Baseball Teams Suck? A critic who played through college offers a serious analysis of why baseball teams are “held in contempt.”

The kicker is Matsuko Deluxe.

On December 1, the Hiroshima Prefectural Police filed charges against two third-year students for assault in the case of violence by upperclassmen against underclassmen in the hardball team at Hiroryo High School.

The violence problem at Hiroryo, which came to light in July as a result of an SNS complaint, is still under investigation by a third-party committee set up by the school, and is not a thing of the past. Against this backdrop, “Introduction to Baseball for the Culture-Based, Dissecting “The Baseball Club Sucks,”” released in March, has been attracting a lot of attention. Author and writer Toshi Nakano looks back.

The book was coincidentally released on March 18, the day the spring Senbatsu Koshien (high school baseball tournament) opened. People in the baseball industry wondered why we went to the trouble of coinciding the release date with the opening day of the season, and friends in the baseball industry asked why we chose …… as the title of the book. When the book was first released, there were more reactions to the timing and title than to the content of the book.

The atmosphere changed after the Hiroyo problem was revealed. After that, I have the impression that more and more people picked up the book because they were interested in the book’s contents, such as how the modern baseball club was formed.

We interviewed Mr. Nakano, who has been cutting into the old-fashioned baseball clubs.

Before going into the main topic, I asked him about the title of his book, “The Baseball Club Sucks,” which is straight out of a fireball, “Do you have a grudge against the baseball club? Mr. Nakano denied it with a smile.

I myself was a member of the baseball team in high school and college, and I like baseball so much that I am still coaching the junior high school baseball team (laughs). The original title goes back eight years, to 2017, when Matsuko Deluxe said on a TV show, ‘Nine out of ten (people from baseball clubs in the media industry) are assholes,’ which became a hot topic on social media at the time.

Matsuko’s expression may have verbalized a feeling of discomfort that many people originally had. Although the title is provocative, I myself believe that I have the background to be called ‘baseball clubs suck.

What are the factors that lead people to call baseball clubs “shit”? Mr. Nakano says, “Factors are complex and cannot be expressed in a single word,” but he points out two major structural problems. He then points out two major structural problems: the “player system” and the “proximity of private schools to management.

The “player system” is a system in which resources are concentrated on a small number of people selected from a large number of club members, and the idea is to strengthen them. Baseball is a sport that tends to fall into this category. In baseball, a vast field is defended by only nine players. There is physically no room for everyone, from regulars to beginners, to occupy the field. The number of players is still limited when it comes to practice, but when it comes to games, the number of players is limited.

In fact, a strong school may have as many as 100 reserve players in the stands. They support the dozen or so members who participate in the games, and there is no doubt that they are friends who have worked hard together. While this phenomenon is often talked about as a beautiful story, it is rarely discussed head-on whether a sport in which 100 people cheer for the team and only a dozen or so play is a “team sport.

If you win, you win. Once a team wins, it is recognized as a correct effort and a beautiful story, and these questions fade into the background. Mr. Nakano continues.

The origin of “Batchcoy!” The Origins of

It is easy to imagine that “Batchikoi!” is closely tied to the management of private schools. With the declining birthrate, the most effective means of attracting students is to enhance the educational content of the school to improve its academic performance, or to increase its name recognition by winning in sports.

Among amateur sports tournaments, Koshien attracts an outstanding amount of attention. Winning and competing in Koshien and winning at Koshien should raise the school’s profile and fill enrollment capacities. Many schools are forced to rely on the success of their baseball teams for advertising and to strengthen cohesion within the school.

This is the reason why baseball clubs are often given preferential treatment. This has become the norm, and many alumni have graduated without knowing why they were given preferential treatment. Mr. Nakano goes a step further and points out, “At the root of this isthe culture of the baseball club, which has somehow continued without questioning the practices that have continued for a long time.

The “preferential treatment of baseball clubs” practiced by some of the stronger schools is not the only reason for this. In the more than 100-year history of baseball, there are many practices whose original meaning has been forgotten and only the formality remains.

In baseball, there is a mysterious chanting of “Batchkoi! is a mysterious chant in baseball. There is also the custom of bowing when entering the field. I believe that these customs, which give the impression of “athleticism,” have gradually taken root since the early 20th century.

One of the major events that triggered this custom was in 1896. The tennis club at the old Daiichi High School, which was at the center of the spread of baseball in Japan, was discontinued on the grounds that tennis was “effeminate. The baseball club of the time was impatient with this. This was because baseball at that time was a new culture that had just been introduced from the U.S., and it was like a cutting-edge, cool recreation enjoyed by fashion-conscious young people.

The Ichiko High School baseball club, fearing the closure of the club, decided to change from “enjoyable baseball” to “baseball with a hard heart,” as if it were an extension of the martial arts.

I believe that this is the root of the “youtei” and “ichiryo” (bowing) that have taken root. In other words, although today it is not always necessary to shout out or bow, it remains as a custom because that is what a baseball team is supposed to be like.

This is not to say that shouting and bowing are wrong. I am not saying that shouting and bowing are wrong. I think this is the key to changing the old baseball team,” Nakano said.

The year 2025 was a year in which it became clear that bad sports club activities still exist in many parts of the country. Dissecting the “baseball clubs suck” may be the first step toward updating the baseball clubs in Reiwa.