Baseball was imported to Japan from the Unites States as early as 1872 but wasn’t organized until 1934 with the creation of the Greater Japan Tokyo Baseball Club. The Japanese Baseball League was formed in 1937, consisting of eight teams, played until 1949 (except 1945, presumably because WWII). Starting in 1950, the Japanese Baseball League became Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) as we now know it. The NPB site has compiled an interesting photo essay to celebrate its 70 year history in 2004. It’s worth taking a look at just for the photos but the translation is somewhat lacking.

Currently there are a total of twelve teams divided into two leagues. Each team plays 144 regular season games between April and October. The teams in each league are as follows (the Kanji will help you follow your team in the standings, but more on that in a later post):

Central League
Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (????)
Seibu Lions (??????)
Fukuoka Softbank Hawks (??????)
Chiba Lotte Marines (? ? ?)
Orix Buffaloes (????)
Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles (??)

Pacific League
Chunichi Dragons (??)
Hanshin Tigers (??)
Tokyo Yakult Swallows (????)
Yomiuri Giants (??)
Hiroshima Carp (??)
Yokohama BayStars (??)

An English translation ( via AltaVista Babel Fish Translation)
of each teams site may be reached by clicking on the team name.

The Pacific League, like the American League in the United States, uses the designated hitter while the Central League, like the National League, does not. Teams are allowed to have up to four foreigners on the roster. Wayne Gaczyk wrote an article for the Japan Times listing the 62 foriegn players and coaches that will participate in 2008. You will note that some teams have signed more than four players which would require some of them to spend some time in the minor leagues (more about the minor leagues in a future post).

Schedules for the upcoming season are available via JapanBall. This site also offers a lot of other information and even provides links to baseball news stories from Japan. Take a look around, you can even book a tour to come see Japanese baseball for yourself this fall.

Mark your calendars, here some of the key dates for the 2008 Japanese baseball season:

• February 1st - Spring training starts (about two weeks earlier that in the United States)
• February 23rd through March 23rd - Pre-Season Exhibition Games
• March 20th through October 1st - Regular Season Games
• May 2oth through June 22nd - Inter-league Play
• July 31st - August 1st - All Star Break
• November 1st through 9th - Japan Series
• November 1st through the 20th (approximately) - Fall Camp or Practice

Some interesting tidbits about Japanese baseball:

• Unlike in the US, if a game is tied after twelve innings of play, or exceeds the allotted time frame, the game is called and remains a tie in the record books.
• Instead of singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the 7th inning stretch the fans release screeching balloons into the air - it’s quite a site!
• Each team has it’s own cheering section and they wave flags and banners, beat drums and are constantly cheering throughout the game. Each player has his own song or chant that the fan club sings each time he comes to the plate. These cheering sections are very loud and take fan participation to a whole new level!

Now the countdown begins….23 days until the first baseball game of 2008!

My next post in this series will be on the minor league or 2nd team system in Japan. In the meantime if you have any questions or want me to cover anything in the series please leave me a comment.