EDITORIAL
Baseball gesture will promote Ehime healing

Our hats are off to the Ehime Prefecture assembly, which has extended an invitation to two local baseball teams to participate in a goodwill tournament there in November.

Fortunately the Babe Ruth baseball program has a fall league, so the teams, in the 11-12 and 13-15 age divisions, should be in peak form.

What's more important than the competitiveness of the players, obviously, is the healing experience that the person-to-person contact will provide.

It's Ehime Prefecture, of course, that is home to the Uwajima Fisheries High School, which lost nine of its students and teachers in Hawai'i waters when their training vessel was rammed by the submarine USS Greeneville on Feb. 9, 2001. The Ehime Maru sank nine miles south of Diamond Head.

Clearly bitter feelings remain in Ehime, on the southern island of Shikoku. We can think of no better balm than a meeting of kids for baseball. And we admire the prefecture assembly for recognizing the need.