Japanese High School Baseball Championship

The National High School Baseball Championship (全国高等学校野球選手権大会, Zenkoku Kōtō Gakkō Yakyū Senshuken Taikai) of Japan, commonly known as "Summer Koshien" (夏の甲子園, Natsu no Kōshien), is an annual nationwide high school baseball tournament. It is the largest scale amateur sport event in Japan.
The tournament, organized by the Japan High School Baseball Federation and Asahi Shimbun, takes place during the summer school vacation period, culminating in a two-week final tournament stage with 49 teams in August at Hanshin Koshien Stadium (阪神甲子園球場, Hanshin Kōshien Kyūjō) in the Koshien district of Nishinomiya City, Hyōgo, Japan.
In the past teams from overseas have participated in the tournament. Korea fielded teams from 1921 to 1940; both Taiwan and Manchuria had teams participate from 1923 to 1940.
The 49 schools taking part in the final tourney represent regional champions of each of the prefectures of Japan (with two from Hokkaidō and Tokyo). From mid-June until July, regional tournaments are held to decide who is sent to Koshien.
The rules are the same as in the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament. It is a single elimination tournament with nine inning games. Until 2021, games were declared official after seven complete innings in the case of suspension (due to weather, et cetera), except for the championship game which must be played to completion. Starting in 2022, games must last nine innings unless the run rule is in effect. If a game is suspended for inclement weather, the game will resume at point of interruption and will play the full length of game. For the regional tournaments, games are ended if one team leads by at least ten runs after five innings or seven runs after seven innings, except in the championship games. Designated hitters are not used. Four umpires are used, except for night games in which two outfield line umpires are added.
The first round pairings and byes are decided by lottery. 34 teams meet in the first round, and 15 teams with byes join at the second round (32 teams play in the second round). Therefore, it takes either five or six wins for a team to win the championship. Until 2002, the four quarter finals were played in one day, but this was changed to two a day over two days to give the players time off. If rain outs continue for more than three days, four games are played in one day. This occurred in 2003, so the first time the quarter finals were played over two days was actually 2004. To accommodate the extra day, the long tradition of starting the tournament on August 8 was changed to start a day or two early.
Up to four games are played each day until the quarter finals. The starting times of each day's games is shown below. Following games are begun about 30 minutes after the previous game ends. Due to the fast pace of the pitching, four games in one day are usually completed before sunset.
For tournaments previous to 1958 there were no extra inning limits for a game tied after nine innings of play. In 1933, Masao Yoshida had pitched a complete game during a 25 inning shutout in the semifinal, an all-time record. Yoshida had thrown 336 pitches during that game.
In 1958, games were limited to 18 innings, with a full replay required after that on a future day. The first pitcher to pitch a complete game 18 innings was Eiji Bando in a 1958 quarterfinal game. Daisuke Matsuzaka became the last pitcher to pitch a complete game over 15 innings (17 innings in 250 pitches, 1998). Pitchers are currently limited to 15 innings.
From 2000 to 2017, games were capped at 15 innings with a full replay required on a future day. In 2006, the replay rule was implemented after a 15 inning tie in the final.
In 2018, the Japan High School Baseball Federation capped regular play to 12 innings (except in the championship final), but games will continue with the World Baseball Softball Confederation baseball tiebreaker with runners on first and second base (the previous two players relative to the current player in the batting order) starting with in the 13th inning.
Starting in 2023, the tiebreaker rules begin in the tenth inning.
In addition, if the game is suspended because of inclement weather or curfew in extra innings, the game is declared a tie and a replay will be implemented at the earliest possible date.
The tournament theme song is "The Laurels of Victory Shine on You" (Japanese: 栄冠は君に輝く, Hepburn: eikan wa kimi ni kagayaku).
Usually air sirens are used to signal the start and the end of the games, the earlier registers of this tradition are from 1936. Its origins are unknown, but considering the time of its origin, before the advent of mass communication, it is considered that its use was the same as it is nowadays: to signal the start and the finish of a match for spectators and stadium workforce.
Every five years, the tournament celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the tournament, and a deep crimson is used for the championship flag for commemorative purposes. Also, on those editions, the number of participants on the final part of the tournament also grows, a exception was made in 2024 (106th) in order to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the building and the tournament move to Koshien Stadium.
For third year students, a loss at the tournament signifies an end to their high school baseball career, as there are no other major tournaments for the rest of their academic career. It is common for players to cry in sorrow after tight games and/or their losses.
Another common tradition after games is the act of collecting soil from the Koshien Stadium infield as a souvenir. The dirt collected by the chosen players is shared among the baseball club members of their schools. The dirt is kept as memorabilia for the third year players and shared between first and second years as a way to motivate them to reach the Koshien spot once again, but sometimes, first and second years refuse to receive the soil as a way to motivate them to return to Koshien.
Some teams also decide take part of the soil and throw the soil into the infield of their training practice as a way to bring good luck for them into the next year's tournament.
An interesting exception to this tradition happened in 1958. At the time, Okinawa was under U.S. rule. In that year, Okinawa's Shuri baseball team participated for the first time in both spring and summer. After losing to Tsuruga (from Fukui) in the first round of the summer tournament, they decided to pick up the infield soil after the game. However, they were not allowed to bring the dirt back to Okinawa, having to discard it at the port as the soil was considered "foreign soil". Volunteer flight attendants from Japan Airlines learned of the story and decided to pick up stones from the coast of Nishinomiya and donate them to Shuri. The stones are still displayed in the school yard as a monument called Monument of Friendship (友愛の碑, Yūai no ishibumi), celebrating the team's first appearance at the Koshien.
Akin to North American high school football and North American college sports, the use of brass bands playing cheer songs is very common, alongside Oendan cheer squads, both are considered part of the tournament spectacle.
Some of the most famous appearances of the Japanese High School Baseball Championship in popular culture are in the manga and anime series Touch, H2 and Cross Game by Mitsuru Adachi, Ace of Diamond by Yūji Terajima, and Major by Takuya Mitsuda. Those series follow the struggles of different high school teams' bids to make it to the Kōshien tournament.
The 2014 hit Taiwanese film Kano is based on the true story of a high school baseball team from the Kagi Nōrin (Agriculture) High School (now known as National Chiayi University) team in Kagi (now known as Chiayi), Taiwan who qualified for the tournament for the first time in 1931 after never having won a game in its first three seasons. The team was made up of ethnic Japanese, Han Chinese and Taiwanese aborigines. The team won three games to make it to the championship game before losing 4–0 to Chukyō Shōgyō from Nagoya. This was the first of four appearances at the tournament for the Kano team, who later qualified in 1933, 1935 and 1936.
In 2023, TBS made a live action drama based in the book Gekokujō Kyūshi. The book tells about the story of Hakusan High school, a small Mie school that managed to pull a historic upset win in the 2018 Prefectural tournament, taking the school for the first time ever into Summer Koshien.
The Summer Koshien Tournament has a longstanding tradition of launching the careers of many famous players, many of whom get drafted to the NPB and eventually make their way to MLB. Names include 2001 AL Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player Ichiro Suzuki, 2006 World Baseball Classic MVP and 2007 World Series Champion Daisuke Matsuzaka, as well Yu Darvish, a five-time MLB All-Star, and Shohei Ohtani, who won the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year, 2021 and 2023 AL Most Valuable Player.
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