Educational track of pro ball players
Some schools can be considered baseball player factories. PL Gakuen High School in Osaka is the most famous. Yokohama High, located a few train stops from where I live, is another.
As for colleges, Tokyo's Big Six League is to Pro Yakyu what the Ivy League colleges are to football and/or basketball in the U.S. There are a number of other high schools and colleges for each region that tend to produce large numbers of professional ball players.
And there is a special emphisis put on high school players who play in the bi-annual tournaments at Koshien. 436 of the 1399 players in my database(*) played in at least one Koshien tournament while in high school. That's 1/3rd of all players (foreign players included)! (*Note: My database isn't complete and may contain errors. Use this for a rough figure, not an exact one, please.) High school, college, and industrial league teams are all fields that I want to add to my database, but figuring out many of the names has been too much of a task for me to tackle so far. Someday...
- Are most Japanese baseball players high school and college graduates?
I've never heard of a player from the current generation who hadn't graduated from high school. Generally, after high school, kids have three choices:
- Professional baseball draft
- College
- Industrial leagues
Like some schools, there are several industrial teams that also emphisise baseball. These leagues act like an independent minor league system. Toyota, Nihon Seimei (life insurance), Nihon Sekiyu (oil), and several others tend to "educate" a large number of pros.
If you have more concrete questions, you may want to ask radio personality and Pro Yakyu fan Michiyo Ishida about high school and college ball's influence. Keep in mind, though, she's very busy and may not be able to reply right away. The less vague the question, the easier to get a reply.
Well, I hope this helps you get started. I'm sure that Google searches on key words like "Koshien" will turn up more information. Gambare!
This is a site about Pro Yakyu (Japanese Baseball), not about who the next player to go over to MLB is. It's a community of Pro Yakyu fans who have come together to share their knowledge and opinions with the world. It's a place to follow teams and individuals playing baseball in Japan (and Asia), and to learn about Japanese (and Asian) culture through baseball.
It is my sincere hope that once you learn a bit about what we're about here that you will join the community of contributors.
Michael Westbay
(aka westbaystars)
Founder
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Thanks to anyone who can answer this.
Jerry