(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Andruw Jones will not play with Team Europe in japan
Nederlands
 TOKYO (Japan) -
Andruw Jones will not be part of Team Europe during the upcoming 2-game series against Samurai Japan on March 10-11 in Tokyo.
The announcement was made by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) today (Wednesday, March 4), the day on which the European squad will arrive in Japan.
The 37-year old Andruw Jones played 17 seasons in the Major League, including twelve with the Atlanta Braves and earned ten Gold Gloves.
The last two seasons, Jones played for Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in Nippon Professional Baseball.
In 2013, he won the Japanese championship with the Golden Eagles.
The WBSC received a statement from Jones, which reads as follows:
,,It is with tremendous regret that I announce the difficult decision that I will not be able to represent Team Europe in its historic debut versus the Japanese National Baseball Team in front of passionate and familiar Japanese fans.
While I had initially planned to be part of Europe’s roster, new duties may call upon me to be away from home for the next several months, so spending as much time as I can at home with my family and children who are in school is the number one priority for me right now.
It remains a great honour to have been selected by Coach Janssen to wear the Europe jersey and I wish Team Europe and the Samurai Japan Global Baseball event nothing but success.
I will be following the games and hope this great initiative can continue to further globalise our sport.''
(March 4)
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