Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball

Since 1915, one year after the construction of Chicago's Wrigley Field, Japan's Koshien Tournament has pitted the best high school baseball teams in the country against each other for the national championship. Four thousand teams participate and only 49 regional champions advance. Every time a team steps onto the field, they face elimination. Japanese high schoolers approach baseball as if they were following Sun Tzu's "Art of War';" an ancient Chinese book on military strategy. They march onto the field with purpose, with the same unyielding eyes of their Samurai brothers who came before them.

In Japan they teach baseball as a part of education. It is not a mere diversion from what some cynics would call "reality"; but rather an integral component of adolescent development. In fact, Japanese high schoolers spend more time on the ballfield then they do in the classroom. School is from 8:30am to 2:00pm; baseball practice from 2:30-9:00pm. Like in Kendo, a Japanese martial art of sword-fighting, they believe high school baseball develops the heart. "You really don't know what's going to happen in a battle. To win, you have to have heart. We used to call it fighting spirit. It's about mental strength. We have to practice 3-4 times as much," said one coach. Baseball in Japan is virtually a perfect balance of Aristotle's "scholar-athlete."

Japanese have a great love affair with baseball. One player from Tennoji High School said, "The coach loves baseball and we love baseball too. He teaches us with passion." I believe that player, like a steadfast soldier, would have followed his undaunted coach into battle, playing his heart out on that diamond shaped battlefield. His esteemed coach said, "Baseball has some kind of magic. We're of course playing baseball, but when you get down to it, we're educating them as people, the training is really a spiritual practice. The more they suffer now, the happier they'll be when they win. Technique is really a secondary matter. For high school players, what's important is physical strength and heart. That's the baseball that came from America."

Japanese understand that you cannot play baseball without the entire team. They lose themselves in the sport because they play with fervency. Attributes found in Bushido, the ancient way of the Samurai, like loyalty and honor are uniquely found in their brand of baseball. The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes once said, "the foundation of every state is the education of its youth." Japan, I take my hat off to you. 演劇の球 (play ball).