In Japan, Kōshien (甲子園) generally refers to the two annual baseball tournaments played by high schools nationwide culminating at a final showdown at Hanshin Kōshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo, Japan. They are organized by the Japan High School Baseball Federation in association with Mainichi Shimbun for the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in the spring (also known as "Spring Kōshien") and Asahi Shimbun for the National High School Baseball Championship in the summer (also known as "Summer Kōshien").Whiting, Robert. You Gotta Have Wa (Vintage Departures, 1989), p. 143.
Both of these nationwide tournaments enjoy widespread popularity similar to that of NCAA March Madness in the United States, arguably equal to or greater than professional baseball. Summer qualifying tournaments are televised locally and each game of the Spring and Summer tournaments at Kōshien are televised nationally on NHK alongside the TV channels associated with the newspapers organizing the tournaments. The tournaments have gone on to become national traditions, and large numbers of frenzied students and parents travel from their hometowns to cheer for their local team. It is common to see players walking off the field in tears after being eliminated from the tournament by a loss, especially during the Summer Tournament. It symbolizes the third-year players' retirement from high school baseball.
The star players of the championship team achieve a degree of celebrity status. For players, playing at Kōshien becomes a gateway to playing at the professional level. Due to the recruiting practices of Japanese high schools, top prospects often play on strong teams that were able to reach the final tournament at Kōshien. Many professional baseball players first made their mark at Kōshien, including Eiji Bandō, Sadaharu Oh, Koji Ota, Suguru Egawa, Masumi Kuwata, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Hideki Matsui, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish, Masahiro Tanaka, Yusei Kikuchi, and Shohei Ohtani.
Background There are two main tournaments: Japanese High School Baseball Invitational Tournament ("Spring Kōshien") Japanese High School Baseball Championship ("Summer Kōshien")
In addition, there is a separate and less well-known Meiji Jingu Baseball Tournament held each year in November at Jingu Baseball Stadium in Tokyo. Beginning with the 2002 tournament, the region of the winning school receives one extra bid in the following Spring tournament at Kōshien; this bid is typically given to the winning school as a matter of respect.
Particulars
In the week preceding the tournament in spring and summer, teams who have won a spot in the tournament each hold a 30-minute practice on the grounds of Hanshin Kōshien Stadium. This is mainly to help the players adjust to the environment of the stadium. In the summer, due to scheduling conflicts with the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball, the Tigers are forced to host their home games at Osaka Dome (in the distant past, the Tigers used to make a road trip every year during this period to allow the tournament to take place). This period was also called 死のロード (shi no ro-do, lit. "the Road Trip of Death") due the difficulties the team had to endure.
In addition, teams are able to practice during the tournament at public and private facilities made available in Nishinomiya, and neighboring Osaka, Amagasaki, and Kobe.
Usually, first-year students are not selected to take part in Spring Kōshien, so in their three years of high school, players have five chances to go to Kōshien.
Notable events and accomplishments Spring-Summer champions Known in Japanese as 春夏連続優勝 (haru-natsu renzoku yuusho) or Spring-Summer champions, this signifies the winning of both the senbatsu (Spring) and senshuken (Summer) tournaments in a calendar year. To date, this has been accomplished eight times:
+Spring-Summer champions YearSchoolSpringOpponentResultSummerOpponentResultNotes 1962Sakushin Gakuin (Tochigi)34thNichidai-san (Tōkyō)1 - 044thKurume Commercial (Fukuoka)1 - 0 1966Chūkyō Commercial (Aichi)38thTosa (Kochi)1 - 048thMatsuyama Commercial (Ehime)3 - 1Now known as Chūkyōdai Chūkyō 1979Minoshima (Wakayama)51stNamishō (Osaka)8 - 761stIkeda (Tokushima)4 - 3Namishō is now known as Daitaidai Namishō 1987PL Gakuen (Ōsaka)59thKantō Ichi (Tōkyō)7 - 169thJōsō Gakuin (Ibaraki)5 - 2 1998Yokohama (Kanagawa)70thKandai Ichi (Ōsaka)3 - 080thKyōto Seishō (Kyōto)3 - 0Daisuke Matsuzaka capped the feat with a no-hitter in the final against Kyōto Seishō 2010Kōnan (Okinawa)82ndNichidai-san (Tōkyō)10 - 5 (12)92ndTōkaidai Sagami (Kanagawa)13 - 1 2012Osaka Tōin (Osaka)84thKōsei Gakuin (Aomori)7 - 394thKōsei Gakuin (Aomori)3 - 0The first time the same two teams met in both the Spring and Summer finals. Kōsei Gakuin became the third team to reach three consecutive finals (and the only one to lose all three) 2018Osaka Tōin (Osaka)90thChiben Wakayama (Wakayama)5 - 2100thKanaashi Nogyo (Akita)13 - 2The first time a previous Spring-Summer champion achieved the feat again
Participation of overseas teams Before World War II, teams from Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria, which were all part of the Empire of Japan at the time, participated in the tournaments (in the spring only Taiwan took part). The first overseas teams to participate were Pusan Commercial School of Korea and Dalian Commercial School of Manchuria in the 1921 Summer Kōshien. Foreign teams have made it as far as the championship game, but have never won the tournament. The last tournament including foreign teams was the 1940 Spring Kōshien.
+Foreign teams advancing to the championship game YearTournamentSchoolResultOpponent 192612th SummerDalian Commercial (Manchuria)Runner-up2–1Shizuoka High (Shizuoka) 193117th SummerChiayi Agricultural (Taiwan)The journey of the team was depicted in an award-winning Taiwanese film, Kano in 2014.Runner-up4–0Chūkyō Commercial (Aichi)
Six-time Kōshien participants Currently, the maximum number of times a player can appear in Kōshien is five. However, under the former secondary school system, a player could appear more than five times. Here are two examples. YearTournament Tamotsu KusumotoAkashi Secondary (Hyōgo)Masao YoshidaChūkyō Commercial (Aichi) 1930 7th Spring 2nd year 19318th Spring3rd year 19329th Spring4th year3rd year 18th Summer4th year3rd year 193310th Spring5th year4th year 19th Summer5th year4th year 193411th Spring 5th year 20th Summer 5th year Total appearances66
Makeshift Kōshien The tournament was suspended due to the war from summer 1941 until spring 1946, with the exception of a "Promote the Fighting Spirit" tournament held by the Ministry of Education in 1942 at Kōshien. The number of teams was only 16 compared with 23 at the previous tournament, but each region held qualifying tournaments and sent teams to the national tournament. The military theme was prevalent at the tournament, with military slogans posted on the scoreboard, and traditional Japanese kanji characters replacing trendy English letters on the players' uniforms. The tournament proceeded smoothly and Tokushima Commercial (Tokushima) won the championship. However, since this tournament differed from past Summer Kōshiens hosted by Asahi Shimbun, it is not counted as an official Kōshien tournament.
Sacred "Dirt of Kōshien" In the 1937 Summer Kōshien, Kumamoto Tech (Kumamoto) advanced to the championship game, but lost. After the game, Kumamoto Tech player Tetsuharu Kawakami grabbed a handful of dirt from the playing field of Kōshien Stadium and put it in his uniform pocket as a memento. Some years later, in the 1949 Summer Kōshien, after Kokura High (Fukuoka) lost to Kurashiki Tech (Okayama) in the semifinals, Kokura pitcher Kunio Fukushima scooped up some Kōshien dirt and took it home. This has become known as the original scooping of . Since then, as a memento of their fleeting time on the hallowed grounds of Kōshien, players from the losing teams take home a pouch of the precious soil.
At the 1958 Summer Kōshien, Shuri High (Okinawa) became the first school to represent Okinawa (then under U.S. government rule) in a Kōshien tournament. They were eliminated in their first game by Tsuruga High (Fukui). After the game, they collected souvenirs of dirt and took them home. However, due to health regulations of the Ryūkyū government they were not allowed to keep the dirt, and it was confiscated. Some Japan Airlines flight attendants heard about this, and had a sea stone lying outside Kōshien Stadium sent to Shuri. Even today this "Monument of Friendship" lies in the yard of the school as a reminder of the first trip to Kōshien by a team from Okinawa.
Disqualifications In the past, if a scandal was uncovered at a high school chosen to participate in the Kōshien, the school was forced to withdraw from competition in the tournament. A team's participation in the tournament was affected even by scandals not related to team members. However, recently, such unrelated incidents have had less effect on a team's participation.
Disqualifications from Kōshien based on circumstances other than scandals have also occurred. In the 1922 summer tournament, Niigata Commercial High School's disqualification was based on a star player's illness.
+Disqualifications from Spring and Summer Kōshien Tournaments YearTournamentSchool Reason for Disqualification 19228th SummerNiigata Commercial (Niigata)Star player's illness 193512th SpringNaniwa Commercial (Ōsaka)Series of crimes connected with the school 193925th SummerTeikyō (Tokyo)Concerns regarding player qualifications 193925th SummerNichidai San (Tōkyō)Concerns regarding player qualifications 195224th SpringMoji East (Fukuoka)Player exempted from school examinations 195830th SpringNaniwa Commercial (Ōsaka)Student blackmail 196537th SpringKōchi Commercial (Kōchi)Assault involving player 196739th SpringTsuyama Commercial (Okayama)Assault involving former player 197143rd SpringHokkai (Hokkaidō)Assault involving students 197143rd SpringSanda Gakuen (Hyōgo)Assault involving students 197143rd SpringShiwakayama Commercial (Wakayama)Assault involving students 197143rd SpringNanbu (Wakayama)Assault involving students 197545th SpringMoji Industrial (Fukuoka)Attempted assault involving students 198456th SpringIkeda (Tokushima)Player DWI. 198456th SpringHakodatedai Yūto (Hokkaidō)Manager involved in hit and run accident 198557th SpringMeitoku Gijuku (Kōchi)Team president involved in criminal case 198759th SpringTōkaidai Urayasu (Chiba)Assault involving player 198961st SpringIwakura (Tōkyō)Assault involving team leader 199264th SpringUenomiya (Ōsaka)Assault of a student by former coach 199264th SpringKōbe Kōryō (Hyōgo)Use of tobacco by player 200072nd SpringTsuruga Kehi (Fukui)Player DWI 200587th SummerMeitoku Gijuku (Kōchi)Use of tobacco by player also involved in assault 200678th SpringKomadai Tomakomai (Hokkaidō)Use of tobacco and alcohol by former player.
Terminology for champions from different regions Shirakawa Barrier and the Tsugaru Strait For the first eight-plus decades of the Kōshien tournament, no team north of the Kantō region won a championship. This phenomenon became known in the high school baseball world as the Shirakawa Barrier after the actual fortification by that name, which was built near the border between the Kantō and Tōhoku regions in Shirakawa, Fukushima during the Nara Period (710–794).
At the 2004 Summer Kōshien, South Hokkaidō representative Komazawa University Tomakomai High (Komadai Tomakomai) took the title, and in one bound leaped over not only the Shirakawa Barrier but also the Tsugaru Strait separating Hokkaidō from Honshū. On the plane carrying the team and championship flag back home, at the moment the plane crossed the Tsugaru Strait, the passengers joined in unison for a celebration cheer.