Land of the Rising Fast Ball
With the success Japanese ballplayers in the US, Yu Darvish being the latest, you might be interested in how baseball differs between our 2 countries. And yes, Darvish is not a Japanese name…his father is Iranian.
There are 2 leagues in Japan, each of 6 teams…the Pacific League uses the DH, and the Central League doesn't. Each plays a 144-game season which includes inter-league play. Rules are pretty much what they are in the US. The ball is slightly smaller, with larger seams, and supposedly wound tighter…ballparks are also smaller. One major difference is that there is a time limit on the games...if the score is tied after 12 innings, it goes into the record books as a tie and is not replayed. A team will typically have around 10 ties a season, and while they are listed in the standings, ties are not counted towards the winning percentage…thus a team can finish ahead of another team that has more wins, as can still happen in the NHL.
This time limit exists so that fans can catch the trains home...altho if they can, they'll stick around for the traditional on-field post-game player interviews. Even so, televised games are routinely cut off in favor of regularly scheduled programs…so every game is potentially a Heidi Game!
There are also 2 minors leagues, the Eastern and Western Leagues, fed by high school, college, and amateur industrial leagues. The high school championship tournaments are especially popular, almost as much as Major League games. Players switch teams far less frequently, and the Japanese custom of employment-for-life applies even after one's playing career is over.
Teams are owned by big corporations in other industries...and named after them. Thus Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants and Nagoya's Chunichi Dragons are both named after newspapers, Yomiuri Shimbun and Chunichi Shimbun. And if you ever wondered about the Nippon Ham Fighters and what the heck is a Ham Fighter…they're actually the Fighters, owned by Nippon Ham!
The post-season playoffs are known as the Climax Series. Stage I in each league is between the 2nd and 3rd place teams, best-of-5. If 2 teams are tied for 3rd, the team with the better record the previous year advances. The winner goes on to face the 1st place team in Stage II, but with a twist: as a reward for finishing 1st, that team starts the 6-game series credited with one win…thus it needs to win only 3 to advance, while the Stage I winner must win 4. Interesting idea, altho many players dislike this rule, and it's only been in place for both leagues since 2007…the Pacific League introduced it in 2003.
The 2 league champions then meet for the 7-game Japan Series. Tie games are still possible in the postseason, when the time limit expands to 15 innings…but as in the regular season, ties are not replayed. Thus a post-season series itself can end in a tie, in which case the tiebreaker is the teams' regular season records.
In Japan, attitudes towards coaches and umpires are strangely reversed. Teams have more coaches than American teams, and along with the manager, they rule with an iron fist...literally, since they are allowed to physically strike a player, who then must apologize to the coach! On the other hand, despite the fact that umpires are ritually saluted by the batter when he comes to the plate, their control of the game is less overt. Consider what happens in the US with a disputed call. The manager comes out to argue, a player might have to be restrained, but the call stands. In Japan, the umpires will huddle among themselves for as much as 15 or 20 minutes...and when their decision is finally announced, they will apologize for the delay. Needless to say, in Japan Armando Galarraga would have had his perfect game!
The Japanese are oddly fascinated by blood types...that's right, A, B, AB, and O. They are like astrological signs, believed to predict personality traits and the potential success of romantic matches. Blood types are a hot topic month after month in women's magazines, and they are important in baseball as well. Which is not to say the stars are ignored: astrological predictions based on the position of Mars are also a part of Japanese baseball.
Back in the day, teams were allowed only 2 foreign players, usually Americans…called "gaijins," literally outsiders or aliens, but used more in the sense of "helpers." Today the limit is 4 per team, and they can become fan favorites if they earn it on the field. Here are some gaijins you might recognize: Jerry Adair, Matty Alou, George Altman, Ken Aspromonte, Don Blasingame, Clete Boyer, Don Buford, Larry Doby, Jim Gentile, Frank Howard, Davey Johnson, Willie Kirkland, Jim Lefebvre, Roman Mejias, Don Newcombe, Joe Pepitone, Wes Parker, and even Aaron Pointer, older brother of the Pointer Sisters, who went on to a long career as a ref in the NFL.
Also Andre Rodgers, Richie Scheinblum, Daryl Spencer, Bart Shirley, Dick Stuart, Lee Thomas, Fred Valentine, Zolio Versalles, and Don Zimmer…not to mention Buddy Bradford, Willie Davis, Clarence Jones, Roger Repoz, Tony Solaita, Walt "No Neck" Williams...and brothers Leon and Leron Lee, one of whom is the father of Derrek Lee. The Japanese are far less tolerant of foreigners than we are, especially those who refuse to fit in. Tom Selleck's 1992 movie "Mr. Baseball" was right on. This plays into the important Japanese concept of "wa."
Wa means team harmony or cooperation...prima donnas of any kind in Japan are few and far between. As they say, "The nail that sticks up is the one hammered down." There is also "ma," meaning a pause or hesitation…almost what we would call a "psyche." It is a powerful weapon for the pitcher, and altho balks are in the rule book they are seldom called. Japanese fans are very keen on the individual match-ups between pitchers and batters, and these are discussed and analyzed in great detail...and yes, blood types must be considered! Often a pitcher and batter are fondly remembered as a pair, and their many battles are the thing of baseball legend. For example, one book devotes 6 pages to describing Ichiro's first at bat against Dice-K in 1999. When they first faced each other here in 2007, Japanese headlines called it "Genius vs. Monster"…I'll let you guess which was which!
There are many other different baseball customs: when crossing the plate after a home run, a player is presented with a stuffed animal. Foul balls hit into the stands are not kept as souvenirs but returned to an usher. Up until 2010, balls and strikes were counted backwards...a full count was 2-and-3...but now Japan does it like the rest of the baseball world. A winning manager is tossed into the air, like Eskimos with a bear-skin.
At home, teams have organized rooting sections, much like in college football, with songs, chants, drummers and other noise-makers. These are lead by a man in white gloves, resembling a Japanese traffic cop. There are actually try-outs for these fan clubs, and some of the members are paid, either by the team or by the local crime syndicate…which operate much more openly in Japan. You might have been surprised to hear of the Yakuza organizing relief efforts after the March, 2011 earthquake, mobilizing far quicker than government authorities. But folks, we're not in Kansas anymore, you know?
Don't miss weekly genealogy at deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com and other Stolf stuff at stolf.wordpress.com. Till next time, keep in mind: you've gotta have wa…and rock on!
