baseball-matome
Baseball girls who dream of Koshien
Momoka Kimura is a Japanese girl who has loved baseball since she was a child.
In the third grade of elementary school, she began to formally introduce herself to baseball, and when she was in junior high school, she won the soft baseball competition of Tochigi Prefecture Middle School, and she was talented and powerful in baseball.
However, after moving to high school, everything changed.
The school's baseball department had only a men's team, not a women's team.
Baseball is a sport that doesn't restrict gender, but baseball games do. In Japan, the Japan National High School Baseball Championship, known as Natsuki Koshien, is only allowed to be played by men, which makes many Japanese high school baseball departments full of boys, and girls often only play the role of baseball managers.
In other words, Momoka Kimura, who has both love and strength, seems to be faced with the choice of giving up baseball.
Unexpectedly, her last choice was to join the baseball department and train with the boys.
"I love baseball so much, so I don't want to give up, I may not be able to participate in official matches, but I can still play some practice matches," Kimura said. Because for me, even if I can only participate in practice competitions, it is a very important life experience. So I'm going to treat every practice match like an official one."
Touchingly, in the summer of 2020, Kimura's last year of high school, the High School Baseball Company in Tochigi Prefecture specially allowed Baika to wear a baseball uniform and attend the Tochigi Prefectural High School Baseball Tournament as a kickoffer.
Wearing a jersey printed with her number plate to participate in the official competition, which Kimura has not had the luxury of three years, and now that she has fulfilled her wish, she is nervous and excited, constantly shrugging her shoulders to relax herself, and finally giving a beautiful goal.
This story sounds like a happy ending that will never end up echoing, but from Kimura's perspective, it is actually a bit sad.
Teammates are training hard with their vision of Koshien and their dreams of championships, and they can see their goals, but the only thing that supports Kimura's perseverance is his love for baseball, and even his teammates have said: "Before that, I always took the matter of going out to participate in the game as a matter of course." It wasn't until we couldn't compete because of COVID-19 that I was finally able to feel The Mood of Beccasan."
Kimura was asked after the game, "Have you ever regretted choosing to join the baseball department of Kanuma High School?" Kimura replied, "Never regret it," and even though he was turned away from a baseball game, Kimura's passion for baseball remained undiminished.
At that time, Momo kombaka must not have imagined that in 2021, women's baseball would undergo such a change...
This was the first time in women's baseball
Koshien, a well-known baseball stadium located in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, is a pilgrimage site for many baseball enthusiasts.
On August 23, 2021, shortly this past summer, Koshien held a game of great significance, the final of the 25th Japan National High School Girls' HardBall Competition.
The reason for this is that this game is the first time that a women's baseball game has entered Koshien, a baseball field that was built and opened in 1924, and finally appeared as a female baseball player for the first time in nearly a hundred years.
Source: Sky A
Some people may wonder, one will be Koshien ushered in the game of female players, and the other will be that female players are not allowed to participate in the game, so in Japan, can girls participate in baseball games?
The answer is yes, except that female players have female players playing their own games.
As we all know, baseball is a very, very popular sport in Japan, something that has been played since the last century, but women's baseball in Japan is still quite young.
In terms of student competitions, the above-mentioned "National High School Baseball Competition" for boys only is a famous high school student competition, and the participating teams are based on a high school unit, and this year has been held for the 103rd class.
The competition that entered Koshien is the "High School Girls Hard Baseball Competition", which is also participated in by high schools, and has just passed the 25th edition this year.
In terms of professional leagues, the men's game NPB is currently dominant, and the women's game JWBL has a much lower attention. I believe that even people who are not so keen on baseball have more or less seen the collection of Japanese popular actresses kicking off baseball games before, and if you look closely, you can find that these are all kickoff ceremonies for men's professional baseball games without exception.
In 2016, Tenkai Yuki participated in the kick-off ceremony
Koshien itself has no rules prohibiting women from entering the stadium, although there have been news that female ministers have been prevented from entering the strike zone and female baseball managers have been blocked from entering the stadium, but there is a reasonable reason for the follow-up.
So why hasn't the high school girls' baseball tournament been held in Koshien like the men's game?
To put it bluntly, it's because of issues of seniority and attention.
But in such an environment, girls who love baseball are still emerging in an endless stream.
"I'm going to work hard to be able to stand there."
The women's baseball department of Osaka Toyo naka City High School is one of the teams participating in the high school girls' hard baseball competition, and the team leader is Noka Kaomoto, a third-grade student, her father is a baseball team coach, and she joined her father and brother's baseball team in elementary school.
Norika Hanamoto, Source Asahi Shimbun, Photo: Nobuyo Shirai
When she was a child, during the summer vacation, Hanamoto would watch the national college field ball players' club on the TV set, and Koshien seemed to her to be a place that would sparkle, but once when she watched the game, she said, "I want to stand there and try (to play baseball)", but her father told her that "girls can't play.".
She said she was so devastated that she even felt that she had no place to stand in her baseball career, but Hanamoto did not give up, but instead trained hard to become a master in high school.
©The Asahi Shimbun Company and Asahi Television Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.
Nakamatsu Wangyou, a member of the girls' baseball department of Roshisho High School, is from Okinawa, his parents are not around, and he is studying alone in Osaka, and he chose to come to Roshisho High School to play baseball. She also played soft baseball with boys in elementary school, but when she was in high school, there was no high school for the women's baseball department in Okinawa, which made her feel very confused about the future, but fortunately, her mother had always supported her who loved baseball, so she finally made up her mind to leave Okinawa, go to Osaka to study and continue to play baseball.
Alone outside the day is somewhat lonely, sometimes she will call her mother until late at night, and her mother's full support has become the motivation for her to work hard.
Tachibana, the coach of Rushosho High School, also loved baseball when he was young, and resolutely entered the baseball department full of boys, but he could not become a full member of the department and could only participate in training as a trainee. She admits that when she trains with men, she can really feel the difference in physique and speed, and she also feels that Koshien is an incomparably distant existence.
Until she saw such a report in the Asahi Shimbun in 1998, about two female baseball players in Japan participating in the Women's Baseball Tournament in the United States, she felt that she found the meaning of continuing to play baseball, so she worked hard for this goal, and later through college, successfully went to Australia to study baseball, and returned to the Women's Baseball Department of Roshisho high school in 14 years to coach.
At the end of April this year, the high school girls' hard baseball competition announced that it would use the gap in the men's quarterfinals to hold the final in Koshien, which undoubtedly inspired the hearts of every participating team, and for these baseball girls, Koshien finally changed from a dream shrine to a real goal.
"This is my dream all along, just thinking about the posture I'm standing there can't stop being excited, and I want to climb Koshien no matter what."
Nakamatsu said, "I was able to get the support of [my mother]all the way to the present, and I would like to let my parents see my figure standing in Koshien."
Tachibana said: "Women have been given the opportunity to stand in Koshien, which is more influential than the report that made me want to continue playing baseball. From now on, the children will also take a bigger step and want to see the children of the Ryosha Standing on koshien."
These female baseball players have different ages, different origins, and different experiences, but at this moment, they can all be like male baseball players, frankly expressing their yearning for Koshien, because this time it is really possible to come true!
The baseball ladies who climb koshien
On August 23, the rain in Nishimiya City subsided, and at 5 p.m., the final of the Japan National High School Girls' Hard Baseball Competition was held as scheduled in Koshien, and the two teams that qualified for the final were Hirora Kobe and Kochi Chuo.
Kobe Koryo Gakuen High School, Yingyuan:Nikkan Sports
Kochi Chuo High School, Source: Sports Hochi
The final was kicked off by 84-year-old Machiko Takahashi, a former baseball player who promoted the first women's college baseball tournament in 1997.
Takahashi Town Kokobatsu, Kakugen: Nikkan Sports
Although it is the final, the overall atmosphere of this game is still relatively relaxed, the faces of the players often appear smiles, and many bullet screens are praising the handsomeness and cuteness of these female baseball players in the online game videos.
The only pity is that because of the new crown epidemic, this competition also adopted a model without spectators, and only the members in the audience were responding to assistance, which was less than the atmosphere of the past Koshien competition.
Satono Matsumoto, Kochi Chuo, Andomoto: Sports Hochi
The final final ended with a 4:0 score of Hiroshi Kobe vs. Kochi Chuo, and Hiroshi Kobe won the championship for the second time in five years. As a team that has just been established for three years, Kochi Central can rush to the runner-up in such a short period of time, which can also be regarded as a defeat.
Nikkan Sports
Hiroshi Kanedo's baseball player Ai Yuri Shimano completed 7 board climbs in the game, and because of this outstanding performance, he became the caste pitcher (which can be understood as the best pitcher, 胴上げ refers to the action of a group of people throwing a person into the air).
Ai yuri Shimano has actually been a prominent figure in the new generation of baseball players, and she has been reported and featured in the media one after another, and she has also appeared in NIKE's anti-sexist advertisement "New Girl".
Advertising screen
Born in 2004, Shimano is also a child who grew up in baseball culture, and her two older brothers have been on koshien with the baseball department of high school, and now with her, all three siblings of the family have taken the stage of Koshien.
Kobe Koryo, Shimano Ayori, Shimano Ayori, Yingyuan: Sports Hochi
Influenced by her brothers, she began playing baseball in the second grade of elementary school, and in junior high school, she entered the famous baseball team "Odobo", "Odoboyos" (大ツ, an all-boys baseball team), and first became a co-op ( Giants Cup ) , when she competed with all the boys , she was the only female baseball player on the field at the Tokyo Dome , and became the first female pitcher in the Giant Cup. Later, Shimano entered the strong team Kobe Hiroshi with her further education, and according to the data, her fastest speed was 123km/h.
In an 18-year-old special, at the age of 14, she said that she was not content to play with girls her age, but wanted to have the same environment as boys.
In his freshman year of high school, Shimano said, "I want to raise the profile of women's baseball." I hope to have a girls' tournament like Koshien. The initiative, which was published in newspapers, was read by Masahiko Takeaka, then secretary general of the Japan High School Baseball League, and he also gave his opinion at the end of the meeting between the Japan High School Baseball Association and Koshien Stadium: "I personally believe that the women's final can be held on the same day as the men's final. ”
"Female baseball players enter Koshien to play games" and "women's baseball matches are held in Koshien" are not ideas that have only existed in this session or in recent years, and many Japanese baseball-themed manga have reflected this.
For example, in 1998's "Ruzuki Women's Takano Ball Department", it tells the story of Ryo Hayakawa, a young girl with baseball cells, who was discovered by Keiko Ice Room, the chairman of Ruzuki Girls' High School, in the amateur game, and Keiko recruited her to the school and established the hard baseball department of the girls' high school, and then the women's high school team defied all difficulties to march to Koshien, where "no women appeared in history".
For example, "Four-Leaf Game", which began serialization in 2005 and was animated in 2009, tells the story of Hikari Shutamura and Aoba Tsukishima who strive to impact Koshien in order to realize Tsukishima Wakaba's dream about Koshien. Tsukishima Aoba is a female baseball player who is extremely talented in baseball, and after high school, she can't participate in official games but still insists on staying in the high school baseball department.
From all this, it can be seen that for Koshien, the female players have dreamed of it for a long time.
The reasons behind the fact that this year's high school girls' baseball tournament can finally hold a final in Koshien are actually very complicated: there is the efforts of the organizers of the National High School Women's Hard Baseball League, the international community's advocacy of sports equality between men and women, and more importantly, the love and enthusiasm of all female players that are not inferior to that of male players.
This summer, there were only two teams of female baseball players standing in Koshien, but they represented the realization of the dreams of all female baseball players in the past, including Momoka Kimura, Norika Hanamoto, Wangyu Nakamatsu, Tachibana, Takahashi Machiko, Hayakawa Ryo, Tsukishima Aoba...
This tournament has the significance of the times for Japanese women's baseball, and it also has the significance of the times for Koshien.
The victory moment of women's baseball team Hiroshi Shinbe in Koshien
© President Co., Ltd.
Resources:
Tokyo Intelligence Express, the shadow of the new crown under the pure baseball dreams of a Japanese high school girl
Koshien 100 years, vegetable garden wheat, the first time in history! Girls can also enter Koshien!
Shinko Asahi, Nobuhiro Shirai, Koshien Summer Chasing Their White Ball and Dreams
Shinba Asahi plays at Koshien on a new page of women's baseball, everyone smiles
YAHOO, [Women's High School Baseball] Kobe Koryo, Shimano Ayori, following two older brothers Koshien "I'm glad that my dream comes true"
HORIPRO, Ayori Shimano
Sloth Bear Sports, break with tradition! For the first time, Japanese girls' high school baseball was held in koshien
Baidu Encyclopedia, Kisaragi Women's High School Baseball Club
Baidu Encyclopedia, Four-Leaf Game
※ Sarita, a Japanese reader, also contributed to this article.
This content is the independent opinion of the author and does not represent the position of Nippon Tong.
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