Feb. 17, is expected to field a dream team led by MLB stars Yu Darvish and Shohei Ohtani and including Japan’s youngest perfect-game pitcher, Roki Sasaki, and its youngest Triple Crown-winning slugger, Munetaka Murakami. Sasaki’s Lotte Marines and Murakami’s Central League champion Yakult Swallows were among the 11 teams openin…

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