Professional baseball in Japan
I watched a baseball game, the Hanshin Tigers vs Chiba Lotte Marines, which was the final game in Japan this year. It’s like a World Series game in America. I expected their power to be almost even, but the Marines beat the Tigers, and I am very disappointed at this.
In Japan’s pennant race, professional baseball has two leagues. One is the Central League, the other is the Pacific League, and they have six teams. The pennant race is about 140 games. After it ends, the two teams that won in the pennant race rival each other for the championship. The Pacific League has a special system that three team result was superior to any other teams play games again. But the funny point is that only the Pacific league has the system. Because Pacific play the game longer than Central, that is to say, Central championship team gain momentum. If this system is taken, both leagues should adopt it.
Recently, Japanese players have been entering the Major League in the US. Matsui Hideki, Ichiro and Nomo and others. Therefore Japanese baseball gradually loses popularity. I hope Japanese baseball will become more popular in the world someday.
I love baseball, therefore I am.
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Comments (4)
Rudolf
wrote on December 02, 2005:
Hmm—Japanese baseball becoming more popular in the world—interesting.
I’m mostly clueless about sports, and about baseball in particular, so you might need to educate me a bit.
That said, there are only two countries on this planet that take an interest in baseball: the United States and Japan. So when you wish for Japanese baseball to become “more popular in the world,” you can only mean that it should become more popular in the US—which, I think, is unlikely to happen because baseball isn’t an “international” game that has national teams competing in worldwide events (unlike, football, ice hockey, or even cricket).
Also, look at it the other way: do the Japanese take any interest in American baseball? The sports coverage that I see on television is all about Godzilla and Ichiro—all that matters is whether the Japanese players in the US do well, the games themselves seem insignificant.
Or that’s what it looks like to me, anyway…
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Rudolf
wrote on December 02, 2005:
Oops—It has just occurred to me that they did play baseball at the Olympics in Athens last year—so I’ll take back what I said about baseball not being an “international” sport.
That leaves the other point: how much do the Japanese care about US baseball?
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daichi
wrote on December 04, 2005:
I have been playing baseball for 11 years. So, I am interested in baseball. I am a fan of Chunichi Dragons.
Someday, let’s see baseball game at Dome together!
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Yasuki
wrote on December 04, 2005:
I don’t know about Baseball much, but I’m happy to see some players from Japan cheered in the USA. It makes the relationship between Japan and the USA better, I think.
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