Koshien Tournament?

There are really two high school championship tournaments at Koshen, the Spring invitational and the Summer national finals.

Each school has their own regional set of teams that they play against. Their local leagues. But for the national championships in the Summer, each smaller league has a single elimination tournament to decide who goes on to the next level up, where they play a single elimination tournament to decide who moves up, and so on until one team from each prefecture (two in some cases) go on to Koshien.

Once at Koshien, it's a single elimination tournament. The loser packs up and heads home; the Summer is over.

Yes, there are more tournaments and league play after Koshien. But for many of the seniors, this is the end of the season as they graduate the following Spring before the Senbatsu (Spring Koshien tournament), so teams start preparing the younger players in hope of going in the Spring or next Summer.

Basically, everything a ball player works for their entire lives is to go all the way at Koshien. Once eliminated, it's the end of everything. For one school squad every Summer, though, there's the ultimate right of passage of Koshien.

Are there local leagues? I've never seen official standings from any local high school leagues. I know that the teams play exhibition games against each other.

Saitoh vs. Tanaka rematch in the High School Games in autumn garnered some attention, so there are other tournaments through the year, but they seem to be all single game knockout tournaments from what I know.

I suppose the term "league" may not be correct. A pool of nearby teams to play exhibition games against may be what it actually is. I'm not that confident about the high school level.

But for elementary school nanshiki ball and adult softball teams, teams generally belong to a local association of teams. To not belong to such an association basically means that you won't be able to reserve a field on weekends, as such associations have some sort of deal to get highest priority for field use. (Of course, high schools will have their own grounds, so this shouldn't be a problem for them.)

It's just another 6 years before my daughter enters high school, 8 years for my son. I figure I'll learn all the details about high school baseball then. (But will keep my eyes open for more before.)

As you point out, there are lesser known tournaments continuing before and after Koshien. If it hadn't been for a rematch between Tanaka and Saitoh, I doubt if I'd have heard anything about the one a month or so back. I read that it had been going on for many years, but I never noticed any mention of it before.

Other than the tournaments leading to Koshien, I've never seen any standings of any kind for local high schools in Nikkan Sports. Maybe I need to try Kanagawa Shimbun.

I talked with a few sempai on my son's team today about this. They're currently in junior high school (one being recruited by Yokohama Ko), but said that they think that high school is the same.

What they told me is that there is no real league that they play in. Just practice games and, for junior high, one tournament each year. For the most part, it's practice, practice, practice. From after school until dark, and all day each weekend and national holiday. (Today was one of the few Saturdays that they had the morning off, so some of the kids sought out their old team to practice with. That's dedication.)

That is amazing dedication. And I thought I practiced hard when I played high-school baseball.

I've been a big fan of the Koshien tournament ever since I first saw it on TV at the airport several years back. And this year I was fortunate enough to attend every game of this summer's Koshien as well as some prefectural qualifying games in Mie prefecture.

I can't really say about school's "regular season" except that I was under the impression there were regional leagues that they played in during the year. Because of the way the school year runs, a player can generally play in only 5 Koshien tournaments:

1. 1st Year Summer
2. 1st Year Spring
3. 2nd Year Summer
4. 2nd Year Spring
5. 3rd Year Summer

I guess since I'm here, I might as well give a little info on the Koshien tournament itself. As mentioned before there are two Koshiens held - in the spring and the summer. The Spring Koshien is an invitational tournament where 32 teams are invited into a single elimination format. More recently, there is now a spot reserved (21st Century) for a team that has endured special circumstances or has done something special for the community.

But it's the Summer Koshien that is the more popular of the two. All schools are eligible, but have to play through regional then prefectural qualifying rounds to make it. One team from each prefecture qualifies, with the exception of Hokkaido (North and South) and Tokyo (East and West), making a total of 49 teams. Brackets are drawn by lot, which was why this past year Osaka Toin, Yokohama, and Waseda Jitsugyo were in the same bracket. Also, because of the odd number of teams, some schools only need to win 2 games to make it to the Best 8, while others have to win 3.

Once into the Best 8, lots are drawn once again for matchups. This is also repeated once the final 4 are determined. Considering that there is no way to really determine rankings, the lot drawing system they use for the tournament really makes sense, even if it creates a bracket of death like this year.

I don't really know what else to add, but just wanted to give what I know out there.