The 2011 Nippon Professional Baseball season was delayed by the Tohoku earthquake. Controversy emerged over when baseball should resume. Commissioner Ryozo Kato was criticized for comparing the resumption to the return of Major League Baseball ten days after the September 11 attacks. Darvish was among the players who felt that it was not appropriate to quickly return to baseball, saying, "I am a baseball player and a human being as well. I cannot think about baseball alone as I normally do." Darvish took part in efforts to raise funds for the relief efforts and personally donated 50,000,000 Yen (about US$620,000) to the Japanese Red Cross.