With the threat of becoming a satellite of Major League Baseball Inc., looming as a distinct possibility, Japanese owners badly need to revive Shoriki's ambitious dream as a model for re-making baseball here--not as a junior partner to the North American game but as a vibrant, dynamic rival that competes on equal terms for the most talented players in the world.
Doing so will require a fundamental shift in the way professional baseball is organized and played as well as a radically new way of thinking about Japan's relationship with its major league cousins.
For far too long, Japan has accepted has assumed that the majors knew what they were doing in the same way that the National League used to copy everything the Dodgers did.
The late Walter O'Malley, principle owner of the Dodgers and the man who moved them from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, was the most dynamic owner of his era. It was commonly said in the '60s and '70s that, "When O'Malley sneezes, the National League catches cold."
The Dodgers began the five-man pitching rotation and every team still uses it, despite any evidence that it reduced injuries to pitchers.
And though there are still many valuable lessons to be learned, it is high time that Japanese baseball consider the many things it can improve upon.
Baseball everywhere has been hamstrung by swarms of mid-inning pitching changes, endless numbers of throws to the bases and batters routinely calling time between each pitch. Why not, as Bill James has suggested, just do away with them?
Americans treat baseball's rules as if they are a gift from god, something that sets it apart from other sports, sothe major leagues are paralyzed about making rule changes.
And if the majors are reluctant to modify the game, Japan is scared to death. Nearly every time the majors do something dumb, Japan follows along blindly in the name of maintaining a united front in the rule book.
About 14 years ago, major league baseball decided it would strictly enforce the balk rule. It was a total disaster. People quickly tired of watching the umpires stop play to enforce and explain the balk rule every time a runner reached base. By May, major league umps were abandoning the experiment. Yet Japanese baseball was still studying how it would implement this lame idea in the following season.
No matter that it was a dumb idea to begin with. No matter that it proved to be worse than anyone anticipated. If the majors are doing it, Japanese baseball had to do it to.
When the majors trip, pro yakyu suffers the concussion.
Japan needs to strike out on its own, or to use a more optimistic metaphor, go up and take its cuts. Baseball here will not thrive unless the establishment takes chances and tries things the majors are unwilling to do.
A few simple rule changes could make the game as fast as it should be--and superior entertainment to what the majors have to offer. The other big issue facing Japan is the level of competition.
The larger foreign player quota has made the game better. Japan has never enjoyed so many excellent foreign hitters and pitchers, but in order to take a big leap forward, Japan needs to greatly expand its domestic talent base by creating more professional jobs.
An incredible number of young people aspire to play professional baseball in Japan, but CL and PL teams are only allowed to have 70 players under contract, allowing for a maximum of 840 pro jobs. Currently 805 players are on pro rosters and 69 of those are registered as foreigners.
If the 12 current teams the size of their rosters to say, 40 players, and encouraged the development of independent minor leagues, Japan could nearly double its number of pros and make the game even more accessible to the fans.
This would also give more players playing time in meaningful games and, perhaps just as important, also create many more jobs for umpires and a context for them to learn their trade as well.
It's hard to imagine anything closer to a win-win situation than that.
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Since baseball first appeared in Japan in 1873, players and later organizers
have looked toward the United States for inspiration. And while Japanese
baseball was an apt pupil, it has abandoned the plan of graduating and
striving to compete on an equal basis with its teacher.
Until now, Japan has looked upon the various different practices of major league play and baseball operations and graded them as being applicable or not to Japan.
When professional baseball appeared in the early 1920s with the foundation of the Shibaura Club, and in 1936 with the establishment of the first successful pro league, team and league officials began to look to the majors for clues about organization.
It was the dream of Matsutaro Shoriki, who founded the Yomiuri Giants and the Japan League, that one day, Japanese teams would rival the best in the majors. The game here is progressing toward that goal. Baseball in Japan is as good as it's ever been.
Unfortunately, the quality gap with the majors is narrowing at the speed at which continents move.
While there is a vast amount of institutional knowledge still to be learned from the way baseball is played and organized in the U.S., the idea that Japanese pro leagues must be in sync with the majors is a dead end.
While yakyu has its own distinct flavor apart from the game in the States, Japanese baseball is still striving to play by the same rules and is putting itself at a disadvantage by doing so.
The only way the game here will ever thrive in the future is not to
be as good as what the majors have, but to be distinc
There is no way Japan can compete by playing by the same rules.
The Hot Corner appears each Thursday in The
Daily Yomiuri .