Japanese Baseball Primer
the japanese insider page gives access to all our stuff (daily game summaries, stats and analysis) as well as numerous links to Japanese baseball. This "Introduction to Japanese Baseball" was written collaberatively by our Japanese gurus: Jim Albright (stats and japanese baseball history guru) and Gary Garland (news and all around japanese baseball guru) and edited by Craig Tomarkin.
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Fans in the U.S. would have no trouble recognizing baseball in Japan. There are two six teams leagues, the Central and the Pacific forming the Nippon Professional Baseball League (NPB). The Pacific League uses a DH, while the Central League does not. The winner of each league meets in the Japan Series to determine the champion.
A Very Brief History
Japanese professional
baseball as we think of it, began in 1937 with one league of eight teams.
The first two years were divided into spring and fall seasons. In 1950, the
league expanded to fourteen teams and was divided into two leagues with some
teams from the original league going to each new league.
Several teams have
changed their nicknames over the years. The Bay Stars were once the Whales,
the Swallows started out with that name, changed to Atoms (from 1966 to 1973),
and changed back. The Marines were once the Orions, the Buffaloes were once
the Pearls, the Blue Wave were once the Braves, and the Fighters were once
the Flyers. Confused? Jim Albright compiled a map of
franchise
histories if you want the complete story.
Current Teams
| Central League | Pacific League |
| Yomiuri Giants | Daiei Hawks |
| Hiroshima Carp | Seibu Lions |
| Yokohoma BayStars | Chiba Lotte Marines |
| Yakult Swallows | Nippon Ham Fighters |
| Hanshin Tigers | Kintetsu Buffaloes |
| Chuncihi Dragons | Orix Blue Wave |
Teams have nicknames like in the States, but instead of being called by their cities, they are called by their corporate owners as follows:
Yomiuri Giants: Owned by the Yomiuri media conglomerate that publishes the
most popular daily newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun. Also owns NTV, its flagship
tv station in Tokyo among many other holdings.
Hiroshima Toyo Carp: A lot of its capital comes from the Toyo Tire company
and some of it is held by the city of hiroshima, itself, I think. I'll have
to check into that further.
Yokohama Bay Stars: Had been owned up until this year by Maruha, a fisheries
and seafood company. Now owned by TBS, a Tokyo based tv station (their offices,
in fact, are right across the street from the Imperial Palace).
Yakult Swallows: Owned by the Yakult Corporation, a yogurt maker.
Hanshin Tigers: Owned by Hanshin Railways.
Chunichi Dragons: Owned by the Chunichi media group that published the Tokyo
Chunichi Sports newspaper as well as the Chunichi Shimbun among others.
Daiei Hawks: Owned by the Daiei supermarket chain.
Seibu Lions: Owned by the Seibu Department store chain.
The Chiba Lotte Marines: Owned by the Korean Lotte foods conglomerate.
Kintetsu Buffaloes: Owned by the Kintetsu rail and travel company.
Nippon Ham Fighters: Meat products firm.
Orix Blue Wave: Owned by Orix, a financial services company based in Toyko.
Teams are allowed to have up to four foreigners on the roster, two position players and two pitchers. Each team has one minor league affiliate, which is part of either the Eastern League or the Western League. They are permitted as many foreigners as they wish on their minor league team.
What's A Season Like?
Through 2000 they usually played 130-135 games per season. The 2001 season
went to 140 games. Not all games end with a win or loss like in the U.S.
Major Leagues (MLB). Traditionally, any game tied after 12 innings remains
a tie. There is no interleague play except for the all-star games and the
Japan Series.
All-Star Games
Japanese baseball does not have one set of “all-stars” who play
in one game with a home run derby event warm-up, as we have grown accustomed
to in the States. Although they do use fan balloting for eleven players for
the Central League squad and twelve for the Pacific League (twelve because
they vote for a designated hitter). The managers, then choose 17 and 16 players
respectively to fill out the 28 man rosters. The final results are usually
given out in the beginning of July. Unlike the U.S., they play two or
three all-star games in different stadiums over a two or three day period.
And, different players play in some games from other games. However, they
do assign their annual
“Best Nine
Awards,” which are given to the best player at each position for
each league as voted on by between 100 and 200 experts.
Patrick Gary compiled a list of
Star Players
from each franchise with their key stats for anyone interested in perusing
them. Also of interest are the
career batting
records and career
pitching records of the star players as compiled by
Jim Albright.
Awards
As in the MLB, there are some familiar awards, such as the
Gold Glove
, the MVP and the
Rookie of the Year.
One you may not know is the
Sawamura Award,
going to the best starting pitcher, assuming he measures up to the voters'
standards,(usually high innings pitched and high number of wins) but it and
the Rookie Award have been given to no one if no one is deemed deserving.
Interestingly, despite the existence of the Sawamura Award, the MVP goes
to a pitcher roughly 40% of the time. The MVP award is usually limited to
players from championship teams, especially in the Central League,
like the tradition in the MLB.
Seeing A Game
It may seem obvious, but Japan is not a sprawling country like America. It does not have enough large cities to accommodate one team per city. Most teams play in or around Tokyo or Osaka. Most stadiums don't even have parking. Fortunately, they are accessible by subway. Because of their relative proximity, fans of each team can see them play live on the road, most of the time. Unfortunately, this means that people living in the countryside would not likely attend games and have no home team. To address this problem, all teams play 10-15 of their home games on the road, where rural dwellers can see the games in person. These small, remote parks do not have electronic scoreboards and often do not have lights to accommodate night games. It is an intimate experience.
Ballparks
Seven of the eleven stadiums (the Giants and Fighters share the Tokyo Dome) were built from 1988 through 1999. Six of them were built with a turf, playing surface. Overall, three of the parks have grass outfields with dirt infields, the rest are turf. All of the parks conform to a symmetrical design. Typical dimensions are 309-320 feet down the lines, 340-350 feet to straightaway right or left, 360-365 feet to the gaps, and 400 to dead center. A typical fence is 13 feet high. They commonly have much wider foul areas than Major League parks, which decreases scoring because it creates more foul outs. Most stadiums have chain link fences separating the fans from the playing field. This obstructs the view of anyone not seated at least ten feet above the field, so box seats are not always preferred. Click on the link for the complete story on ballparks.
What Else is Different?
The first thing
you notice is that the ball is smaller and lighter weight than a Major League
official ball. Speaking of official balls, the NPB does not have one. Each
team gets to select its own official ball. While there is potential for abuse,
the balls chosen by each team conform to league specifications. Rest assured,
the batter won’t be surprised to find he is facing a MLB ball one game
and a smaller one the next.
Style of Play
Managers take full advantage of the difference in the parks and equipment.
For one thing, there is a lot of bunting. One thing you can count on from
any Japanese player who comes to the U.S. is that they will know the
fundamentals. Managers spend literally five times as much time drilling the
players on bunting, fielding and base running during spring training, than
their Major League counterparts.
There is no way
to make a direct comparison of the bunting strategy of the NPB versus the
big inning strategy of the MLB to determine with certainty which strategy
is better. Although, an interview with Bobby Valentine, manager of the New
York Mets and former manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines (1995) could enlighten
us. Historically, games in Japan are lower scoring by an average on one run
per game. Specifically, an average NPB game has 7.81 runs scored by the two
teams, while MLB games score and average 8.81
runs. The difference can largely
be explained by the wide foul areas. Another notable difference is that triples
are significantly more rare in Japan than they are in the
majors. Historically, a NPB
game has less than 0.4 triples per game, while the majors have
0.6. If we look at this issue
from an at bat basis, the difference is even more stark—in Japan, there
is one triple in less than 0.6% of at bats historically, while the majors
have triples in 1.8% of at bats.
| Enjoying a Japanese
Baseball Broadcast
Gary
Garland translated some basic Japanese into English, so that you
can listen to a Japanese ball game and follow the action.
We begin with words
for the pitcher and fielders:
Senshu (player):
When you hear this word, you will usually hear someone's name before it.
For example, "Ichiro-senshu,"
Hit Terminology:
Anda (prounced
"ahn-dah"): a basehit.
Pitch Terminology:
Streto (pronounced
"streh-to"): fastball.
Whew! That’s
it for now. |
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