High school baseball

[SugoiBoy]

When I moved to Japan a few years ago it was during the summer. One of the things that surprised me at the time was seeing high school baseball games on TV. Personally, I had never heard of a high school baseball game being televised in North America.

Anyway, those games turned out to be from none other than the National High School Baseball Championship (a/k/a the Summer Kōshien). This year will mark the 100th summer championship. It's amazing that baseball has such a long and rich history here.

 

[ShowaJidai]

It used to be called "beisubaru" until the nationalism of the 20's took over when they renamed it "yakyu". They still practice with the fervor of a martial art.

 

[chaztagster]

It used to be called "beisubaru" until the nationalism of the 20's took over when they renamed it “yakyu”

Nope

 

[Ken1988]

It used to be called "beisubaru" until the nationalism of the 20's took over when they renamed it "yakyu". They still practice with the fervor of a martial art.

No, yakyu, 野球 “ball in the field”, has been in use since 1894. Before that, it was known as teikyu, 底球 a direct translation of “base ball”. The problem was that tennis was also known as teikyu with different characters 庭球, and people sought a better word. I think yakyu is a good translation.

 

[MongerInAStrLnd]

It may technically be played by the same rules (is the infield fly rule used in Japan?) but the philosophy is so different that I consider them different sports.

 

[Ken1988]

It may technically be played by the same rules (is the infield fly rule used in Japan?) but the philosophy is so different that I consider them different sports.

Yes, the infield fly is one of the rules Japanese kids learn from “baseball rules for kids” type of books and are usually confused (why declared out?) because in a kids’ game, an infielder sometimes genuinely cannot catch the fly infield. The rules are the same.

 

[SugoiBoy]

While I'm not sure about the origin of the Japanese term yakyū (野球), I do know that the Koreans usually call baseball yagu (야구).