Summer Koshien

Having a free afternoon in Osaka, I decided to go out to Koshien stadium (about 20 minutes out of town) and check out the National Summer High School Baseball Tournament, or Koshien.　　For those not framiliar, this is the big summer tournament that is broadcast of TV every day here and is where Matsuzaka became a legend.

Koshien stadium is supposedly one of the more historic stadiums in Japan, so I wanted to also check it out. I was pleasantly surprised when I got there that general admission seats on the side of the outfield were only 500 yen (~ $4), so I could still have a few large size Asahi cans and still be under the 2500 yen budget I had in mind for the game.

Pretty cool tournament. Imagine having teams from every high school in the country play to get to a two week tournament that is played in Fenway, in front of a more or less full crowd. It must be incredibly exciting for the kids who get to play.

Showed up in the 3rd inning of the 3rd game of the day, and unfortunately just got there in time to see the team who's section I was in give up a 6 run inning, to make the score 6-2. I sort of felt like I had to root for the team who was down, because I was in their cheering section, although only about half of the section was up and chanting with every at bat, so I could just relax and drink my beer. The first game was pretty ho-hum however, ended up being 9-2, with the starter for the other team going 9 and never giving up another run (I think his name ended in -shima based on my limited knowledge of Kanji). He was throwing 147kph (91 MPH) gas and seemed pretty dominant.

Luckily though the games go very quickly, since the pitchers throw a lot of strikes and work fast. So, despite sweating off about 2 pounds in the hot Japanese sun, I decided to stick around for some of the next game, at least until the winner was obvious.

This time my team was from Meikun, which I could tell because their Jerseys were in English rather then Kanji, which about half the teams do. Of course a mini rally in the 1st makes the score 1-0 for the other guys, so I am starting to think that I am a jinx or something. Anyway, a couple of clean innings on both sides, with Meikun's pitcher ringing up quite a few guys and we start to see a classic pitchers duel in the making. In the 5th, a guy for Meikun hits a solo shot down the line, and now we are at 1-1. Both pitchers now settle in, and you start to get the sense that this game might finish under the lights.

Both starters finish the 9th, as the sun sets behind the mountains. I took note of the pitches on the last at bat of the 9th thrown by the Meikun pitcher (someone told me his name was Nagai) to see how he was doing.

- 144 kph (89 MPH) fastball, swing and miss.

- 90 kph (55 MPH) looping curve/ephus pitch, batter frozen for a called strike.

- 146 kph (90 MPH) fastball, out of the zone.

- 120 kph (75 MPH) breaking ball, swing and miss.

Needless to say he was still going strong.

Evidently there is no word in Japanese for bullpen, because we pressed on to the 12th with both pitchers still in. The other teams guy was more of a 120 kph junkballer, but obviously quite effective as well. Finely in the 12th, the Meikun pitcher hits a ringing single from the 9 hole, and is eventually pushed across with the help of an error to make the score 2-1. Then, you guessed it, Nagai comes back out to finish it in the 12th, finishing them 1-2-3. An incredible performance by Nagai, and most in my section leave happy.