Over the years many NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball) players have joined the MLB i.e. Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka, etc and found success and some American players have played there as well. Just wondering if anyone has been to any games.

I've been told the home team and away team has their own sections for fans. In the wake of the tragedy it's good to see baseball season has started again and it's something people can try and get their minds off of their problems with.

They usually have small sections for the hardcore fans who tend to make a ton of noise with drums and trumpets.

This is the best story ever - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Colonel

xD I've read about that. My favorite teams (only because they have my favorite players) are the Sendai Rakuten Eagles and the Hokkaido Nippon Hamfighters. Hisashi Iwakuma and Yu Darvish.

The closest we get to Japanese baseball overseas is definitely the World Baseball Classic which Japan has won both times xD oh and the Little League World Series (Chiba champs last year).

Any idea if they have adult baseball leagues (non-professional) in Japan? I tried to do some research into it, but not quite ready to start searching in Japanese so have not really been able to find anything out.

I`ve seen Ichiro play in the States but never been to a game here in Japan. When I finally find some friends that like sports maybe that will give me a reason to go to one.

As for other sports, I`ve been to numerous K-1 (kickboxing) and PRIDE (mixed martial arts) events over the years. The annual K-1 Grand Prix is a great show, even if you`re not real versed in the sport.

@julianjalapeno Any DREAM events? @Eadwyn You mean like...amateur softball type where it's just people playing?

Haven`t been to any DREAM shows as most of the fighters I like have moved on to the UFC or elsewhere, but if Alistair Overeem or Fedor do a DREAM event (ideally against each other) I`d be sure to go, although that`s more likely to happen in Strikeforce.

Japanese MMA (K-1 included) is in a sad state these days, I`m afraid.

I'm not a big baseball fan, but when I was there, it was during the World Cup and soccer popularity flared.

two years ago when i went to japan and got food poisoning i had no choice but to stay in the hotel room and watch tv.

flipping through the channels i saw american football played by japanese people! but it was pretty bad, it was like american high school level.

also, if nothing interesting happened, they'd just skip ahead in the game (it was taped) until something interesting happened.

and there were about 30 people watching in the crowd.

R_Y_O_THA_ILLIST Wrote:@julianjalapeno Any DREAM events? @Eadwyn You mean like...amateur softball type where it's just people playing?

Not softball, real baseball, but yeah an amateur league like that. Here in Washington there are a couple leagues where people 21+ can play baseball during the summer where the skill level of the different divisions range from recreational to ex-college players/ex-minor league players/ex-pro players (http://www.pssbl.com/). I'm planning on visiting Japan for the first time next year and if I enjoy it planning on trying to transfer to my company's branch in Tokyo for a year or so. Since I know Japan loves baseball so much I'm just interested to see if they have anything like that.

Even if you don't get to see any games live, there is baseball on TV nearly every weekend on several channels. They even televise High school and I'm sure I saw middle school baseball a few weeks back. Wish the J-League coverage was so prolific

I heard that the popularity of Baseball in Japan is on the decline.

Football meanwhile, thanks partly to the success of the national team in the Asia Cup (which they won this year) and the World Cup, is on the rise.

Football is definitely on the rise. Besides Football and baseball I'd say their next biggest westernized sport would be...Golf. xD No kidding. Look how many golfers are from Japan these days.

Gingerninja Wrote:Even if you don't get to see any games live, there is baseball on TV nearly every weekend on several channels. They even televise High school and I'm sure I saw middle school baseball a few weeks back. Wish the J-League coverage was so prolific

I am curious to know if you were able to find an adult baseball league. I will be in Minato-ku, Tokyo on business (Toshiba) for a few weeks, and would like to join in on training, or just be able to keep my am warm as during this time baseball season in the country I live in would have started.....

Eadwyn Wrote:

R_Y_O_THA_ILLIST Wrote:@julianjalapeno Any DREAM events? @Eadwyn You mean like...amateur softball type where it's just people playing?

Not softball, real baseball, but yeah an amateur league like that. Here in Washington there are a couple leagues where people 21+ can play baseball during the summer where the skill level of the different divisions range from recreational to ex-college players/ex-minor league players/ex-pro players (http://www.pssbl.com/). I'm planning on visiting Japan for the first time next year and if I enjoy it planning on trying to transfer to my company's branch in Tokyo for a year or so. Since I know Japan loves baseball so much I'm just interested to see if they have anything like that.

I am curious to know if you were able to find an adult baseball league. I will be in Minato-ku, Tokyo on business (Toshiba) for a few weeks, and would like to join in on training, or just be able to keep my am warm as during this time baseball season in the country I live in would have started.....

fakewookie Wrote:the success of the national team in the Asia Cup (which they won this year) and the World Cup, is on the rise.

Oh man, why did you have to bring that up? I am a socceroos fan and was in tears that night.