FEATURE
Just for sport
 With Japan's co-hosting of the 2002
soccer World Cup just around the corner, this summer promises to be a bumper season for
sports lovers. But as Stuart
Braun discovers, not
everyone is playing ball.
Summer is approaching and the Japanese nation is heading out from under the kotatsu
(heated table) to frolic in the park with baseball bats and soccer balls. A popular form
of recreation, sport is also big business in Japan. The major league baseball games are
generally sold-out in advance, and the nightly televised games draw huge audiences. And
while the J-League soccer competition is failing to attract the crowds that saw it
challenge baseball as the nations pre-eminent ball code in the mid-1990s, Japan's
co-hosting of the 2002 World Cup, the first ever to be held in Asia, is giving the local
game unprecedented international attention. With the J-League season having kicked off in
late March and the two professional baseball leagues - the Central League and the Pacific
League - starting in April, the next six months will be a great opportunity to check out
some big stadium sporting action.
Home run
Baseball, otherwise known as yakyu (field ball), is far and away the most popular
sport in Japan. Since baseball was first imported from America in 1873, Japan's obsession
for the game has seen it rival the US as the world's most baseball-crazed country. With so
many people playing at school, college and club level, Japan is arguably the international
home of amateur baseball. But while the game remained a part-time pursuit until the fully
professional leagues were established in the 1930s, the emergence of big money pro teams
such as the Yomiuri Giants served to propel baseball to the forefront of the nation's
sporting consciousness.
Unlike
the US, where "self-interest" and career advancement are primary, professional
baseball players, like the Japanese salaryman, tend to stay at the same club "for
life," rejecting financial lures from elsewhere. |
Immortalized
in John Whiting's seminal portrait of baseball in the Far East, "You Gotta Have Wa,"
an important element in Japanese baseball is wa - group harmony - embodied in the
proverb "The nail that sticks up shall be hammered down." Wayne Graczyk, one of
Japan's leading baseball commentators, agrees that yakyu is distinctive from the American
game because it is engrained within Japanese culture and custom. "The strong mores
and honorifics of Japanese society are embedded in the game," he says.
Yakyu's pervading code of ethics dictates that a kohai (junior) hitter will
apologize to a sempai (senior) pitcher if he hits a home run. Maintaining the wa
means staying loyal to your home club, which since the 1950s have been owned and
administered by Japanese corporations including Nippon Ham, Yomiuri and Lotte. Unlike the
US, where "self-interest" and career advancement are primary, professional
baseball players, like the Japanese salaryman, tend to stay at the same club "for
life," rejecting financial lures from elsewhere. This sense of honor and commitment
extends to a highly disciplined, regimented and austere training program, with Japanese
players having to endure a far more grueling and protracted pre-season training schedule
than their American counterparts.
Exodus
 Like most
sports in Japan, Japanese baseball is facing some "major" challenges. With the
best pitchers, hitters and fielders leaving in increasing numbers to try their luck with
Major League clubs in the US, the big story in baseball these days is the progress of
Japanese players abroad. Most recently, the US Major League debuts of outfielders Ichiro
Suzuki and Tsuyoshi Shinjo have drawn intense media attention, and there is a real threat
that the US leagues will overshadow the local competition. Ten years ago there was little
interest in the American game, but this year cable TV channels such as SKY PerfecTV
announced they will provide daily live telecasts of Major League baseball. And while
Japan's best players are heading for greener pastures, the local league continues to
import minnows from the US minor leagues, compounding the inferiority of the local game.
According to sportswriter Marty Kuehnert, this trend is indicative of the declining status
of baseball in Japan. While the Yomiuri Giants remain the success story of the Japanese
game, most of the other clubs, in Kuehnert's words, are in "dire straits" due to
an exodus of top players and a diminished fan base. The problems are varied. Rigorous
training schedules and a lack of professionalism make the American game look extremely
attractive to local players. Umpires are untrained, there are no government-funded
training programs and coaches get jobs due to nepotism rather than acumen. "It's no
wonder then that the very best athletes want to flee this country," says Kuehnert.
More distressing is a lack of interest among younger people more impassioned by digital
technology rather than bats and balls. In a country with a declining population, this
trend will be difficult to reverse. Added to the mix is the fact that private companies,
once the mainstay of the sport, are withdrawing their patronage from baseball. Last year
40 companies disbanded teams, and over the past two decades three-quarters of
company-sponsored clubs have disappeared from the local leagues.
Remedial measures are in place, but Kuehnert argues that talk of entering the Yomiuri
Giants into the Major League is an "unrealistic" expedient. There is further
conjecture that a World Cup of baseball, touted to begin in 2003, might revive flagging
interest in the game. But for now, the 2001 season is crunch time for Japanese baseball,
and while seats to a Giants game remain hard to come by, it remains to be seen if the
lesser clubs can survive.
The Japanese baseball leagues end in October and are followed by the Japan Series, a
seven-game contest between the top two teams. The competition will be tough, and despite
the problems, this season promises to be an exciting one. Players to watch out for include
Yomiuri Giants slugger Hideki Matsui, voted the Central League's Most Valuable Player for
the 2000 season by his fellow professionals-Matsui last season led Japanese baseball with
42 homers and topped the pros with 108 RBIs. In the Pacific League, Fukuoka Daiei Hawks
first baseman Nobuhiko Matsunaka is expected to impress after being named Most Valuable
Player in 2000, a year in which he led the Hawks to their second straight pennant with a
.312 average, 33 HRs and 106 RBIs. Kuehnert is tipping the Hawks to win the Pacific League
and the Yokohama Bay Stars in the tighter Central League. But despite a lot of early
season injury worries, Graczyk is still picking pre-season favorites the Giants for the
Central League and likes the Nippon Ham Fighters for the Pacific title.
Goal
In 1993, Japan's J-League soccer competition kicked off with a capacity crowd of almost
60,000 watching the game between Verdi Kawasaki and Yokohama Marinos at Tokyo's National
Stadium. Professional soccer has since threatened to become Japan's glamour sport,
particularly after Japan, along with Korea, was given the rights - in 1997 - to host the
2002 World Cup. Yet, like baseball, soccer has fallen on hard times, and the 2001 season
will be a litmus test for the future of the game both at a domestic and international
level.
While
the J-League was a unanimous success over the first three years - in 1994 over five
million people turned out with an average attendance of almost 20,000 - the initial
interest has started to wane. |
When the
J-League was launched on May 13, 1993, it had ten teams in a single-division format. Since
then, the league has grown, and now consists of 28 teams in two divisions. But while the
J-League was a unanimous success over the first three years - in 1994 over five million
people turned out with an average attendance of almost 20,000 - the initial interest has
started to wane. Last year, for instance, four million fans turned out to see an expanded
competition at an average attendance of only 11,000. The J-League recently took measures
to stem the decline, announcing that the regular season will shift from the current
spring-to-autumn format to a European autumn-to-spring style in 2006-a move that
presumably will limit competition from baseball.
But the league has had a lasting and beneficial effect on soccer in Japan, Asia and the
rest of the world. Without the J-League, it is unlikely Japan could have become a World
Cup host for 2002. In addition, the J-League, which attracts quality players from around
the world, has been the platform from which Japan's best players have gained invaluable
experience overseas. Recently, some local grown talent has moved to the elite leagues in
Europe, with Hidetoshi Nakata notably making a successful move to Italian League leaders
A. S. Roma and national striker Akinori Nishizawa playing for Spanish First Division side
Espanyol. While players such as Hiroshi Nanami, who now plays for Jubilo Iwata in the
J-League first division, failed to survive in the top flight Italian league, Japanese
players are getting vital exposure to high-quality football in the lead-up to the World
Cup.
The hosting of the 17th world championship of soccer in 2002 has already been a big boost
to the local game, particularly in terms of infrastructural development. Ten new stadiums
are nearing completion, including the Sapporo Dome, designed by architect Hiroshi Hara,
which is arguably the most advanced indoor stadium in the world. A "Hovering Soccer
Stage," Sapporo Dome features the world's first air-floating, movable pitch system,
which enables the whole soccer field (covered in natural lawn) to be moved into the dome,
meaning that games can be played under the best conditions unaffected by the weather.
 This summer
will be a great opportunity to survey the national team's intensive preparations for the
soccer World Cup. "Our team is in good condition," Manager Philippe Troussier
said in Tokyo recently as he named his 22-member squad for Japan's game against France in
March. "We'll show what our soccer is all about, which is active, dynamic and
powerful." Jostling with Korea as the powerhouse of Asian football, Japan is the
current holder of the Asian Cup, and many of the winning members will form the basis of
Troussier's World Cup squad. Espanyol striker Nishizawa, Jubilo midfielder Nanami, Gamba
Osaka midfielder Junichi Inamoto, Shimizu S-Pulse defender Ryuzo Morioka, Yokohama Marinos
goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi and Urawa Reds midfielder Shinji Ono all played in the
match against France, the 1998 World Cup holders, on March 24.
But for all of Troussier's confidence, his team were resoundingly thrashed 5-0 by the
world champions. While Japan made it to the World Cup for the first time in 1998, they
have a long way to go before they can challenge soccer's superpowers from Europe and South
America. The next few months will therefore be critical. The French match will be followed
by an away game against Spain on April 24, while Japan will challenge for the
Confederation Cup from May 31-June 10 and the Kirin Cup starting in late June. Japan is
also expected to play Nigeria in England in October, while a game against the Netherlands
later in the year will round off this summer's World Cup preparations.
Game, set and match
The Japanese are not renowned for their tennis-playing prowess, however in recent years a
couple of women players have had unprecedented success on the international tour. The
US$1.18 million Toray Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament, played in March at the Tokyo
Metropolitan Gymnasium, saw Shinobu Asagoe and Ai Sugiyama win through to the
quarterfinals against the world's best players. Sugiyama, who hails from Tokyo, has a
career-high ranking of 15 and remains the great hope of women's tennis in Japan. But
following in the steps of Kimiko Date, who reached No. 4 in the world and was a
semi-finalist at the Australian Open, will not be easy. Recently falling 20 places to
number 49 in the world rankings, Sugiyama, at age 26, might find it difficult to revive
her standing in world class tennis. But Japan is still pinning its hopes on her powerful
ground stroke game. With the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open all coming up in the
next four months, all eyes will be on Sugiyama and Asogoe to see if Japan can make an
impact at the Majors.
The whistle is about to blow on professional sports in Japan. With interest at an all-time
low, the national sporting culture is heading into a make or break era. While baseball,
soccer and tennis are having specific difficulties, Japan's poor showing at the Sydney
Olympics shows up more systemic problems. But the current economic and political malaise
is unlikely to help matters, with training programs and infrastructural development
depending on increased government support. In the meantime, "Japan is becoming the
laughingstock of international sport," says Kuehnert. With the World Cup looming,
Japan's sporting community faces some big challenges if it is break back into the game. |
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