Baseball in Japan

The sport of baseball was introduced to Japan in 1872 by Horace Wilson, and the first formal team was established in 1878. It has been a popular sport ever since. It is called 野球 (やきゅう; yakyū) in Japanese, combining the characters for field and ball.

History

Two Waseda University baseball players in 1921.

Hiroshi Hiraoka, who was in America studying engineering, introduced the game to his co-workers at Japan’s national railways in 1878. He and his co-workers created the first baseball team the Shimbashi Athletic Club and dominated other teams which popped up in Japan. However it wasn’t until the team from Tokyo University started playing when the sport took hold in Japanese Culture. In 1896 the team defeated an American team from the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club 29 to 4. It was the first recorded international baseball game in Asia. After that defeat several other colleges in Japan picked up the sport and it quickly spread throughout Japan. Since then teams from Japan have crossed the ocean to learn from their American counterparts. Waseda University was one of the first college teams to cross the ocean to improve their skills (SABR). In 1905 the team traveled to the United States where they played college teams from around the U.S. It wasn’t before long that several other universities in Japan started making similar trips. From that point on the baseball phenomenon in Japan was complete with U.S. baseball teams traveling to Japan for games.

In 1913 and in 1922, American baseball stars visited Japan and played games against university students. They also held clinics on technique. A retired major league player, Herb Hunter, made eight trips to Japan from 1922 to 1932 organizing games and coaching clinics.

It is played widely in junior and senior high schools. In March and August, two tournaments are held in Koshien Stadium for senior high school teams that win a prefectural tournament.

Basic Facts about the Game in Japan

Nippon Professional Baseball is the professional baseball league in Japan. Just like the American and National League, Japan has their own two leagues. The Central and Pacific Leagues both hold six teams, for twelve professional teams total. The Pacific League uses the designated hitter style of play. The schedule of pro baseball in Japan is eight months long. Games begin in April and the Championship is in October. They play 135 games between the eight-month span, which is less than the 162 game season of the MLB.

Team names are one of the first things that are noticeably different in Japan. Corporations own all the teams in Japan. Their names come from the company that owns the team instead of where the team is home-based. Nippon Professional Baseball is the highest level of baseball played in Japan.

Differences Between MLB and NPB

The rules of Japanese baseball are essentially the same as in America. There are a couple differences like a smaller ball and tie games are allowed. The ball used in the Japanese Baseball League is a little smaller and lighter than its American cousin. Although the ball is smaller, it is harder than an American baseball because it is wound tighter. A smaller ball allows for a smaller strike zone in Japan. The strike zone is said to be smaller near the batter and gets bigger the further away from the batter. Also, some of the teams have smaller fields than that of a normal MLB size. Five teams have undersized fields, four from the Central League and one from the Pacific League. A rule that causes controversy is that a team can only have four foreign players. Very unlike the MLB where anybody from anywhere that has talent, can play. This rule is in effect because it benefits Japanese players who want to play professional baseball without the competition of foreign players. Another reason for this rule is that foreign players usually cost more and this evens out the salaries between the players on a team.

Professional baseball

Main article: Professional baseball in Japan

The highest level of competition is Nippon Professional Baseball, started in 1920. It is called Puro Yakyū (プロ野球), meaning Professional Baseball.

In 2005 the Japan Samurai Bears began play in the Golden Baseball League, becoming the first Japanese team in an American professional baseball league.

High school baseball

Main article: High school baseball in Japan

Amateur baseball

Various amateur baseball leagues exist all over Japan, with many teams sponsored by companies as in professional baseball and other sports. Amateur baseball is governed by the Japan Amateur Baseball Association (JABA).

Other

Several manga have baseball as their subject matter, including Touch and Major.

The Strike of 2004

On September 18th and 19th of 2004, the Professional Japanese players struck for the first time in over seventy years. The strike was performed because the Nippon League threatened to merge two teams to create more revenue. The players did not approve of this move, so they went on strike. The strike only lasted for two days because the Nippon League removed its threat of merging the teams.

The Japanese formed their first professional league in 1936, and by 1950, the league had grown big enough to separate into two leagues: the Central League, which was the already established teams, and the Pacific League, which was the new teams and players. Both leagues had 6 teams by the 1950s, and they adopted a playoff system, much like the American one, and had a head-to-head game between the winners of each league: the Japan Series.

The reason for the strike, the threat of two teams combining, was brought on due to the fact that both teams were having financial hardships, and the executives of the league thought it would be a good idea to combine the teams to turn a profit. The big question came when the Japanese Baseball Players Association (JPBPA) heard that the leagues were planning on re-expanding the league to twelve, or even fourteen teams. Many of the players and owners were wondering why they would combine two teams and then expand the league. “We have twelve teams now. If you want to expand, why go to ten when you have twelve to begin with? Cutting teams will result in a reduction of fans. How is that moving forward?” (Atsuya Furata of the Yakult Swallows)

The league tried to propose having a committee to discuss the merger, but the attempt when unnoticed. In September of 2004, the owners and the Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB) held a meeting to discuss the merger of two teams in the league. Prior to this meeting, the JPBPA decided to strike on the weekends for the remainder of September. They were trying everything in their power to avoid another strike, and continued talks with the owners and with the JPB. They met in consecutive days after the September 8th meeting, and gained some ground. The owners decided many things to help the players. First, they could reduce the “entry fee” to join the league. Second, they guaranteed that the Chiba Lotte Marines and the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, both of the Pacific League, and the two leagues would remain, the Central League would have six teams, and the Pacific League would have five. Third, they put the merger between the Buffaloes and Blue Wave on hold. They put into researching to see if interleague play would enhance the financial status of the Buffaloes and the Pacific League. The players withheld their strike for a week to further discuss the issue with the owners and the league, but they had not gotten over their main concern of the merger between the Buffaloes and the Blue Wave reducing the number of teams to five in the Pacific League.

After all of this, the players decided to strike anyway, due to the fact that there was not enough time left in the season to discuss the problem. The fans of the league highly supported the players, and this made the owners review the idea of finding another team for the following season.

On September 23, 2004, the players and owners finally reached an agreement to end the strike. The Tohuku Rakuten Eagles would enter the league at the beginning of the 2005 season, and the leagues would embrace interleague play, which would make the game more eye-catching to fans and help the Pacific League gain exposure by playing the Central league teams, which were more popular due to their longer existences. In December of 2004, Softbank Corporation, an internet service provider, purchased the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks to also help with financial hardship in the Pacific League.

Sources of Information

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080129&content_id=2359029&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

International Journal of Employment Studies 14.2 (Oct 2006): p19(17). (5318 words)

http://www.baywell.ne.jp/users/drlatham/baseball/news/essays/japanbb.htm

http://www.reference.com/search?q=japanese%20baseball

References

Ofra Bikel, Gail Harris, Judy Woodruff, et al., American Game, Japanese Rules (Alexandria, Va.: PBS Video, 1990).

Richard C. Crepeau, "Pearl Harbor: A Failure of Baseball?," The Journal of Popular Culture xv.4 (1982): 67-74.

Warren Cromartie Robert Whiting, Slugging It out in Japan: An American Major Leaguer in the Tokyo Outfield (New York: Signet, 1992).

Charles W. Hayford, "Japanese Baseball or Baseball in Japan?," Japan Focus (April 4 2007): [1]. Reprinted: "Samurai Baseball: Off Base or Safe At Home?" Frog in a Well (April 10, 2007) [2].

William Kelly, "Blood and Guts in Japanese Professional Baseball," in Sepp Linhard and Sabine Frustuck, ed., The Culture of Japan as Seen through Its Leisure (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998): 95-111.

William Kelly, "Caught in the Spin Cycle: An Anthropological Observer at the Sites of Japanese Professional Baseball," in Susan O. Long, ed., Moving Targets: Ethnographies of Self and Community in Japan. (Ithaca, 2000)

William Kelly, "The Spirit and Spectacle of School Baseball: Mass Media, Statemaking, and 'Edu-Tainment' in Japan, 1905-1935," in William Kelly Umesao Tadao, and Kubo Masatoshi, ed., Japanese Civilization in the Modern World Xiv: Information and Communication (Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 2000): 105-116.

William W. Kelly, Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004).

William Kelly, "Is Baseball a Global Sport? America's 'National Pastime' as a Global Sport," Global Networks 7.2 (2007):

Donald Roden, "Baseball and the Quest for National Dignity in Meiji Japan," The American Historical Review 85.3 (1980): 534.

Robert Whiting, The Chrysanthemum and the Bat: Baseball Samurai Style (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1977).

Robert Whiting, You Gotta Have Wa: When Two Cultures Collide on the Baseball Diamond (New York: Vintage Books, Vintage departures, 1990).

Robert Whiting, "The Japanese Way of Baseball and the National Character Debate," Japan Focus (September 29 2006):

Robert Whiting, "The Japanese Way of Baseball and the National Character Debate," Studies on Asia Series III 3 (Fall 2006): [3]

External Links

• Baseball In Japan, a WBGU-PBS documentary