While browsing through the listings at WordPress I came across an article dealing with the prelimenary stages of the Summer Koushien Baseball High School Tournament. A very interesting one. I had read a few articles by the same author on another blog called East Windup Chronicle, a great site if you are interested in Asian baseball and Asian culture. I always enjoy reading the articles there a lot. So Mr Currie’s NPB Power Rankings were published there and today I somehow came across his site which in this article not only features a great description of the two games he saw but also has some video footage of the cheering sections (応援団).
If I ever make it over to Japan I definetely want to visit a game of High School Baseball (高校野球). I first learned about the tournament while watching a Japanese drama series called “H2″ which deals with a group of students who desparately try to reach their goal of playing in the final tournament at Koushien Stadium (甲子園) in Osaka. Now that is something which must be very unique in the whole world. I used to take part in school competitions and tournaments in handball and basketball, but that never gets the media exposure like the baseball tournament in Japan. Even the omnipresent football culture hardly takes notice of who wins the school championship. This also refers to the school and the other students. While in Japan the rest of the school takes pride in what the baseball team does in Germany noone really cares about the school’s teams. At least not at the school I went to and not at the schools we played against. There were no cheering sections at all. Well, actually there weren’t any spectators at all.
So while I know that it must be an illusion to think that high school sports in Japan are as pure and innocent as they are usually portrayed I still see this as a much purer form of competition. While watching the matches last year via a live stream I thought that the players looked like they were enjoying themselves a lot. And why wouldn’t they. I mean, they play in a great stadium in front of lots of people, they are on TV so they have a lot to talk about after the tournament. I don’t know if this is a Japanese thing but I thought the games to be very fair and polite, at least that’s what it looked like when I was watching them.
Since it’s very hard to get any decent information about Japanese high school baseball over here in Germany I am always very happy when come across articles like this one. Especially when it is as atmospheric as this one.
On another note somehow my incompetent writings made it to the wonderful site of japanesebaseball.com. ありがとうございます。 This is a brilliant site to keep up to date with what’s happening in Japanese baseball. The regular visitors there are all very knowledgeable and I always enjoy reading their opinions. It’s a great way to learn more about Japanese baseball for me.
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