LETTER FROM TOKYO
No more zero ball! In search of a resurgence in popularity, the very conservative Japanese high school baseball player has resolved to let go of this tradition. Wednesday August 23, the Keio high school team from Yokohama (south of Tokyo) beat (8-2) that of Ikuei High School in Sendai (northeast of Japan) in the final of the national summer championship, the Koshien. In addition to different game plans, the two formations were distinguished by opposite hair rules: the first had given its players the freedom to let their hair grow, the second had maintained the tradition of the very military ball to zero.
It doesn’t seem like much, but seeing young players with hair in the final is a revolution as the Koshien, which pits the best teams from Japan’s 47 departments against each other twice a year, remains stuck in its traditions: the performance of oath of the first day of the tournament, the habit of players picking up a little dirt on the playing area – which they will keep as a souvenir or offer to those who have supported them –, the siren which sounds at the start of each match , retro outfits and therefore the ball to zero.
The Koshien, antechamber of professionalism, a must for future great players – the latest being Shohei Ohtani, who plays for the Angels of Los Angeles, in the American Major League –, is an event always very followed, broadcast live on television . “A summer never to be relived is a summer without the sound of the bat hitting the ball and the cheering of the fans in the stands”could we read in 2018 in the daily asahiat the origin of this tournament in 1915.
“An educational tool”
Baseball was introduced to the archipelago by visiting American teachers during the early opening period of the Meiji era (1868-1912). Called yakyuit became the first team sport practiced in Japan, taking its place alongside traditional disciplines such as kendo or sumo.
“Amateur baseball is part of our sporting heritage. It has been an educational tool used to instill discipline, teamwork and fighting spirit in students”, points out Masaru Ikei, a professor at Keio University and an expert in yakyu. A point confirmed by Suishu Tobita, former baseball coach at Waseda University: “High school baseball is an education of the heart, the field is a classroom of purity, a gymnasium of morality. »
The result is an iron discipline, with daily training from 3.30 pm to 6 pm – except during the three days of New Year celebrations – and an obligation to humility and self-sacrifice for the team. Ichiro Suzuki, one of the greatest Japanese players of all time, did laundry and cooked rice for his team during his junior year of high school. In this context, shaving the head, an initiation rite, had become the norm.
You have 47.09% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.