Kondo Daisuke/Wen
Every country has a sport called "national technology". Most citizens like it very much and will show their strength in this project to the world in various ways.
China’s "national skill" is undoubtedly table tennis. Every time I watch the Olympic Table Tennis Competition and the World Table Tennis Championships, the final is probably a showdown between China players. Unfortunately, the players who stopped in the semi-finals and before, many of them immigrated from China to other countries.
In Japan, the word "national skill" means sumo. However, since childhood, none of my friends have been engaged in this sport, and there is no venue near my home where sumo competitions can be held. I have never tried it once, but I only watch professional sumo competitions broadcast by NHK (Japan Broadcasting Association) every two months. Therefore, in essence, sumo is not a national sport of Japan.
So, what is Japan’s real national skill? The answer is baseball.
Baseball is the most familiar sport in Japan, and it is also a sport that every Japanese has experienced personally in his childhood. In the baseball game of Tokyo Olympic Games held last year, Japan won the gold medal. Shohei Ohtani, a Japanese player known as "once-in-a-century baseball genius", shines in the American professional baseball league.
As we all know, the birthplace of baseball is America. In 1845, Alexander Joycartwright Jr., the founder of Manhattan Fire Department in new york, invented a sport called Baseball, which was used to strengthen the unity among firefighters and solve the problem of insufficient exercise. During the exercise, two groups (9 people in each group) take turns to play the offensive and defensive sides.
The pitcher on the defensive side throws the ball, and the batter on the offensive side swings the stick to hit the ball. Players from other defenders have to catch the flying ball. After hitting the ball, the batter will run through the first base, the second base and the third base one by one in a counterclockwise order on the diamond-shaped court, and finally run back to home plate to get 1 point. Or the batter hits the ball out of the field, that is, hits the ball into the audience. This is called a "home run", and the batter’s first team can also score. According to the original rules, as long as a team scores 21 points, the game is over. However, it was changed to 9 attacks by each team, and the game was over.
Because it is very interesting, baseball, a brand-new sport, soon got rave reviews. On June 19th, 1846, the New York Fire Department held its first match with another team in this city. Later, this day became the "baseball memorial day" in the United States. During the American Civil War (1861-1865), baseball, a sport that originated in the north, gradually spread to the south. In 1868, after the war, the first professional baseball team was established in the United States. In 1971, the American Major League Baseball was founded, and each team regularly launched a fierce "killing".
In 1868, the Meiji Restoration took place in Japan, and the samurai society that lasted for nearly 700 years ended abruptly, and Japan officially entered the era of "civilization and civilization". In line with the idea that "if you want to create a civilized society like Europe and America, you must open European-American universities", Japan opened the "Kaicheng School" in the same year, which is now the University of Tokyo.
In 1871, HoraceWilson, an American, entered this school to teach English. The next year, in 1872, he brought baseball to the campus. Therefore, this year happens to be the 150th year since baseball was introduced to Japan.
A few days ago, I went to the Baseball Hall Museum in Tokyo’s Houyuan Park. It shows people in detail the 150-year baseball history of Japan since 1872.
The exhibits include a copy of the baseball rule book written by Alexander Joycartwright Jr. While reading the above words, a humorous picture of the early days of baseball emerged in my mind. For example, the first rule is: "Everyone should be present on time". This is probably because the players are late, and Alexander Joycartwright Jr. is a little impatient to wait.
The popularity of baseball in Japan began with its popularity among Japanese students. In 1903, Waseda University and Keio University held the first baseball match. Since 1925, six famous universities in Tokyo (Waseda, Keio, Meiji, Hosei, Rikkyo and Tokyo) have held baseball leagues. Watching these college students play baseball became the greatest pleasure of Tokyo people at that time.
The upsurge of Japanese high school baseball began with the National Middle School Baseball Competition held in Osaka in 1915. This event is so popular that schools all over Japan have set up baseball teams. Since 1924, the venue has been changed to Koshien Stadium in the suburb of Osaka.
Speaking of "Koshien", more than 4,000 high school baseball teams from all over Japan compete for the championship every spring and summer. NHK will also broadcast all the games live. During this period, "Koshien Baseball" was the king of topics in Japan.
The first professional baseball team in Japan was the Tokyo baseball team (now the Yomiuri Giants), which was founded in 1934 and belonged to the Tokyo Baseball Club of Japan. Two years later, in 1936, seven teams, including the Tokyo baseball team, got together to create the Japan Professional Baseball League.
Subsequently, the upsurge of "building a baseball stadium in Tokyo" was unprecedented. It coincided with the relocation of the army artillery factory in Tokyo to Kyushu. By 1937, a backyard stadium with a capacity of 30,000 spectators had sprung up on the original site of the factory. The "Post Paradise" in the name of the stadium is taken from the famous sentence written by Fan Zhongyan in the Northern Song Dynasty, "Worry about the world first, and enjoy the world afterwards".
Half a century later, in 1987, Houyuan Stadium was demolished due to aging. In 1988, the first all-weather roof-type stadium in Japan, Tokyo DOME (commonly known as Tokyo Dome), was completed and put into use next to Yuanhou Paradise Stadium. With the blessing of 225 white double curtains, this stadium has become a new attraction in Tokyo.
Today, the Japanese professional baseball league, in which 12 teams participate, still has overwhelming popularity. Every year, each team plays 143 games. No matter what age Japanese teenagers are, they all dream of becoming a professional baseball player. Japan’s most athletic young people have become professional baseball players. They get a huge annual salary at a young age and tie the knot with young women such as actresses, models or TV anchors.
In the last exhibition area of the museum, the names of 212 famous players who entered the Japanese baseball hall are impressively displayed. These people are well-known celebrities in Japan.
In the Baseball Hall Museum, located underground in Tokyo DOME, I reviewed the 150-year history of Japanese baseball. Finally, I can’t help but have a question: Japan still has a large number of modern imported sports such as football, basketball, volleyball and tennis. Among them, why is only baseball so popular?
At the end of the visit, it suddenly dawned on me. Isn’t it because baseball conforms to the temperament of Japanese who like to think carefully? The pace of football and basketball is so fast that the audience has no time to "think". In the baseball game, there are 18 players in the two teams, of which one pitcher moves. The batter will only wave the bat when his favorite ball comes, the other eight defenders will only run to catch the ball when the ball comes, and the eight players of the attacking side have been sitting on the bench to rest. Therefore, in the eyes of the audience, they can think slowly like pitchers, batters and coaches. If you were a pitcher, what kind of ball would you throw; If you are the coach of the attacking side, what tactics will you arrange for the players to attack … This kind of thinking will make the Japanese feel endless fun.
However, in Asia, baseball is only popular in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan Province, China. In Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America and other places, baseball is almost neglected. Perhaps the reason why baseball can’t be popularized all over the world is that as a sport, its overall rhythm is too slow.