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LL Rules for Japan

CADadCADad5,000+ posts
Does anyone know how the rules differ for Japan as far as the population base? I know that their tournament season starts a month earlier than it does in the US.

The Japanese kids obviously work harder than anyone else but given the relative heights of the people in Japan vs. the US it is hard to believe that they can field a team similar in size to US teams from the same population base. Then again I haven't checked the average height of the Japanese team vs the US teams so I could be wrong.
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CADadCADad5,000+ posts
quote:
The 31-team tournament bracket was drawn so that the top four finishers in April's Tokyo Cup tournament (Tokyo Kitasuna, Musashi Fuchu, Edogawa, and Tokyo Nakano) are seeded into specific positions in the bracket. Bracket positions for all other teams were determined randomly.


This is from unpage.org. They were playing as a tournament team at least as far as back in mid-April. I believe that is the point in time where most US Little Leagues are in their regular seasons and some cold weather regions may just be starting. If I remember correctly the US all-star teams can't even start practicing together until a few weeks before the July start of the all-star tournaments.

I really don't think we're talking about a level playing field here.
RJMRJMHSBaseballWeb member since 2007
quote:
Originally posted by CADad:
quote:
The 31-team tournament bracket was drawn so that the top four finishers in April's Tokyo Cup tournament (Tokyo Kitasuna, Musashi Fuchu, Edogawa, and Tokyo Nakano) are seeded into specific positions in the bracket. Bracket positions for all other teams were determined randomly.


This is from unpage.org. They were playing as a tournament team at least as far as back in mid-April. I believe that is the point in time where most US Little Leagues are in their regular seasons and some cold weather regions may just be starting. If I remember correctly the US all-star teams can't even start practicing together until a few weeks before the July start of the all-star tournaments.

I really don't think we're talking about a level playing field here.
Technically you can't announce a LL all-star team until June 15th. But there are ways around the rules to prepare for all-stars. I coached our sixteen best all-star prospects in a USSSA Sunday doubleheader league so they would face similar competition concurrently with the regular season. Then on June 15th the twelve all-stars were selected with the others being alternates in case of injury. In warmer weather areas where the LL season finishes early likely all-stars are placed on travel teams and play tournaments.
Last edited by RJM
Midlo DadMidlo Dad10,000+ posts
What raises these questions in my mind is that the same head coach keeps coming back to Williamsport with the teams representing Japan.

In the U.S., this would be like if the Tuckahoe Little League were the Southeast region winner year after year. Even if there were only 15 other Little Leagues in the whole region (to make the odds comparable to those in Japan), it smells fishy to me that the same coach is always there. At a minimum, I'm wondering if Williamsport allows Japan to put him in charge of whatever team does win year after year. No one here gets that option, but then, no one here would want that option either.

What it does sound like to me is that in Japan, some sort of steps are being taken to assure that the best team always advances. Here, there is such an element of luck and chance involved in who wins at the district, state and regional levels, that the odds of the very strongest teams actually getting to Williamsport are actually pretty low.

But you know, that's baseball. I don't mind that aspect of the LLWS for U.S. teams, because it spreads around the ability to live the dream, as opposed to having a few chapters stack the deck and advance year after year.

I just have to admit that it'd be nice if we could feel comfortable that everyone else there got there the same way.
Buckeye 2015Buckeye 201510,000+ posts
....or we could just quit allowing the foreign teams to come so a US team would be guaranteed to win.....but then nobody would watch....lol

I have a hard time believing that people are even remotely concerned with how teams are selected. If you've ever been to the LLWS you'd know that even the teams who lose to teams like Japan could care less. Go to a USSSA tourney for 12 year olds....the loser cries. Look at the Tennessee kids after losing to Japan. No crying. They just had the best week of their lives and are thrilled to have been there. You'll never get to experience a week hanging out and living among kids from Uganda, Japan and China again. Baseball is almost secondary there. That being said....Japan IS BASEBALL....they don't play football at least not to the extent they do here...and also aren't all that into basketball. Baseball is all those kids do....in most cases 12 months out of the year. If we had kids who would do that, the US teams would win a lot more often..,...though again, I don't think the kids care as much as some of the poster here seem to.
CADadCADad5,000+ posts
RJM,
We did a bit of that but you had to be careful and you only ended up playing a couple small tournaments at most, usually not with LL rules. LL doesn't like to have the kids playing outside LL during the season and it can be hard on their arms. We only did it during holiday tournament(s) when the league was shut down.

The value for us was seeing how the kids handled better competition. That allowed us to grab kids who might help us with our "coach" picks. I remember one of the league leaders in homers wouldn't play with our team. He earned a spot on the all-star team but then was pretty much useless against stronger competition. It might surprise some but the competition in district that year was far stronger than the in-season tournaments. I'd say that allowing for the age change, the top 3 teams in our district back then all had better pitching than the US teams this year. No one team had as many kids throwing in the low to mid 70s as Japan though. That just doesn't happen.
Last edited by CADad
B bball123100+ posts
quote:
....or we could just quit allowing the foreign teams to come so a US team would be guaranteed to win.....but then nobody would watch....lol

I have a hard time believing that people are even remotely concerned with how teams are selected. If you've ever been to the LLWS you'd know that even the teams who lose to teams like Japan could care less. Go to a USSSA tourney for 12 year olds....the loser cries. Look at the Tennessee kids after losing to Japan. No crying. They just had the best week of their lives and are thrilled to have been there. You'll never get to experience a week hanging out and living among kids from Uganda, Japan and China again. Baseball is almost secondary there. That being said....Japan IS BASEBALL....they don't play football at least not to the extent they do here...and also aren't all that into basketball. Baseball is all those kids do....in most cases 12 months out of the year. If we had kids who would do that, the US teams would win a lot more often..,...though again, I don't think the kids care as much as some of the poster here seem to.

I seen some good sportmanship yesterday. The starting Japanese pitcher who gave up his first HR in the tournament on a breaking ball went and congratulate the Tennessee batter. It's too bad that Tennessee wasted many of their pitchers the day before on the drawn-out game against the California team. Even if Tennessee had a full pitching staff, it's very tough to go against a team that have two pitchers with 75mph FB and several others that could go over 70mph, what a pitching depth. Again, they might come from the same "baseball school" under the same coach.
B bball123100+ posts
quote:
tournaments. I'd say that allowing for the age change, the top 3 teams in our district all had better pitching than the US teams this year. No one team had as many kids throwing in the low to mid 70s as Japan though. That just doesn't happen.

Fully agreed, I haven't seen a US team with such a pitching depth as the team from Japan. Did you seen the starting Japanese pitching doing 78mph right after he gave up a HR on a breaking ball? That is something like 103mph on the 60ft mound. Their closer that came in did 75mph consistently. My conclusion is that they are most likely coming from a baseball school or baseball district where elite players are selected for admission to the school/district.
TurnTwoNetTurnTwoNet100+ posts
Several years ago, I remember the announcers talking about a team from NY that "had practiced in an elementary school gym all winter"...Later on in the SAME broadcast they made a big deal out of how the teams were not even announced until mid-June...

I recall that several of the international teams are finalized earlier though so that they have time to get all the necessary travel plans / papers in place...I definitely think that can give them an advantage in terms of playing and working together for a longer period, but I don't think it gets them any more time together than some of the US LL teams that are put together with a plan...
RJMRJMHSBaseballWeb member since 2007
quote:
Originally posted by TurnTwoNet:
Several years ago, I remember the announcers talking about a team from NY that "had practiced in an elementary school gym all winter"...Later on in the SAME broadcast they made a big deal out of how the teams were not even announced until mid-June...

I recall that several of the international teams are finalized earlier though so that they have time to get all the necessary travel plans / papers in place...I definitely think that can give them an advantage in terms of playing and working together for a longer period, but I don't think it gets them any more time together than some of the US LL teams that are put together with a plan...
Like I stated previously, there are legal ways around the June 15 rule. The US teams aren't announced until June 15. But nothing stops the league from having it's all-star prospects practice year round. The foreign teams need to have all-stars earlier in the year so they have time to get passports and travel visas to stay and play in Williamsport.
CADadCADad5,000+ posts
quote:
NOTE: In the championship game, Snow Canyon changed pitchers while holding a 5-3 lead in the fourth inning. Taylorsville coaches waited until the new pitcher had thrown his first pitch, and then protested that the pitcher was ineligible based on Little League Baseball's rest requirements for the international tournament. The protest was upheld, and Taylorsville was awarded a 6-0 forfeit victory.

Following the completion of the tournament, Western Region officials reviewing paperwork submitted by Taylorsville officials noted that the team had played in a non-sanctioned tournament in Kearns after forming as an all-star team. This violated a long-standing international tournament rule, and Little League officials disqualified Taylorsville from the tournament for the violation. As the state tournament runner-up, Snow Canyon was invited to replace Taylorsville as the state's representative at the region tournament.

Taylorsville supporters then pointed out that Snow Canyon had violated the same rule by competing with the same players under a different name as a club team in a non-sanctioned tournament in Heber City over the July 4 weekend. On July 30, three days before the start of the region tournament, Snow Canyon was disqualified.

Little League officials invited Dixie Little League, the state's third-place team, to compete in the region tournament. However, many of Dixie's players had departed for summer vacations, and the league declined the invitation because it could not re-form its all-star team in time for the region tournament. Because of the short timeframe, Little League officials then decided to hold the region tournament without a Utah representative.


This was after the all-star team was officially selected but the intent is to keep leagues from pre-selecting the all-stars so that kids who earn a spot during league play make the all-star team. They aren't always going to be the best tournament players.
Last edited by CADad
BW Bob Williams500+ posts
We have played the Japanese National High School Teams for 18 years.

The Little League players are coached by "highly" talented coaches trained at the same University as the 10,000 high school coaches. They are trained in the same philosophy of coaching and teaching.

Each player has one goal - to play on a high school baseball team in the Spring or August tournaments in Koshien [Osaka], where 40,000 watch each game and 40 million on TV.

In 1984, our American team, with 7 future MLB players won 4 and lost 3.
We added Korea to this Goodwill Series in 1988. Australia was added in 1995.

Bob Williams
"30 years International Baseball"
Goodwill Series Inc.
CADadCADad5,000+ posts
quote:
In fact, that's exactly what the Kearney players have done this season. They play under Little League rules in one league while also competing as the Kearney Titans in a league governed by the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA).


Looks like the rules must have changed somewhat. I wonder how different if at all this team was from the all-star team.
B bball123100+ posts
quote:
We have played the Japanese National High School Teams for 18 years.

The Little League players are coached by "highly" talented coaches trained at the same University as the 10,000 high school coaches. They are trained in the same philosophy of coaching and teaching.

Each player has one goal - to play on a high school baseball team in the Spring or August tournaments in Koshien [Osaka], where 40,000 watch each game and 40 million on TV.

In 1984, our American team, with 7 future MLB players won 4 and lost 3.
We added Korea to this Goodwill Series in 1988. Australia was added in 1995.

Bob Williams
"30 years International Baseball"
Goodwill Series Inc.

40k and 40 millions on TV? That's some serious baseball. Some MLB teams can't even fill up 4,000 people in the ballpark on a regular basis.
infielddadinfielddad10,000+ posts
I don't normally watch the LLWS, much, but I paid more attention this year to the broadcasts.
Overall, in my view, there was much more positive and for me, there are 3 main stories:
1.) the players and coaches did a very nice job of competing and having fun, for the most part;
2.) the Japanese team showed the precision associated with the way the game is practiced(fundamentals as Bob Williams notes) and loved in Japan(2-4 hours per day practiced nearly everyday) while having "fun;"
3.) the team from Uganda. Jimmy Rollins' quote says so much and captures that journey from a first field built in 2003 until this past week, and the 2 years of brutal disappointment before this:
"They love the game in a way we've almost forgotten." -- Jimmy Rollins
Last edited by infielddad
infielddadinfielddad10,000+ posts
quote:
Originally posted by CADad:
infielddad,
I could be wrong but from what I remember being told by my cousin who lives in Tokyo they practiced 5 hrs a day on the weekend but nowhere near daily. I believe schoolwork take precedence.


CADad, I was referencing the practice time for the LL All-Star team since it was formed, as reported by ESPN.
In terms of HS, I am sure Bob Williams has first hand information.
This article from a young US player competing in Japan a few years back suggests 10 hour days for HS.

http://www.baseballnews.com/fe...japanesebaseball.htm

One of the really terrific books on the differences between the US and Japan baseball is "You gotta have Wa." As Bob posted, the HS championships are amazing. This book does a great job of capturing how the Country literally stops for the event.
My impression is Uganda was the story of this series, because of a very different, in fact almost no history.
Last edited by infielddad
BW Bob Williams500+ posts
Infield Dad;

Because of the HS Baseball National Tournaments the TV has provided an opportunity for the young players to be National heroes. After a Regional or National tournament, the players are interviewed by 20-30 media in special rooms.

Once in our 1st year, I was interviewed and later received an envelope containing $100.00. Of course I offered to do additional interviews.

There are over 4,000 high schools [public and private] and each July the 49 States have their Regional Tournaments played in HS stadiums seating 5,000.
The winners travel to Koshien in August for the National.

The Little League players will have opportunity to enroll in a Private HS. They will be strongly
recuited.


HS practice is 6 days each week for 40 weeks for the HS player.

He will practice 6:30 am to 8 am then class and after 3 PM to 6 PM then home by train, bus or walk. During the tournaments, the classmates cheer with "chants" that never leave my memory.

It is the "work ethic" that is amazing, however our American team coaches [pro scouts] have formed a game strategy which provides our team an "even" playing field. We have now over 350 players from our Goodwill Series events, who have played or are playing in the MLB.

Bob

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