<h3><strong>&#8216;Professional baseball players get way too much time off, don&#8217;t they?&#8217; &#8230;</strong></h3>
<p> It has been several months since the Japan Series ended with the Orix winning the championship. During the year-end and New Year&#8217;s holidays, we will see many professional baseball players on TV variety shows and appearances at local events, including Yakult&#8217;s Munetaka Murakami, who had a very successful season, but we cannot wait for the days when professional baseball games are held every day.</p>
<p> The regular season of professional baseball lasts from the end of March to early November, with 143 league games (including interleague games), plus the Climax Series (CS) and the Japan Series. The remaining nearly six months of the season is a period when there are no official games.</p>
<p> This has led some to ask, &#8220;Don&#8217;t professional baseball players have too much time off?&#8221; Is the off-season almost like a vacation? But of course, the off-season is not all vacations. The off-season is not all holidays, of course. The players are busy with spring and fall camps and practices, open games, contract renewals, team events, and voluntary training.</p>
<p> Many professional baseball fans are interested in the progress of camps and practices, as well as the smiles and behind-the-scenes stories they don&#8217;t usually see on variety shows, but they also want to see more serious games between professionals.</p>
<figure id="attachment_287781" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-287781" style="width: 4589px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="2eeff6cd"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/01/aflo_205225858.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-287781" class="wp-caption-text"> Kitsune Dance&#8221; and &#8220;Murakami,&#8221; two words related to professional baseball, are among the top 10 new words and phrases for 2022&#8230; (Photo: AFLO)</figcaption></figure>
<h3><strong> Is &#8220;Baseball&#8217;s Version of the Emperor&#8217;s Cup&#8221; a Dream</strong></h3>
<p> I wonder if it would be possible to have a national tournament in baseball, similar to the Emperor&#8217;s Cup in soccer, in which both amateur and professional players can participate. Many baseball fans may have wondered this at least once.</p>
<p> In the same way as the Emperor&#8217;s Cup, the tournament would include 12 professional baseball teams, as well as independent league, adult, university, and possibly high school teams, with about 100 teams participating to determine the best baseball team in Japan.</p>
<p> The professional teams are seeded into the tournament, and the other teams play from the first round. In addition to teams from independent leagues such as the Hi no Kuni Salamanders (Kyushu Asian League) and the Shinano Gran Cerros (BC League), teams from the National Inter-City Baseball Tournament, ENEOS and Toyota Motor Corporation, which have won the Japan Adult Baseball Championship, and Asia University, which has won the National University Baseball Championship, also participate. The baseball season is more than soccer, and amateurs are more likely than professionals to participate.</p>
<p> In baseball, it may be more difficult for amateurs to beat professionals than in soccer, but there may be a chance to beat professional teams in the adult and independent leagues. The main prerequisite for success is to obtain sponsors and to keep the event unprofitable, but above all, the realization of unusual matchup cards and great upsets will attract attention, which will hopefully increase the number of fans and the number of players.</p>
<figure id="attachment_287797" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-287797" style="width: 4589px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="79e1b73c"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/01/aflo_201423682.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-287797" class="wp-caption-text"> In the final of the Emperor&#8217;s Cup JFA 102nd All-Japan Soccer Championship held in October 2022, J2 Kofu won the championship for the first time in a &#8220;come-from-behind&#8221; fashion. The total attendance for all games was approximately 240,000, and the final was broadcast live on NHK Sogo (Photo: Afro).</figcaption></figure>
<h3><strong> A Hopeless Disconnect Between Pro and Amateurs</strong></h3>
<p> Just imagining this tournament would be exciting, but unfortunately, the possibility of a &#8220;baseball version of the Emperor&#8217;s Cup&#8221; seems extremely unlikely.</p>
<p> In the Japanese baseball world, there has been a great disconnect between professionals and amateurs since the &#8220;Yanagawa Incident&#8221; (*) in 1961, and exchange itself has been prohibited. In Japan, there are no governing bodies or organizations for professional and amateur baseball, or even for hardball, semi-hardball, and softball, depending on age, occupation, school, gender, and so on. In baseball, there is no governing body to unite them.</p>
<p> For this reason, baseball&#8217;s version of the Emperor&#8217;s Cup, a national tournament for professionals and amateurs, has not yet been realized, and it is unlikely to be held in the future.</p>
<p> In hardball, the Emperor&#8217;s Cup has been awarded to the winning team of the Tokyo Rokko Daigaku Baseball Tournament since 1964, and it is difficult to get a new name for the Emperor&#8217;s Cup in the first place.</p>
<p><em> *The Yanagawa Incident: In the absence of a draft system and in the absence of an agreement, the professional baseball team signed a contract with a baseball player from the working people&#8217;s side, which led to the decision by the working people&#8217;s side to sever ties with the professionals. The student baseball world agreed with this decision, and the exchange between professionals and amateurs came to a halt.</em></p>
<h3><strong> Realization of a &#8220;Cup Competition&#8221; Including Independent Leagues</strong></h3>
<p> Even if a &#8220;baseball version of the Emperor&#8217;s Cup&#8221; is difficult, it would be more interesting if the number of professional baseball teams could be expanded to include more opponents, but as shown in &#8221; <strong>Now is the time to expand from 12 to 16 teams&#8230; &#8216;This is the only reason&#8217; why professional baseball is less exciting than the major leagues,</strong> &#8221; this too is likely to be difficult due to vested interests. As I showed in &#8220;Why is pro-baseball not as exciting as the big leagues?</p>
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<p><a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/281935"> Click here for &#8221; <strong>Now is the time to expand from 12 to 16 teams</strong>&#8230; &#8216;This is the only reason&#8217; why pro baseball is not as exciting as the big leagues.</a></p>
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<p> Even if a &#8220;baseball version of the Emperor&#8217;s Cup&#8221; is impossible due to pro-amateur issues, and even if it is not realistically possible to have 16 teams in professional baseball anytime soon, there are some things that can be done by professionals alone.</p>
<p> For example, how about a professional baseball cup competition like the J-League Cup (Lewan Cup) in soccer? The cup competition would be held with around 30 teams, including the 12 professional baseball teams, the second team (farm league) teams, and teams from independent leagues such as the BC League, Shikoku Island League plus, Kyushu Asian League, and Hokkaido Frontier League. The 12 professional baseball teams, including the teams that have made it to the Japan Series, could be given seeding rights.</p>
<p> Sponsorships could be solicited, and prize money could be offered to the winners. If the Cup is followed by a draft and contract renewals, for example, it may lead to the draft selection of players who have not stood out in the independent leagues.</p>
<p> Ultimately, it would be great if a &#8220;Super Cup&#8221; between the Japan Series champion and the Cup champion could be realized.</p>
<h3><strong> Eliminate &#8220;CS&#8221; and &#8220;Fall Camp&#8221; to avoid increased burden</strong><strong> </strong></h3>
<p> Of course, there are many who are skeptical about the realization of a cup competition. The following are some of the reasons: the league has 143 league games, plus the CS and the Japan Series; the schedule is already overcrowded with camps and voluntary training; some positions, such as pitchers, have a heavy workload; the competition itself is impossible if the season is too late and too cold; and the current framework attracts enough players and is profitable.</p>
<p> To address these points, how about eliminating the CS and fall camps, for example, in order to avoid overcrowded schedules and a harsh winter season?</p>
<p> Instead of &#8220;If we don&#8217;t win the league championship, we will still have the CS,&#8221; it would be healthier and more enjoyable to &#8220;aim for both the league championship and the cup championship.</p>
<p> In addition, even though the league season has just ended, it would be more attractive to both fans and players to have new opportunities for actual competition in the form of cup competitions, instead of fall practice and fall camps, where the teams and managers do not switch between on- and off-season activities, and where the teams are just &#8220;doing what they are told&#8221; for now. It would also have the advantage of generating new entertainment revenue for both the team and the players. Practice and camps are important, but professional baseball should be a place to attract and earn money.</p>

<figure id="attachment_287782" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-287782" style="width: 4589px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="7e9d745b"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/01/aflo_205218257.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-287782" class="wp-caption-text"> The annual grand prize for the new word/popular word award in 2022 is &#8220;Murakami&#8221; (photo: Afro).</figcaption></figure>
<h3><strong> The &#8220;Four Crowns</strong><strong> Aiming to achieve the &#8220;crown</strong></h3>
<p> Although there is a concern that too much burden will be placed on pitchers, it may be possible to devise a way to make it so that young players are the main players. For young players and veterans on the verge of retirement, participation in the Cup should provide an opportunity to showcase their skills.</p>
<p> While a &#8220;baseball version of the Emperor&#8217;s Cup&#8221; and expansion to 16 teams would be a great success, there are vested interests and ties to the past, and the hurdles are likely to be high. On the other hand, there may be ways to make the tournament more attractive than it is now by reviewing the existing schedule and structure within professional baseball, such as by creating a cup competition.</p>
<p> If the achievement of the &#8220;Four Crowns&#8221; &#8211; winning the league championship, the interleague tournament, the Japan Series, and the Cup &#8211; becomes a new goal for professional baseball teams, the game will become even more exciting than it is now.</p>


 Financial consultant and president of Malibu Japan Co. After working for Mitsubishi Bank, Citigroup Securities, and Citibank, he established the company in 2013. He has visited more than 60 countries around the world. He is an expert on resorts in Japan and abroad, including the Bahamas, Maldives, Palau, Malibu, Los Cabos, Dubai, Hawaii, Niseko, Kyoto, and Okinawa. He graduated from Keio University in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in economics and received a master's degree in economics from Aoyama Gakuin University in 2000. His numerous publications include "Bank Zero Era" (Asahi Shimbun Publications), "Why Niseko Only Became a World Resort" (Kodansha + Alpha Shinsho), and "Jibanka Natsuki" (The Extinction of Regional Banks) (Heibonsha).

 Katsuhide Takahashi

 It has been a few months since the Japan Series ended. As a professional baseball fan, I am interested in the progress of the camps and practices, the smiles and behind-the-scenes stories that I don't usually see on variety shows, but I still want to see more serious games between professionals.

Is it possible to create a &#8220;baseball version of the Emperor&#8217;s Cup&#8221; or a &#8220;cup competition&#8221;&#8230;This is the only reason why professional baseball is lacking compared to soccer.

Is it possible to create a “baseball version of the Emperor’s Cup” or a “cup competition”…This is the only reason why professional baseball is lacking compared to soccer.

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