Adjust Font Size: A A       Guest settings   Register

Age Requirement in Japan?

Discussion in the Ask the Commish forum
Age Requirement in Japan?
What is the age requirement to play baseball in Japan? Do you have to have graduated college? Thanks!
Comments
Re: Age Requirement in Japan?
[ Author: NipponHam11 | Posted: Nov 7, 2007 10:30 AM | SFT Fan ]

You see a lot of 18 year old kids fresh out of high school in NPB. Usually, if the players were superstars at Koshien, then they attracted scouts, which in turn leads to a possible drafting.

Some examples of this are Daisuke Matsuzaka, Masahiro Tanaka (Ma-Kun), and many many others.
Re: Age Requirement in Japan?
[ Author: Jbroks86 | Posted: Nov 7, 2007 11:03 AM | SFT Fan ]

- Do you have to have graduated college?

One only has to pass junior high to meet the minimum education requirement in Japan. So, no, you don't have to graduate high from college to play baseball in Japan. In fact a lot of the players who are drafted have only gone through high school.

There have been cases of players as young as 15 years old that I'm aware of, such as in the case of Hanshin pitcher Kento Tsuijmoto who was drafted by the Tigers and is the youngest player drafted at the age of 15.
About

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

Search for Pro Yakyu news and information
Copyright (c) 1995-2024 JapaneseBaseball.com.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.