Thousands sign petition to save Tokyo’s ‘sacred’ Jingu Stadium

Thousands of baseball fans have signed a petition to save an iconic Tokyo stadium nearly a century old, where Babe Ruth once played and which inspired best-selling author Haruki Murakami to first pick up a pen.

Jingu Stadium, often compared to legendary U.S. baseball venues Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, is slated to be torn down and rebuilt in a massive redevelopment project that would surround it and an equally famed rugby ground with towering skyscrapers and hotels.

“The citizens of Tokyo are going to regret it,” said Robert Whiting, who has written books on Japanese baseball and who over the weekend started an online petition to save the stadium, which “reeks of history.”