Words and Photos by Scott Lothes

Top of the seventh, two outs, runners on first and second. As the next hitter steps in, the man on first takes a long lead. The midday sun bakes the brown infield while the pitcher peers in for the next sign. With a nod he leans back and prepares to go into his windup. Then suddenly, with a flick of the wrist, he fires the ball to first. Realizing too late what has happened, the runner dashes back to the bag, only to be met with the hard leather of the first baseman’s mitt. End of the inning.

As the home team runs off the field, the pitcher and first baseman touch gloves and beam as if they’d just made the last out of the World Series. Several teammates come up to congratulate them, and the bench rises to greet them at the dugout. Before sitting, the whole team huddles in preparation for their coming at-bats.

Up in the stands, I’m caught up in the team’s exuberance, but also confused. The pickoff was certainly a good play, well polished from practice and executed to perfection. Had it preserved a one-run lead I would have understood the joy. But that wasn’t the case. Prior to vanquishing that runner from first, the pitcher had given up three runs in the inning, and his team now trailed by four. With only three innings left, a comeback seemed unlikely. Had this been an American high school baseball game, the pickoff would likely have been followed only by a collective sigh of relief.

But this was Japan, a regional high school tournament in southern Hokkaido. There are two national high school baseball tournaments in Japan each year, one in the spring and another in the summer. Every high school in the country can compete, and many do – about 4,000 each year. The road to the final stage at Koshien Stadium in Tokyo is a long one, with only one victor from each region being invited. At the end of each tournament, a single national champion is crowned.

Those are much higher stakes than in the U.S., where there is no national tournament in any high school sport. Instead, there are several statewide tournaments, with schools divided by their enrollments. With 50 states and an average of three divisions each, that’s 150-some American high school baseball teams who can claim the title of champion each year. In Japan, there can be a maximum of two, although the Summer Koshien so overshadows its spring predecessor that in reality there can be only one. One in 4,000.

Japan is so enamored with the tournament that teenage national heroes are born every August on Koshien’s hallowed grounds. Current Boston Red Sox phenom “Dice-K” Matsuzaka was propelled to instant stardom by his epic performance in the 1998 Summer Koshien. American high schools take great care to preserve the health of their players, especially pitchers, who are so easily injured by the rigors of their position. U.S. high school games last only seven innings, and pitchers are limited to throwing a total of seven innings per week. There are no such regulations in Japan. Games last the full nine innings, and pitchers are allowed to throw as much as they’re physically able and sometimes more.  Read More...