It's time for Senbatsu!
Welcome to the NeoGAF discussion thread for Senbatsu 2017, the Japan National High School Invitational Baseball Championship (Spring Koshien).
The tournament starts at 8pm ET tonight and will be streamed live at MBS' Senbatsu site (http://mainichi.jp/koshien/senbatsu/live). The first game is at 9:30ET tonight.
The National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament of Japan (referred to in shorthand as ”Spring Koshien" because it takes place at Koshien Stadium) is an annual high school baseball tournament organized by the Japanese national high school baseball federation in partnership with Mainichi Shinbun. Unlike the Summer Koshien, where all the competitors are the winners of their respective regional tournaments, the Spring Invitational, as the name implies, is an invitational tournament. In practice, since the bulk of the invites go to winners of fall regionals, getting to Senbatsu is a lot like getting to Summer Koshien: just win. But unlike the summer tournament, there are a few additional ways to get an invite. The winner of the fall Meiji Jingu tournament gets an automatic invitation (and as a result, another team from the winner's regional tournament will get an invitation). Additionally, the federation will invite two more teams from the Kanto/Tokyo area and the Chugoku/Shikoku region. Finally, the federation extends invitations to so called ”21st Century Schools" - schools that historically are not necessarily competitive, but the federation wants to give a chance to see what the nationals are like. The 21st Century School program is intended to encourage the development of baseball programs around the nation at a time when the sport is dominated by a few select private schools.
The tournament was founded in 1924 and this year is the 89th tournament.
The Japanese baseball nationals are pretty much the hypest thing ever. It's a single elimination tourney consisting of second and third year players (it takes place right before the beginning of the new school year, so first year players do not join the team until after Senbatsu).
Every player on the field has been dreaming of getting to this stage and as a result the games are high drama with lots of emotion. Plus you're pretty much guaranteed to see players who will be drafted out of high school to play pro ball in Japan and eventually make it to the US (like current Yankee ace Masahiro Tanaka).
In the first few rounds, there are three games per day. You can see the full schedule here (start times are local Japan time).
You can watch all the games at MBS' Senbatsu site: http://mainichi.jp/koshien/senbatsu/live/
Mainichi Shinbun also has Senbatsu apps on the Google and iOS stores.
If you want to watch a full game replay, go to:
http://mainichi.jp/koshien/senbatsu/2017/schedule/
Then click the game you want and you'll be taken to a page with all the videos from the game. (Note: as of this morning (3/19) the full version of day 1 games was generating errors and not playing.)
Your absolute best source for information about the tournament is @eigokokoyakyu on twitter + blog at https://eigokokoyakyu.wordpress.com/
Also, YakyuDB.com will have full schedules, results, and stats for the tournament. The broadcasts will be in Japanese, but it's not too hard to follow.
When you're looking at stats, some quick things you can look for:
打率 = batting average
打点 = RBI
本塁打 (likely abbreviated in stat lines as 本
= home run防御率 = ERA
2年 or ３年 = second year or third year student
Some things you'll hear during the broadcasts:
”Sanshin" = strikeout
”Karaburi sanshin" = swinging strikeout
”Tsu base" = two base, e.g. double
”Haitaa!" = home run call, it's gone
”Douten runnaa" = tying runner on base
”Straighto" or ”massugu straighto" = fastball
”Kaabu" = curveball
”Forku" = forkball
”Slidaa" = slider
For position players the broadcasts tend to use equivalents to the US terms rather than the native Japanese, so I won't list those because it's pretty easy, like ”sentaa" is the Center Fielder and ”shorto" is the Shortstop.
if you want to participate on twitter, use the hashtags #高校野球 (high school baseball), ＃センバツ (Senbatsu) and #甲子園 (Koshien).
There are three big powerhouses in the tournament - here are Eigokokoyakyu's summaries and power rankings (grades are pitching/hitting):
Riseisha
eigokokoyakyu said:
Osaka Toin
eigokokoyakyu said:
Waseda Jitsugyo
eigokokoyakyu said:
Riseisha plays the second game of opening day! Also last year's champs, Chiben Gakuen, are back but I don't think anyone gives them any more of a chance that they did last year...
I don't have any favorites in the draw this year, other than my usual plan to root for the Hokkaido team (Sapporo Dai-ichi) for as far as they go. And, of course, I'm extremely excited to see what Kotaro Kiymiya does. You're going to hear the name Kiyomiya a LOT. He's a certified monster, with over 75 home runs in his career to date (I do not know the current record; my favorite batter (Sho Nakata of the Nippon Ham Fighters) set a record with 86 in the middle part of last decade, but I believe that was broken a year or three later). Waseda guys usually go directly from high school to Waseda University, but if Kiyomiya breaks the trend and goes pro, he will easily be the most desired player in the first round lottery. Guys like this do not come around a lot. There's no guarantee that Waseda can win through to Summer Koshien since their pitching is not so good, so this may be the last time he plays on the main high school stage.
Eigokokoyakyu has previews for the first round here: https://eigokokoyakyu.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/brackets-up-and-this-time-some-analysis/ and rankings and analysis here: https://eigokokoyakyu.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/89th-haru-koushien-grading-the-field/
YakyuDB has a list of players to watch here: http://yakyudb.com/2017/03/19/3182017-89th-spring-koshien-some-players-to-watch/
Enjoy the tournament everyone! First person to complain about bunting has to sit in the corner for the rest of the first round.
