NPB Tracker

Induction Weekend for the Hall of Fame is coming up at Cooperstown to honor the newest members. Associating the Hall of Fame with Cooperstown comes natural for baseball fans here in the States, but do people in Japan know where the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is in their country? I had the opportunity to visit Cooperstown sometime ago, but never had the chance  to visit the Hall in Japan. If some of our readers had the opportunity feel free to chime in.

The Baseball Hall of Fame and Musuem exists inside the Tokyo Dome where the Yomiuri Giants play. The Hall of Fame opened in June  of 1959 and was moved to the current location inside the Tokyo Dome in 1988. We will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum this season. Within the 50 year history, 168 baseball personnel have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, including the four new members elected this year.

The election process to the Baseball Hall of Fame is similar from the one at Cooperstown. I will go into details regarding the election regulation for the players (For others click here).

• Players will be eligible five years after retirement and will be on the ballot for the following 15 years
• About 300 writers with 15 or more years of experience will be eligible to vote
• Players receiving 75 percent or more votes will be inducted into the Hall of Fame

In a recent news, the members of the American Collegiate National Team took their time to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum while participating in the USA vs. Japan Collegiate All-Star Series. The award ceremony for the inductees of the 2009 season will take place at Game One of the All-Star Game in Sapporo Dome.

I first learned of Bruce Baskin’s World Baseball Today radio program and website when he left a comment on my post on world baseball from earlier in the year. I checked out the site and was immediately impressed by the breadth of the content. I contacted Bruce with some questions about the state of baseball around the world today, and he was kind enough to share his insight.

NPB Tracker: Can you describe your website, podcast and radio show?

Bruce Baskin: World Baseball Today has primarily been a radio program on Radio Miami International since 2007. WRMI is a 50,000-watt shortwave station that can reach listeners on all continents when weather conditions are right, and they’ve been running WBT Sunday mornings at 10:30 Eastern since Day One. The show is also repeated 2-3 times later in the week, depending on how their schedule goes. WRMI’s owner-GM, Jeff White, is president of the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters, and he’s been super to work with. It’s been a really nice fit.

The WBT blog and podcasts have both been pretty ancillary, to be honest. Once I’m done producing the radio program and mp3 it to Miami, I’ll post the text on the blogsite and upload the program audio to the podcast site, although I’ve been having “issues” with Podbean, which is the server for the podcasts, and I haven’t been able to make the program available
for online listeners. Really kind of frustrating.

NT: What sources do you use to gather the information for your site? Do you have English-language sources for all these leagues?

BB: Most of my sources have been in English, although I do use Google translations from time to time… sometimes THOSE need translating as well. I go through MLB.com’s story archives for major league news, MILB.com for stories from the Mexican League and, surprisingly, the Caribbean winter leagues… they really cover those well. I’ve found BaseballdeCuba.com to be a good source for the Cuban National Series, although sometimes you have to do a little digging for stuff.

There are a lot of good sources for baseball in Asia: JapaneseBaseball.com, NPBTracker.com and JapanBall.com are all good for stories about the Central and Pacific Leagues, and JapaneseBaseball.com is a good starting point for news from South Korea and Taiwan, too. There are also three good blogs I use. EastWindupChronicle.com is a good one, and there’s also TaiwanBaseball.com and KoreaBaseball.com. I’ve found the Baseball Philippines website to be informative, although it’s a little incomplete and runs behind sometimes.

For European baseball, there’s a very good “one-stop” website called Mister-Baseball.com that I use almost exclusively for stories from the leagues there. It’s an absolute dream for anyone tracking all the national leagues over there.

NT: Where are we seeing baseball growing in popularity?

BB: I’m not sure there’s any one place where the game is really exploding, but it seems to be growing fairly quickly in Southeast Asia. Indonesia and Thailand have decent national teams, and I know there’s a lot of interest in building the game in Vietnam and Cambodia. I have to admit I was surprised at how well Pakistan and Sri Lanka did in the Asia Games earlier this year because cricket is THE big sport in both places. This is one region where baseball could do something in the next few years.

I think there’s a slow but steady growth in Europe, although soccer is by far the biggest sport pretty much everywhere. The two wins over the Dominican Republic by The Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic were huge for European baseball, but I’m not sure that’s translated into a growth spurt.

There are some MLB teams opening academies in Brazil, so that might be a place to keep an eye on, too. There are some great athletes down there.

NT: Conversely, the Internet is making information more available than ever before. Are we seeing an increase in interest in international baseball from American fans?

BB: I think there’s been some increase in interest, but Americans are pretty insular when it comes to sports and culture. For instance, sports fans will watch the biggest events, like soccer’s World Cup or Olympics basketball, but that hasn’t translated into those same people following English Premier League soccer or pro basketball in Spain or Italy, for instance. Generally speaking, if the USA isn’t directly involved in something, we don’t tend to pay attention.

The World Baseball Classic is potentially a terrific showcase for international baseball, but you seem to hear almost as much complaining and criticism of the WBC as you do praise among Americans. I’ve felt for a while that if the WBC were whittled down to a one-week midsummer tournament exclusively in American ballparks, interest would grow in it. Right now, it’s a little bit long for American fans, and having it during spring training seems to offend some people, including baseball people. I am no fan of Bud Selig, but I applaud his desire to see the WBC succeed. As a fan of the sport, I love the WBC.

NT: Where is the next source of international talent?

BB: There’s a lot of effort to develop talent in Europe, and I think we’re starting to see MLB teams get more involved with tryout camps and short-term academies over there. I’ve mentioned Southeast Asia as a potential breeding ground, and there’s plenty of room to grow the game in places like South America and the Indian subcontinent. The difficulty baseball faces right now is that in these countries, they’re dealing with raw athletes and not ballplayers because people don’t generally grow up playing baseball.

I’m very interested in seeing how those two young pitchers the Pirates signed out of India do, because that’s a country of over a billion people with a total mania for another bat-and-ball sport, cricket. Baseball and cricket are obviously two different sports, but they share some very basic elements.

I have to admit I’m not very optimistic about mainland China’s chances of becoming a baseball hotbed. There has been a lot of time, effort and money spent trying to develop baseball there, but it doesn’t seem to be catching on. They’re already demolishing the two stadiums used for baseball in the Beijing Olympics, and I don’t foresee the government getting behind the sport…and if the Chinese government ain’t behind something, it ain’t gonna succeed.

NT: What are your favorite leagues to follow as a fan?

BB: You know, I’ve kind of gotten into Baseball Philippines a bit over the past couple of years. The BP website is a little incomplete and inconsistent at times, and it was really hard to track them last fall, but I love the passion Jonas Terrado has in his game accounts. He cares, and it shows. I’ve enjoyed following guys like Vio Roxas, Vladimir Eguia and the Laurel brothers (Jay and Matt). The Philippines has a lot of potential in baseball. It’s a country with over 100 million people and baseball’s a fairly popular sport there. I’ve thought the American military presence there for so many decades should’ve led to baseball’s growth in the same way it’s grown in other countries we’ve occupied in the past, but it just hasn’t worked out.

Another place whose leagues I enjoy following is Mexico. Only place in the world where pro baseball is played year-round, and there’s a great history of the sport there. I spent two years writing about Mexican baseball online with a column called “Viva Beisbol,” and I was really surprised how popular it became. Overwhelmed, actually, because “Viva Beisbol” was just a creative outlet for me on the OurSportsCentral.com website and I had zero expectations in terms of public interest. However, there were about 6-7 other websites that picked it up and carried it, including the Mexican Pacific League’s official website. To this day, that’s probably the biggest honor I’ve ever gotten in writing or broadcasting.

NT: What’s next for World Baseball Today?

BB: Ironically, I’m getting back into Mexican baseball in August. I’ve decided to sort of revive “Viva Beisbol” as a radio program called “Baseball Mexico” on WRMI, and it will replace “World Baseball Today” on Sunday mornings.

It was a tough choice to make because I’ve had fun covering all the different leagues that are out there, but I’ve gotten frustrated because the nature of WBT has made it an “inches deep, miles wide” type of program. A lot of what I’ve been doing with WBT has been somewhat redundant because I’m giving out information already available to fans online, and my past experience with “Viva Beisbol” indicates a lot of interest among Americans in Mexican baseball, especially people in border states like Texas, Arizona and California.

This doesn’t mean I’ll stop following baseball in other leagues. I want to see who wins the Pacific League pennant in Japan, whether Puerto Cruz runs the table during the playoffs in Spain, and what kind of numbers Roberto Petagine ends up with in Korea.

NT: Thanks Bruce!

The post I wrote yesterday on the discarding the MLB draft certainly generated some lively debate. I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to comment. I’m also happy to see that this topic spawned interesting conversation on other sites, particularly Orioles Hangout.

To summarize what I wrote yesterday, the problems that I observed and would like to see addressed were:

• the inequity between players born in the US and outside the US
• the fact that the draft system can still be gamed by teams, players, and agents
• the potential for domestic leagues in other countries (Japan in particular) to get into bickering matches with MLB over territorial rights to players

I realize that this is in some ways an oversimplification, but my biggest point is that the current MLB draft is an outdated system that fails to account for the diversity we have in baseball today. My proposal was to eliminate the draft entirely, and replace it with a regulated free agent market, in which teams would have specific parameters on spending and number of players acquired. Some readers seemed to like the idea, others had different suggestions. Here are a few:

• force all players wishing to enter MLB through a draft
• move to a free agent system with strict bonus slots (nod to Crawdad @ Orioles Hangout)
• change the ages at which players are allowed to sign with MLB organizations
• keep the draft, but enforce caps on bonuses
• leave it alone

I’ll end this one with a question: what would you do to improve the MLB player entry system?

Nippon Ham’s Konkatsu Seat event resulted in a big hit mentioned in a previous post, and will continue to be an opportunity for fans to meet their future wives or husbands at the ballpark. The next event will be scheduled for the series against the Saitama Seibu Lions, September 21 to 23rd.

People probably had differing opinions regarding the event at first, but the results are in and is producing couples and most importantly, a new target audience  for Nippon Ham to sell tickets to. It will be interesting if other teams buy into this type of opportunity and expand their product beyond baseball even more.

This is mostly about the MLB draft,  but applies to the NPB draft to some extent as well.

Consider the following events:

• In 2001, the Minnesota Twins draft the relatively unknown Joe Mauer over Mark Prior, 2001’s Stephen Strasburg, for a combination of baseball and signability reasons. This turned out to the be right choice.
• 2005, Luke Hochevar refuses to sign with the LA Dodgers after a series of blunders. The following year, Hochevar is drafted first overall by the Royals. This too is seen as a signability move.
• In 2006, the Chicago Cubs sign Jeff Samardzjia for first-round money despite having drafted him in the fifth round.
• In July 2008, the Oakland A’s signed Michel Ynoa to a $4m+ deal, which would have put him in the top ten largest bonuses had he been drafted. The A’s gave their first round draft pick, Jemile Weeks, a $1.9m bonus.
• In November 2008, Junichi Tazawa avoids his country’s draft and signs with the Boston Red Sox for $3m. The most he could have gotten from the NPB draft would have been a $1m bonus and $150k salary. In retaliation,  NPB brass installs an exile rule. In theory American-born players could take the opposite route.
• in July 2009, the Twins shell out $800k to sign 16 year-old German prospect Max Kepler.
  
• Aside from those specific examples, there are obviously hundreds of international prospects who have signed with the MLB team of their choice, and a rather smaller number of international free agents who have signed with teams in Japan. Meanwhile, amateur players who are educated in the US or Japan are bound to the draft entry rules of their respective domestic leagues.

The MLB draft was established in the sixties with the intent of more evenly distributing the available amateur talent among the MLB teams. I think it basically works, though it’s been proven that teams, players, and agents can game it a bit when they want to. It’s also important to remember that the draft was established in a time when there was far less international talent in major league baseball than there is today. Nearly 30% of the players at the MLB level were born outside the US, and nearly half of minor leaguers were as well. This year we’ve seen a lot more hype around the international signing period as well. It doesn’t quite match the draft but it’s gaining ground, and the signings of Tazawa and Kepler indicate a diversification of the talent pool.

So we have a system that’s moderately regulated for domestic players, and completely unregulated for international players. Should national players not have the same rights to choose their employers as international players?

What I’d propose is a regulated amateur free agent system, in which the draft is discarded entirely. Every amateur player who meets the entry criteria (age, education, whatever) would be allowed to negotiate and sign with any team, regardless of national origin. The single regulation I’d put in place would be a spending cap and a spending floor, based on league revenues. This would be to keep the Yankees from outspending everyone, and the Marlins from going cheap. There could also be a maximum and minimum number of players signed, to keep teams from giving their entire budget to one player. Beyond that, teams would be free to compete with each other on the basis being well-run operations. Essentially, the system would give the players the freedom to choose where they work and the teams the freedom to allocate their budgets as they see fit, while taking money out of the equation to a certain extent.

Thoughts?

Yu Darvish will appear on CNN’s interview program, “Talk Asia“. The interview was already filmed in Sapporo Dome during June and will be shown sometime in September. Aside from Darvish, the only other Japanese baseball player to appear on the show is current New York Yankee Hideki Matsui and Darvish will be the first present NPB player to get the call.

CNN staff states in an interview by Houchi Shimbun, “He is a pitcher not only noticed in Japan, but the world is keeping an eye on him. We are planning to not only introduce his baseball background, but his entire lifestyle of growing up half Iranian and half Japanese.”

Darvish has already made his debut on the field at the world stage participating in the Beijing Olympics and the World Baseball Classic. Now it’s time for him to reveal his character and personality off the field to the whole world.

Back in May, I wrote that I was looking for expertise on baseball in the Netherlands and Brazil for content on the site. An emailer tipped me off to Rogier van Zon, editor-in-chief of the Dutch-language honkbalsite.com. Honkbalsite has been online since 2000, and is the most popular site on Dutch baseball. Rogier took the time to share his knowledge of Dutch baseball with us.

NPB Tracker: I suspect the biggest impression npbtracker.com readers will have of Dutch baseball is from this year’s WBC, which for me was one of the highlights of the tournament. Was the WBC a notable story in the Netherlands? Did the national team’s performance have any impact on the popularity of baseball in the Netherlands?

Rogier van Zon: When the Dutch beat the Dominican Republic in the WBC, it was one of the best days in Dutch baseball. It also proved that Dutch baseball is getting stronger each year. Not many people know that the Dutch team has won the European championship 20 times since 1956. They were number 4 during the last two World Cups and they forced Cuba to extra innings during the final of the last Intercontinental Cup.

Maybe it is hard to believe, but when the Dutch beat the Dominicans and advanced to the second round, there was hardly any newspapers or tv stations in the Netherlands that brought the news. The only media attention was a small article on one of the last pages of the sports section. Except baseball fans, probably the most people in the Netherlands didn’t even know what the Dutch team had done. Baseball isn’t a popular sport in the Netherlands. The game and it’s rules are to hard to understand. People prefer soccer, volleyball, cycling and speedskating. During the last world Port Tournament, just two games were televised (a recap in the evening).

NT: Can you give a brief overview of the Honkbal Hofdklasse?

RvZ: The Dutch Hoofdklasse is a league consisting of eight teams. They are located in and around Haarlem, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The reigning champion is L&D Amsterdam (the team names are mostly from the sponsors), and DOOR Neptunus (Rotterdam) is one of the strongest teams. They won the championship from 1999-2005. Another strong team is Corendon Kinheim (Haarlem). These teams rely a lot on their veteran players, mostly players from the Dutch national team. For example Raily Legito, Diegomar Markwell (Neptunus), Sidney de Jong (Amsterdam), Danny Rombley, Vince Rooi and David Bergman (Kinheim).

You can compare the level of the competition with SingleA/Double A in the United States. Each team is allowed to have one player without a European passport. One of these players is the Cuban Fausto Álvarez. He is 48 years old, but still one of the best in the league. He hit 24 home runs in his last four seasons. another strong player is Ryan Murphy. He is one of the best pitchers and batters in the Hoofdklase.

The Dutch league is an amateur league. This means that most of the players have a dayjob next to baseball. So they have to work during the daytime and have training in the evening. Baseball is not a very big sport in the Netherlands. Games in the Dutch Hoofdklasse attract a couple of hundred visitors.

NT: Who are some of the top players?

RvZ: The top players are of course well known players like Sidney de Jong (he was part of the Olympic lobby in Lausanne last month), Rob Cordemans (he also played in Taiwan for a couple of months) and Dirk van ‘t Klooster. Van ‘t Klooster has played 164 for the Dutch national team. These players were part of the team during the WBC.

Because Curaçao, Aruba and Sint-Maarten are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the players from these islands are allowed to play for the Dutch national team. That’s why the Dutch team can also rely on players like Major Leaguers Wladimir Balentien, Shairon Martis and Jair Jurrjens. There are (at this moment) around forty Antillean players in the Minors. Besides that, there are thirteen in Holland-born player in the Minors. These numbers will definitely will increase in the next years. The Netherlands have also started baseball academies. Former Yankees player Robert Eenhoorn is the progenitor. The academies bring a lot of talent.

Because the Netherlands can use players form Curaçao and Aruba, it is possible to create a very strong team. But this is not the key to the success. During the last World Cup, where the Netherlands reached the semi-finals, just four players of the Dutch team were not born in the Netherlands. The biggest key to success is the movement the Dutch manager Eenhoorn started. He made baseball in the Netherlands “professional”. He created two nationals teams: one for Dutch tournaments with players from the Hoofdklasse and another team for big tournaments with players from the Minors and Majors. This is just like Team USA has different national teams. The things Eenhoorn did are very important for baseball in the Netherlands.

NT: The Netherlands hosts some important international tournaments, notably the World Port Tournament and the Haarlem Baseball Week. Can you describe these tournaments?

RvZ: These two tournaments are events Dutch baseball fans really look forward to. It’s the only time baseball games in the Netherlands are sold out. During these games there are about4500-5000 visitors. For the Netherlands that is a lot. Mostly participants are Asian teams like Taipei and Japan, but also Cuba and American teams. The level of teams isn’t very high. Most of the teams play with college players, but for baseball fans in the Netherlands it is one big party.

NT: The 2009 World Port Tournament just wrapped up with Cuba as the champion. Were there any players on any team in the tournament that you were particularly impressed with?

RvZ: Cuba participated in the tournament with a very strong team. They couldn’t afford to lose another championship. They came to Rotterdam with a handful of players that had participated in the Olympics and World Baseball Classic. Some of the strong players were pitchers Miguel A. González (MVP during the Cuban playoffs) and Maikel Folch (a Cuban All Star). Some other All Stars were in Rotterdam: outfielders Giorvis Duvergel and Leonys Martin, second baseman Yoilán Cerce and catcher Rolando Meriño.

Cuba had the four players with the best batting averages: Adonis García (16-34 / .471), Ariel Borrero (15-34 / .441), Yoelvis Fiss (17-40 / .425) and Eriel Sánchez (14-35 / .400).

The Netherlands started the tournament with 8 players who never played for the Dutch A-team. One of them was the 17 year-old Nick Urbanus. He’s a big talent. His father is Charles Urbanus and is grandfather is Han Urbanus, who both played for the national team. They are some of the best players ever in the Netherlands. Another rookie was Bas de Jong (24 years old). He was 5 for 5 against Cuba in his only second game for the Dutch team. He ended up as the best hitter for the Netherlands (.379).

NT: And finally, since NPB Tracker is primarily about Japanese baseball, I must ask, how did the Japanese team do?

RvZ: The Japanse team did play a couple of good games. They played 11 innings against Taipei in the first game and almost beat the Dutch team. The Dutch team scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win 4-3. If Japan would have won these games, it would have been a whole other tournament and they would even have reached the finals.

Japan was the only team this tournament that has beaten Cuba. They won 2-1 because of a great performance by pitcher Syogo Suenaga (Ed. note: Teikyo University senior). He allowed just four hits in nine innings. It was the first time Cuba lost in nineteen games during the World Port Tournament. They had not lost since 2001.

Suenaga pitched and won complete games against both finalists. He also shutout the Netherlands (3 hits in 9 innings) earlier in the tournament.

You can find al of the statistics on http://www.knbsb-stats.nl/knbsb/stats09/wpt09/index.php.

If you are interested in Dutch baseball, you can read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_in_the_Netherlands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_national_baseball_team

NT: Thank you Rogier!

As one of our readers brought up, Hard Off Eco Stadium opened on July 7th (Japan time) with a two-game series between the Hanshin Tigers and the Hiroshima Toyo Carp. This stadium had its challenges in reaching to the point of being able to host an NPB game. The construction of the stadium was been delayed by the World Cup co-hosted by Japan and South Korea in 2002 and an earthquake hitting the region in 2004.

The stadium includes an artificial turf field, an indoor practice facility (a much needed indoor bullpen as the weather can be chilly in Niigata), lights for night games, and 30,000 seats in the stands making Hard Off Eco Stadium the biggest baseball stadium in the state.

Many generations will benefit from the new stadium as not only professional games will be played here, but independent league games, high school tournaments, sports festivals are currently scheduled to be hosted at the stadium over the next three months.  Even though risks are involved in a new stadium, structuring a high class stadium in a sports-deprived region should create some buzz and lead to new opportunities for the city.

People will be able to attend a stadium tour taking place four times a day for free, which is a great opportunity to see behind the scenes and the structure of the new stadium. A blog is updated frequently for further details about the stadium. Also the details about the naming rights can be seen on the Niigata prefecture website.

The stadium’s naming sponsor, HARD OFF Corportation, is a second-hand goods chain founded in Niigata in 1993 that currently has 619 franchises around the nation. The second-hand goods chain is active in different areas with the most well-known probably being BOOK-OFF, which sells used books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. HARD OFF corporation already has a partnership relationship with the hometown J-League team Niigata Albirex as an ecology sponsor, so their interest in expanding to the sports industry in nothing new.

Purchasing the naming rights for the first hometown baseball stadium should benefit the corporation, but the real test of the stadium should be after a couple of years when the buzz is gone, but for now it will be interesting how much impact the stadium will bring to this sports-deprived area of the country.

このブログを読んでくれている方々は、高い確率でキース・ローさん(Keith Law)の事はご存知かと思います。キースさんは長年ベースボール・プロスペクタス、そしてトロント・ブルージェーズで経験を積み、現在はESPNのScouts Inc.のリードベースボール・アナリストとしてご活躍されています。キースさんはお忙しい中ダルビッシュ有投手と2009年にワシントン・ナショナルズによってドラフト１位選択されたステーブン・ストラスバーグを比較するべきいくつかの質問に答えてくれました。

NPB Tracker：ストラスバーグの球種はダルビッシュに比べるとどうですか？

Keith Law: ダルビッシュの方がストラスバーグに比べて見せ球を多く持っていて、四つの球種を持っていますが春の期間は二つしか主に使っていませんでした。

NT: どちらの投球フォームを好みますか？

KL: ストラスバーグですね- 簡単でバラつきがない – ですがまっすぐな彼の腕のふりの速さは予想できない部分もあります。 我々はあれだけ速い球をあれほどの腕のふりの速さで投げる先発投手に触れた経験はあまりありません。

NT: 二人のうちの一人を今年中にメジャーリーグのローテーションにいれるとしたらどちらですか？

KL: どちらでも間違った答えにはならないと思いますが、高いレベルの相手との経験値を踏まえて私はダルビッシュを選びます。

NT: どちらの方に今後の可能性を感じますか、それは何故ですか？

KL: 良い質問ですね、その答えについては私も行ったり来たりという状態です。ストラスバーグの直球とカーブのキレの方がダルビッシュの決め球二つを上回ると思っていますので、ストラスバーグを取ります。

NT: キースさんありがとうございました。

The 37th Annual USA vs. Japan Collegiate All-Star Series will take place in Japan from July 12-16.

July 12th: Botchan Stadium (Matsuyama),12pm
July 13th: Tokyo Dome (Tokyo), 6pm
July 14th: Kleenex Miyagi Stadium (Sendai), 6 pm
July 15th: Tsuruoka Dream Stadium (Tsuruoka), 6pm
July 16th: Meiji Jinguu Stadium (Tokyo), 6pm

※All dates and times are in Japan Standard Time

The US National Team was selected after ten days of trials that included intersquad games and practices. The team consists top non-draft-eligible college players in the United States including 1 junior, 14 sophomores, and 7 freshman players including Trevor Bauer (UCLA) and Kolton Wong (University of Hawaii), who were on the Freshman All-America Team.

The stars of the Japan national team is junior right hander Yuuki Saito (Waseda University) and senior Kazuhito Futagami (Hosei University) who was the MVP in the recent All Japan University Tournament. Seven seniors, who will be eligible for the upcoming draft, will be included in the squad.

Tickets still remain and details will be listed on the All Japan University Baseball Federation website.  Notable past MVPs from this five game series include current Colorado Rockies Todd Helton (1993) and Huston Street (2003), current Yomiuri Giant Yuya Kubo (2001) and current Chiba Lotte Marine Shouitsu Oomatsu (2004). Japan won the last series, 3-2, in the 36th Annual USA vs. Japan Collegiate All-Star Series, played in the United States in 2007.