{"id":2146,"date":"2012-08-11T14:42:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-11T14:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/?p=2146"},"modified":"2012-08-11T14:45:31","modified_gmt":"2012-08-11T14:45:31","slug":"the-national-high-school-baseball-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/the-national-high-school-baseball-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"The National High School Baseball Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Night falls at Koshien Stadium<\/p><\/div>\n

What’s \u65e5\u672c (\u306b\u3063\u307d\u3093\/Japan’s) national sport? If you answered \u76f8\u64b2 (\u3059\u3082\u3046\/Sumo), you’d be right, at least on paper. If you rank by popularity though, \u91ce\u7403 (\u3084\u304d\u3085\u3046\/baseball) is far and away \u65e5\u672c’s most popular sport. \u7537\u306e\u5b50 (\u304a\u3068\u3053\u306e\u3053\/Boys) start playing in \u5c0f\u5b66\u6821 (\u3057\u3087\u3046\u304c\u3063\u3053\u3046\/elementary school) with the dream of joining one of the 12 teams in Japan’s professional league. When a \u5b66\u751f (\u304c\u304f\u305b\u3044\/student) joins a \u91ce\u7403 team in \u5b66\u6821 (\u304c\u3063\u3053\u3046\/school), they are very serious about it, practicing up to 7 times a week! Yes, they will sometimes have scheduled practices \u6bce\u65e5 (\u307e\u3044\u306b\u3061\/daily), especially during \u4f11\u307f\u306e\u65e5 (\u3084\u3059\u307f\u306e\u3072\/holidays) when there is no school. Those \u4f11\u307f\u306e\u65e5 practices could last all day!<\/p>\n

Once they reach \u9ad8\u6821 (\u3053\u3046\u3053\u3046\/high school), \u5b66\u751f start to realize that they might not make it to the major leagues, but they have the chance to take part in the National High School Baseball Tournament. This is a long name, so most refer to it as the \u590f\u306e\u7532\u5b50\u5712 (\u306a\u3064\u306e\u3053\u3046\u3057\u3048\u3093\/Summer Koshien), after the stadium that hosts the tournament, \u7532\u5b50\u5712 (\u3053\u3046\u3057\u3048\u3093\/Koshien Stadium) in Hyogo, near \u795e\u6238 (\u3053\u3046\u3079\/Kobe). Normally, it is the home stadium for the Hanshin Tigers professional team. For many, this will be the highlight of their \u91ce\u7403 life. Each \u770c (\u3051\u3093\/prefecture) has tournaments and the winning \u9ad8\u6821 team will represent their respective \u770c (with two teams from \u6771\u4eac (\u3068\u3046\u304d\u3087\u3046\/Tokyo) and \u5317\u6d77\u9053 (\u307b\u3063\u304b\u3044\u3069\u3046\/Hokkaido). That means a total of 49 teams participate!<\/p>\n

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This is the right stadium, but it's a pro match, not a high school match.<\/p><\/div>\n

The tournament is single elimination, but still a lot of matches must be played to get through all the teams, this means up to 4 matches are played a day until the quarter finals. I don’t think batters are allowed to step out of the box once their turn begins, and pitchers aren’t allowed to spend much time between pitches either. At the end of each inning, players will sprint to their dugout or field position too. As a result, games move along pretty quickly. In most cases, teams will stick to their best pitcher for the duration of the game, for ALL games. There is no designated hitter either, so the pitcher is often the most important person on the team.<\/p>\n

If a player is in his last year of \u9ad8\u6821, a loss in this tournament marks the end of his \u9ad8\u6821 career. After \u590f (\u306a\u3064\/summer), \u5b66\u751f are expected to focus solely on getting ready for \u5927\u5b66 (\u3060\u3044\u304c\u304f\/university) entrance exams and are not allowed to participate anymore. As a result, there are always lots of tears for the eliminated team. Most players will gather up some of the distinctly dark soil from their dugout, as it is the traditional souvenir of a visit to \u7532\u5b50\u5712 stadium. Winning this tournament is considered to be as big an achievement as winning a championship in the pro league. I’ll be cheering on my prefecture’s team, will you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

What’s \u65e5\u672c (\u306b\u3063\u307d\u3093\/Japan’s) national sport? If you answered \u76f8\u64b2 (\u3059\u3082\u3046\/Sumo), you’d be right, at least on paper. If you rank by popularity though, \u91ce\u7403 (\u3084\u304d\u3085\u3046\/baseball) is far and away \u65e5\u672c’s most popular sport. \u7537\u306e\u5b50 (\u304a\u3068\u3053\u306e\u3053\/Boys) start playing in \u5c0f\u5b66\u6821 (\u3057\u3087\u3046\u304c\u3063\u3053\u3046\/elementary school) with the dream of joining one of the 12 teams in Japan’s professional league…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":2149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4288,90133,2239,548072,3431],"class_list":["post-2146","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baseball","tag-high-school","tag-japan","tag-sports","tag-students"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t