Beyond the Ichiba Incident

The problem in Pro Yakyu are the all-mighty Giants. Or better: The all-mighty parent company, Yomiuri Group.

Take for instance the way the Giants sign their young players. Yesterday I heard fresh stories about how they go about it. Apparently it is not just the player himself who gets money under the table to convince him to sign with the Giants (like Ichiba). It is his whole entourage who is paid off. This means his high school coach, his university coach, his father, etc. So when the players maybe get 1-oku under the table, the whole deal is closer to 5-oku to keep everybody around him happy. Keep in mind that in Japanese baseball's sensei-sempai-kohai [teacher-senior-junior] system the coaches play a decisive role in the player's decision for which team to play when he turns pro.

I am sure that given the chance, most teams would love to use the same tactics as the Giants, but the fact is they just don't have the dough to do it. Only the Giants can afford to dish out that kind of money. Based on their TV contract, merchandising, and media power. And because of it the Yomiuri Group retains its suffocating grip on Japanese baseball.

With regard to promising high school players, the Giants use yet another tactic. Unlike daigakusei [university students] and shakaijin [amateur] players, high school players don't get to pick which team to sign with. So the regular under the table Giants tactics would not apply to high school players. But to circumvent this inconvenience, the Giants sign the best players out of high school under the table anyway and assign them to affiliated Industrial League teams. After the player has matured in the Industrial Leagues and is ready to play for the Giants they make him enter the draft and pick the Giants as his team of choice (current Giants' player Nishi is an example of this). Again with the same system of pay offs to his coaches and others involved in the player's career.

This system ensures the Giants remain at the top of the pyramid and nobody can really compete with them in the field of signing talent.

It's a bit like Enron, only worse.

Are there no books on this subject? I guess Japanese kisha [reporters] will not write about this subject much because it is the equivalent of putting their head on the chopping block. But how about English language writers in Japan? Are there any books that I should know about? Please advise.