New and notes from March 12, 2012:

• According to Sanspo, 1,700 people donated 487,734 yen between Naruohama (Ni-gun - Chunichi at Hanshin) and Koshien (Ichi-gun - Yomiuri at Hanshin) on Sunday.
• The Bay Stars collected 465,471 yen in donations on Sunday and Kiyoshi Nakata high-fived 727 fans.  They also invited 129 earthquake victims to the game.
• Takanori Hoshi (Seibu), who lost his grandfather to the Tohoku Earthquake/Tsunami, wore a Tohoku Spirit (東北魂) sweatband during Sunday's game.
• The Softbank Hawks collected 755,910 yen before their game.

UPDATE @ 11:59pm

• The Eagles collected 195,885 yen in donations on Sunday.

[This post will be updated as needed]

Moments of silences were held at 14:46 during all six NPB games this afternoon.

• Nippon Ham vs Rakuten @ Kurashiki - players from each team and two umpires spent about fifteen minutes collecting donations before the game.  From Rakuten: Kazuo Matsui, Teppei, Akihisa Makida, and Kensuke Uchimura.  From Nippon Ham: Atsunori Inaba, Shinya Tsuruoka, and Kensuke Tanaka.  Donations will be sent to organizations in Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima representing children that were orphaned by the Tohoku Earthquake. [Nikkan Sports, Daily Sports]
• Chunichi vs Orix @ Kyocera Dome - Orix players Fumihiro Suzuki, Chihiro Kaneko, Mamoru Kishida, Yoshihisa Hirano, Satoshi Komatsu, and Yuki Nishi and Chunichi players like Naomichi Donoue, Takehiro Donoue, and 1st round draft pick Shuhei Takahashi spent about thirty minutes calling on fans to donate money toward relief efforts in northern Japan. [Daily Sports]
• Seibu vs Yokohama @ Yokohama Stadium - managers from both teams and about fifty players collected donations before the game.  Players gave fans that donated money high-fives.  After spending about twenty minutes collecting donations, Kiyoshi Nakahata took off his cap, bowed, and thanked fans for their contributions. [Nikkan Sports, Daily Sports]  Nakahata also took the mic and made a speech in front of home plate before the start of the game.
• Lotte vs Softbank @ Yahoo Dome - Softbank players Yuichi Honda, Seiichi Uchikawa, Nobuhiro Matsuda, Hiroki Kokubo, and Nagisa Arakaki, as well as Tadahito Iguchi, Toshiaki Imae, Kazuya Fukuura, Shoitsu Omatsu, and 1st round draft pick Takahiro Fujioka, collected donations from fans before the game. [Nikkan Sports, Daily Sports]
• Yomiuri vs Hanshin @ Koshien - Yoshiyuki Kamei, Yoshitomo Tani, and Taishi Ota, together with Takahiro Arai, Kentaro Sekimoto, and Minoru Iwata, collected donations before the game. [Nikkan Sports, Daily Sports]
• The Swallows announced that the player's group will donate 3,262,948 yen to relief efforts in northern Japan the Japanese Red Cross Society.  The amount includes the 2,372,948 yen they raised through a charity auction they held in February and 890,000 yen they raised during Fan Appreciation day last year. [Sanspo, Nikkan Sports]
• And Ishinomaki Kogyo High School baseball players stood outside of Koshien Stadium to took a moment of silence at 14:46.

UPDATE @ 11:18pm

• Players helped collect 36,543 yen in donations before a Kyoiku League game between Chunichi and Hanshin at Naruohama. [Nikkan Sports]
• A moment of silence was held during a Chuo Univesity vs Asia University game at Okinawa Cellular Stadium Naha today.  Portions of the revenue from the game will be donated the three university baseball federations in Tohoku.

I'll keep this updated throughout the day.

===

Chiba Lotte Marines

Tadahito Iguchi invited about 60 Futaba, Fukushima residents taking refuge in a relief shelter in Kazo, Saitama to today's game against the Softbank Hawks.

Rakuten Eagles

The Eagles invited 200 fans, from areas like Minamisanriku and Kesennuma, to today's game against the Orix Buffaloes.  After the game, a number of players spent time with the fans on the field.

I'll keep this updated throughout the day.

===

Rakuten Eagles

The Iwate Keiba Association and Rakuten Keiba invited a total 112 tsunami / earthquake survivors (children and their families) from the Kamaishi, Iwata area to their game against the Orix Buffaloes Friday night.  A number of kids were also allowed to take the field with the Eagles at the start of the game.  (keiba = horse racing)

Other

Play was temporarily stopped (a few minutes) at Tokyo Dome (9th inning), Yokohama Stadium (8th inning), and QVC Marine Field (7th inning)  on Friday night due to an earthquake (magnitude 5.5).

I'll keep this updated throughout the day.

===

Softbank Hawks

Munenori Kawasaki, Yuichi Honda, and Nobuhiro Matsuda visited a relief shelter in Miyagino, Sendai today and signed autographs, took photos, and played catch with about 100 survivors and volunteer helpers.

I'll keep this updated throughout the day.

===

Softbank Hawks

Hiroki Kokubo donated 1,022,980 yen toward relief and reconstruction efforts in northern Japan.  Kokubo went out on his own and collected donations after a game at Yahoo Dome on 6/11.

I'll keep this updated throughout the day.

===

Orix Buffaloes

The Buffaloes announced today that they will be selling a limited number of special Ganbaro Higashi Nihon t-shirts between 7/8 and 7/31.  The players will also wear the t-shirts during pre-game practices on 7/16 and 7/17 (vs Rakuten) and 8/6 and 8/7 (vs Lotte).

The t-shirts will be sold for 1,800 yen and a portion of the sales will be donated to relief / reconstruction efforts in northern Japan.

Other

The NPB and the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association announced today that they will be inviting both earthquake / tsunami survivors and JSDF members to the All-Star game that will be taking place at Kleenex Stadium on 7/24 -- the NPB will invite 3,000 children that play baseball from regions in Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima while the players association will invite 1,000 JSDF members.

I'll keep this updated throughout the day.

===

Other

The NPB announced today that they have raised a total 53,157,600 yen.  This includes donations raised at all NPB games since the start of the season through to 6/19 (end of Inter-league play).

I'll keep this updated throughout the day.

===

Hanshin Tigers

The Tigers are hoping to cut back on energy use at Koshien Stadium (night games between 7/1 - 9/22) by about 15%.  As part of that effort, they've started adjusting their light use:  prior to this month, they started games with all 6 of their light banks turned on and today, they started with just 2 banks of lights and turned on the remaining 4 at around 6:30pm.

Yomiuri Giants

The Giants announced that their peak energy use during last night's game against the Chunichi Dragons was 3,109kW.  That's down about 44% from last year.

Seibu Lions

The Lions announced yesterday that they'll try to turn off more lights (from 33% to up to 50%) during night games in an effort to save more energy.

I'll keep this updated throughout the day.

===

Chunichi Dragons

Chunichi announced today that they'll try to cut back a little more on energy use at Nagoya Dome, beginning on 7/5 (vs Hanshin).  Amongst some of the things they'll be doing: opening up the shutters in the roof during visiting team practices (the Dragons have been doing this for their practices since earlier this month); and attempting to shutout the warm air from the outside by adding cloth screens to four entry gates.

Hiroshima Carp

Beginning on 7/1, the Carp plan on conserving energy by taking on a more flexible approach to their lighting system during night games; using fewer lights during night games; and  adjusting thermostats for air-conditioning units used by various staff and personnel.

Softbank Hawks

The Hawks announced today that they'll try to reduce energy consumption by about 5% during weekday night games at Yahoo Dome between 7/1 and 8/31.  They try to do this by using fewer ceiling lights (from 90 to 54), turning off some of the air conditioning systems (from 14 to 10), and turning off some of the lights in seat areas.  According to an unnamed club source, the team has already tested the configuration during practices at Yahoo Dome on 6/22 and 6/24.

Orix Buffaloes

The Buffaloes announced today that beginning on 7/1, they'll use power generators at Kyocera Dome in order to cut back on energy use by about 10%.  They will also stop lighting Kyocera Dome up (outdoor lights).

Rakuten Eagles

The Eagles announced that they'll be taking the following measures to cut back on energy use at Kleenex Stadium between 7/1 and 9/9:

- Turn off unnecessary lighting (60%)
- Dim the big screen in the outfield to 40% brightness
- Set thermostats to 28 degrees Celsius
- Turn off all air-conditioning systems in the stadium offices between 6pm and 8pm.

Doing all this should allow the Eagles to decrease energy consumption by around 15%.