At the professional baseball rookie player selection meeting (draft) held on October 11, a total of 128 people were nominated by the professional baseball team. From now on, I will enter the professional team through a provisional contract, but I think there are two perspectives on the draft.
One is that based on this result, the guidance of the amateur team to which the players belong will be evaluated uniformly. And the other is that nothing to do in the future is related to the guidance and education of those teams, and it is important to accept this fact.
“It is a strength that such a phenomenon is occurring.”
Saburo Kobayashi, Managing Director of the Japan Softball Baseball Association (hereinafter referred to as the Japan Softball Baseball Association), said with pride that all pitchers except foreigners were from junior high school baseball at the opening pitchers of professional baseball in 2019. It was in response to the fact. Even in this year’s draft, more than 40% of the total, including Daichi Moriki (1st in Hanshin) and Teru Yamashita (1st in Yakult), are from junior high school softball.
“Schoolchildren” and “Koki generation” match !? Difference between softball and hardball
Recently, in the professional baseball world, junior high school softball graduates, especially pitchers, are remarkable.
Ace-class pitchers representing Sepa, Kodai Senga (Softbank) and Tomoyuki Kanno (Giants), Nobuhito Morishita (Hiroshima) who started the finals of the Tokyo Olympics, and Ryoji Kuribayashi (Hiroshima) who became a pitcher Pitchers from junior high school softball are sweeping the ball world.
In the reality that hardball baseball groups such as boys and seniors have produced more professional players, what kind of path has softball baseball taken?
“The Japanese-style baseball has been positioned as a’lifelong sport’. There are 19 national competitions, not only for school children and college students, but also for seniors and masters. Also, it is not a national competition. However, in some districts, there is a tournament called “Ground Kouki,” and some tournaments are held with school children. “
The fact that school children and the Kouki generation can play on the same ground is related to the distance and size of the diamond, such as the distance between the pitcher and the catcher. It’s funny to imagine grandpa and grandchildren and great-grandchildren playing together, but it has different characteristics from the rigid type to win or is also a “professional reserve force”. It is.
