I’ll be the first to admit, and will probably be speaking for a lot of us, the only time I ever saw a game in the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan (their MLB) was in an ESPN highlight showing either something truly out of the ordinary even by MLBs standards, or a Japan Series title win. Its often mentioned here in the states as “AAAA” level, and whether that’s a fair assessment or notI’ve always been wanting to sit down and really learn about it’s format, history, rules, their legends, just indulge in it. Understand it, and glad that I finally did.
I think more than anything, the most incredible thing about baseball becoming the #1 sport of Japan, is that its creation and first ever inaugural season was in 1936, three years before the start of World War 2. And not only did they organize a league to play one of the ultimate symbols of America in the game of baseball at a time where the two countries were in conflict, but the league sustained throughout the entire tenure of WW2. Which I think is a great symbol of cultures intertwining positively, even in the most uneasiness of times. That league would become officially the NPB as we know today was reorganized in 1950.
They have a two league system like we do, a World Series, more recently, a similar playoff system like we do. They play an 146 game season to our 162, 9 innings, almost everything the same, aside from a few subtle differences:
- The inside of their baseballs are wound more tightly, and therefore slightly smaller than the ones used in MLB
- The strike zone, or the general perspective of the strike zone among Japanese umpires, is relatively smaller, with far less strikes being called on the corners. So, think of their strike zone as more of an oval, rather than a rectangle.
- It is far more rare for a Japanese player to change teams in the NPB than in the MLB
- There can be ties in the NPB. They play 3 innings worth of extra innings baseball and if it’s still tied, thats it. and it gets a little more tricky with that rule in the playoffs
- If a playoff game ends in a tie after the 9 regular innings and the extra 3, the game itself is null and void, and replayed
- The Japanese mound is much softer than in the MLB. Japanese pitchers tend to make a hole that matches their step to improve leverage during their delivery
- 6-man rotations are the norm in Japan, in contrast to the 5 here
The life of a Japanese player is vastly different from an MLB player, with teams actually living in what we call dormitories. Some can’t smoke, drink, or grow facial hair (damn Yankees influence). Much more of a professional by the book atmosphere, as Japanese culture is in general to us rowdy, lawless Americans. Fan bases in Japan feel much more like college football here in the States, with a seemingly religious following, compared to the more “lax” feel of MLB fan bases. All games start at 6:00 PM in Japan when the mainstream work day is over, so the common man can watch their team regardless of schedule, rather than the random times for games over here. Its a whole other vibe over there. A vibe I actually envy, and it’s not that baseball isn’t absolutely massive here still. It just feels like the entire Japanese population accepts and recognizes the game as a full on religion, and that’s beautiful.
The NBP actually broke the games color barrier a decade before Jackie Robinson played in the majors. Perhaps what could be a seperate blog post entirely, a pitcher by the name of Jimmy Bonner, born in Mansfield, Louisiana, would be the first African-American to play professionally outside of the Negro Leagues, when he would be recruited to play for the Dai Tokyo Baseball Club in 1936. He gained the nickname “Satchel” in the Negro Leagues for his dominant strikeout performances. His performances in Japan were less that desirable, as after a month and a half, he would be released by the Dai Tokyo Baseball Club. Nevertheless, he undoubtedly made history, in the game and society.
The NBP went through multiple financial problems, just as the MLB has, whether it were individual teams or the league itself that stuggled to bring in money, but like the MLB, it survived. And not just survived, but thrived, and is bigger than it’s ever been today. Baseball has since become a global sport with nearly 100 different countries adopting it as a professional sport and creating domestic leagues, and Japan being the first country outside of the US to inherit the game, and to the level that they did, was the first spark that made baseball a worldwide phenomenon it is today. They might possibly love baseball more than us hot dog addicted beer drinking hooligans, and I’ll forever love them for it.
