The summer Koshien tournament is being held in the heat. Various heat countermeasures such as “cooling time” have been taken, but there is no end to the number of players who have trouble playing due to heatstroke. Regardless of whether it is a Koshien tournament, there is growing interest in the “two-part system,” in which matches are held in the cooler mornings and evenings, avoiding the hot peaks around noon.
At that time, the Nagano City Boys’ Baseball Federation, which hosts the 56th traditional Nagano City Boys’ Baseball Tournament, adopted a two-division system for the first time.
It can be said that the tournament is the biggest tournament in the tournament that all the elementary school teams in the city participate in during the summer vacation period. There was a time when more than 100 teams participated, but as the youth baseball population declined, the number of participating teams decreased, and this year, the same 38 teams as last year participated. 37 games were played over 10 days from July 29th to August 7th at the Nagano Prefectural Baseball Stadium.
The match will last 6 rounds or 1 hour and 15 minutes (1 hour and 30 minutes for the final). The first game will start at 8:30 am, and two games will be completed by 11:15 am, including a 15-minute substitution.
After that, no games will be played during the hottest time around noon, and the third game will resume at 4:00 pm. I went to the schedule to finish 2 games by 6:45 pm, a total of 4 games a day.
Regarding the adoption of the two-part system, Nagano City, which co-hosts the event, said, “We had a request to consider it one or two years ago,” said Hiromi Matsuda, chairman of the federation. This is in response to a directive from the Japan Sports Agency to avoid competitions during hot weather nationwide.
The federation has taken countermeasures against the heat, such as changing the content of the entrance procession to reduce the burden on athletes. However, the adoption of the two-division system resulted in longer restraint times per day, fewer games that could be digested in a day, and longer tournament periods, which increased the burden on the management side.
Therefore, compared to last year when the same number of teams participated, the tournament schedule was increased by two days, and the number of games per day was reduced from six to four. This year, the lights were turned on at 6:00 pm.
Inevitably, there was a time zone during the daytime when there was no middle ground, and Matsuda said, “I asked the officers to go home if they were close to me or wait at the stadium.”
The semi-finals and finals were played together on the final day, and the two teams that won the morning semi-finals spent the day in the cool surroundings of the stadium before heading to the finals at 4:00 pm.
Matsuda said, “As far as I could see, I didn’t see any athletes who cramped their legs throughout the tournament.” There were no schedule changes due to rainfall, and the tournament ended as scheduled. Although the burden on the tournament officials who are aging is increasing, it is also a positive for the health of the officials who serve as referees under the scorching sun.
Chairman Matsuda said, “I’d like to take a questionnaire, including the participating teams, and verify how the two-part system was, and I’d like to connect it to next year.”
The tournament also had a junior high school division, but due to the extreme heat of the venue, the Nagano Olympic Stadium (full artificial turf), it was decided to remove it from the jurisdiction of the federation and change the date of the event.
↓ The start time was brought forward by about 30 minutes because the final was cool.The closing ceremony was held at 5:00 p.m.
2023-08-09 11:39:53
#ColumnThe #Nagano #City #Boys #Baseball #Tournament #adopts #twopart #system #time #summer #nines #WEB
