やきゅう!!!! (Yakyū)

Day 2,726, 18:03 • Published in Japan Japan • by Aryzn





こんにちは！
Salutations, and welcome to the ball game!

There is no sport like baseball. The snazzy button-up shirts, the sound of the crowd as the home team scores a home run and, of course, the $15 hot dogs! It is truly the sport of gentleman (disregarding the frequent bench clearings and slugfest brought on by an exchange of words by a struck out batter and the quick witted pitcher.)

However, long gone are the days of Baseball being predominately American. (although it is the most played sport in the USA, with 40 million people playing some form of it!) Well probably the biggest reason is the surge in popularity of football (I don’t mean soccer! (the Japanese also call soccer, soccer (😛))) in America. The sport today is enjoyed by millions, from America, to Latin America, to Pacific nations. I think most of you are European, and I have no clue how popular it is there, so whoever can give me an accurate idea on how popular it is in Europe will win a special prize! 😃
Among the Pacific nations to embrace this sacred past-time is Japan.



Professional Baseball in Japan!



The only people who could possibly love baseball more than Americans, are the Japanese! (as much as it is hard for me to admit this truth) In fact, according to Japan's National Tourism Organization, "Baseball is so popular in Japan that many fans are surprised to hear that Americans also consider it their ‘national sport.’" Like America, Baseball is the most played sport in Japan.




The professional league in Japan is the, “Nippon Professional Baseball”, or just called NPB for short and Puro Yakyū in Japanese. The NPB is the highest level of baseball played in Japan and consists of two circuits, the central league and the pacific league, both having six clubs for a total of 12 clubs.

The Central League




Chunichi Dragons - 中日ドラゴンズ, Nagoya, Aichi (2 Japan Series Championships) These guys are my personal favorite ^.^


Hanshin Tigers - 阪神タイガース, Nishinomiya, Hyōgo (1 Japan Series Championship)


Hiroshima Toyo Carp - 広島東洋カープ, Hiroshima, Hiroshima (1 Japan Series Championship)


Tokyo Yakult Swallows - ヤクルトスワローズ, Shinjuku, Tokyo (5 Japan Series Championships)


Yokohama DeNA BayStars - 横浜DeNAベイスターズ, Yokohama, Kanagawa (2 Japan Series Championships)


Yomiuri Giants - 読売ジャイアンツ, Bunkyo, Tokyo (22 Japan Series Championships)


The Pacific League




Chiba Lotte Marines - 千葉ロッテマリーンズ, Chiba, Chiba (4 Japan Series Championships)


Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks - 福岡ソフトバンクホークス, Fukuoka, Fukuoka (6 Japan Series Championships)


Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters - 北海道日本ハムファイターズ, Sapporo, Hokkaido (2 Japan Series Championships)


Orix Buffaloes - オリックス・バファローズ, Osaka, Osaka (4 Japan Series Championships)


Saitama Seibu Lions - 埼玉西武ライオンズ, Tokorozawa, Saitama (13 Japan Series Championships)


Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles - 東北楽天ゴールデンイーグルス, Sendai, Miyagi (1 Japan Series Championship)

Not only is Baseball popular among the people, it also holds some political power! The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has proposed adding two teams to each league. Okay, well the real reason is to help boost the economies in the regions the new clubs would be established but still, image congress regulating baseball! The stagnant Japanese economy will be discussed in an upcoming article by the Loli Tribune, so if it’s a topic of interest get prepared! ^.^ Back to the topic. Some of the regions that might receive a club are Okinawa, Shizuoka, Shikoku, and Niigata. This would also bring the number of teams closer to that of the MLB (which is the North American league for Canadian and American baseball clubs).


The Great Story of Yakyū!




It all started in 1872 with an American English professor named Horace Wilson. Wilson taught at Kaisei Gakko, the forerunner of Tokyo Imperial University, as part the effort to modernize the Japanese education system during the Meiji Restoration.
“In either 1872 or 1873, Wilson decided that his students needed more physical exercise, and introduced them to the sport of baseball. Several weeks or months later, enough interest had developed for the school to sponsor a seven inning game between the Japanese students and foreign instructors. The first formal baseball team was established in 1878.” In 2003 Wilson was elected membership into the Japanese baseball hall of fame!

Professional baseball launched in the 1920’s however it wasn’t until the 1934 All-Star game against the American All-Star team (including Babe Ruth) that the sport started to gain traction, professionally, in Japan. In 1936 the first Japanese Professional Baseball league was formed!

In both America and Japan, the sport is referred to as the nation’s “Pastime”. The sport struggled during the war, but was also a source for joy in a troubled time for both nations, only cultivating the emotions people held for the sport. For instance, some Japanese-Americans held in American internment camps formed make-shift fields and equipment, and played baseball for the sake of restoring something normal to their new hard lives in the camps.

“They funneled water from irrigation ditches to flood what would become our baseball field. The water packed down the dust and made it hard. There weren’t any trees, but they found wood to build the bleachers. Bats, balls, and gloves arrived in cloth sacks from friends back home. My mom and other moms took the covers off mattresses and used them to make uniforms. They looked almost like the real thing.” – Baseball Saved Us

After the war, Yakyū became a staple of Japanese society. In rebuilding Japan, baseball spread down from the professional level to amateur leagues and high schools. Yakyū rapidly grew in popularity, eventually giving us the sport enjoyed today and becoming Japan’s most played sport.


Soo…who is better?!? 😛




Okay, so the first thing to note here is that both nations have a very old and traditional history of baseball. Baseball came to America in 1839, while Yakyū came to Japan in 1872, that's 176 years of baseball in America and 143 years of Yakyū in Japan! There is no doubt that baseball culture is most strongly appreciated in these two nations, and that is something to keep in mind if you are trying to make an international comparison. Okay, now lets get more technical and make some comparisons!




Ideally, for the sake of comparison, we could get a 1934-style All-Star-Game and have the two sides do a 7-game series. However, as would be expected, baseball is more complex now than then. Ever since the establishment of the NPB in 1934, Japanese and American players have been playing professionally between the leagues. So the distinction between who is American and who is Japanese, for the sake of baseball classifications, is not clear.

This is the very problem I have with World Baseball Classic (WBC). The World Baseball Classic is the closest thing there is to a world championship of baseball and is played every 4 years, starting in 2006. However, the teams are divided by nationality and not by what circuit they play on. SO if you are trying to establish who is the best its not exactly cut-and-dry . For instance, Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was the MVP for 2 of the 4 WBC championships is a Japanese pitcher....who played for the Red Sox when he won both of those games for Japan.

Now that I have brought up the issues with the WBC, I think I should mention that Japan holds 2 of the 4 WBC championships, while the US team has failed to place.



(Aoki while he was still playing for my Royals. He’s an emotionless turncoat! Signed up with the Giants right after they beat us in the World Series!)

Okay, then there is the World Series, which only has a claim to inter-nationality because it has a few Canadian teams. So that's not a real measure of international success.


So let’s compare the two leagues! The rules of baseball and Yakyū are the same, but some things about the games are slightly different. Playing fields, baseballs, and strike zones are all smaller in Yakyū. Some fields would be considered too small by MLB standards. Another major contrast is the time difference. A game of Yakyū cannot go past 12 innings, and cannot last longer than 3:30 minutes after the first pitch, whereas a game in the MLB goes on until there is a winner. (Some games in the MLB have more than 20 innings and can last half a day!)

The NPB also limits the number of foreign players. A NPB club cannot have more than four foreign players on their roster for a 25-man game. There are a number of possible reasons, but ultimately this is a reflection of Japan’s rather overt take on nationality. The general disapproval of Foreigners (and foreign culture) in Japan will also be the topic of another article to come on another day.





Want to Know More About Japan?

Japanese Language:
How To Learn Japanese!

Education in Japan:
Gakushūin (Peers’ School)

Aspects of Contemporary Japanese Society:
やきゅう!!!! (Yakyū)

Life in Japan series [Part One]

Coming Soon!

Tsunami Preparedness - Addressing the tragedy in 2011 and the threat that millions of Japanese live with daily!

Shinzo Abe – Prime Minister of Japan and President of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Collective Self-Defense – Amending the pacifistic constitution to grant the Japanese Self-Defense Force the authority to help its allies in their defense. (To help America/South Korea in the event of an invasion from the north, among other reasons)


Bonus!!











Peace, Love, and Understanding!







読んでくれてありがとう！
よろしく、
大国主、アリジン