Daigaku Yakyu EN

This site covering the hardball type of collegiate baseball in Japan. There are such types like semi-hardball (close to rubberball type) which different from the hardball category of collegiate baseball in Japan.

It is quite different with the NCAA in America. Japanese collegiate baseball running by seasonal league system that split into many federations across regions in Japan, with two big national tournaments held every summer and autumn.

There are now a total of 27 league/federations officially registered under the All Japan University Baseball Federation (公益財団法人全日本大学野球連盟) with more than 350 school/campuses listed under those federations (per March 2023). You can check the complete list of the leagues here.

There are a total of 2 main seasons of the league: Spring season (around April-May) and Fall Season (around September-November).

The common system in Japanese collegiate baseball league is running by a round-robin competition system, meaning every university teams play against every other university team during the season.

In a matchup (called as card/カード in Japan) two teams facing against each other to win the game. A matchup usually plays in two games that held in different days. A team must win 2 games out of the matchup to win a point (usually called winning point/勝ち点/勝点).

If the win is tied, those two teams have to rematch in another game until one team gets two wins. Teams who get the most point above other teams in the same league can be the winner of the seasonal league that been running on.

Sometimes the winner also defined by winning percentage (勝率) or by a rematch when the winning points got tied by other teams.

In other leagues beside Tokyo Big 6 league or other leagues that has the ‘six’ word on its name, there are many leagues that consist of multiple divisions in each league. Basically, there are up to 4-7 teams in one division or league (Tokyo Big Six runs in single division with 6 teams on it).

Take an example of one of the most popular divisions leagues like Tohto Universities League. They had up to 4 divisions with team’s number vary on each division (4-6 teams).

There are also other leagues who had multiple divisions but running in a bit different system. In regional type like Tokai Region league, they start by separated prefectural league first (Shizuoka, Gifu, Mie). Then champions from each prefectural leagues enters the Tokai regional championship to decide the winner of the whole Tokai league.

In a league with multiple divisions, they had this promotional system to let a team from lower division to be promoted into a higher division and vice versa. This is called Relegation Match or in Japan it’s called irekae-sen (入れ替え戦).

The system run by making a team from the lower rank of higher division to face the team from the higher rank of lower division and winning two games to get a point—similar to the common league’s rule. The winner will be promoted to higher division, while the one who lose will be demoted to the lower division.

Take an example on Tohto league, the lower rank team of first division Toyo University facing against the higher rank of second division Komazawa University. Toyo won two games against Komazawa and stay in the first division without promotion, cause they already in the first division. Meanwhile Komazawa have to stay in the second division without demoting to anywhere since they already in second division.

There are a total of two national tournaments in Japanese collegiate baseball: All Japan University Baseball Championship (全日本大学野球選手権大会) and Meiji Jingu Baseball Championship-University part (明治神宮野球大会).

All Japan championship is working just like Summer Koshien—all representatives of champions from all 27 leagues in Japan gets to participate in the tournament.

There are no specific elimination beyond league’s game system, as simple as all champions from all leagues will be selected automatically as the participants.

Meanwhile in Meiji Jingu, some of the champions of the league gets selected automatically (Tokyo Big 6 & Tohto League) but some others are selected through a specific elimination system which runs in regional format (similar to highschool baseball who select the champions of regional fall tournament to participate in Meiji Jingu).

All champions from each league have to participate again in a regional elimination tournament before going to Meiji Jingu as the region’s representative.

No. If they want to participate in a national tournament, they had to climb to the first division first, and become the champion of the season.

Sokeisen (早慶戦) or Waseda-Keio match is a seasonal special matchup in Tokyo Big 6 league where Waseda University face Keio University in the league.

It may sound like a regular matchup, but this matchup has becoming one of historic matchup, as this was the turning point of the Japanese collegiate baseball’s birth in Japan.

This matchup often paired and running right in the last week of each seasonal league, no matter what the year is. The difference between this and regular matchup is that the spectator of this game will be dominated mostly by both Waseda University and Keio University’s OB (old-boy, alumnus), and the cheering section will be more festive that usual as if this was a big festival. This is one of the most sacred matchup in the Tokyo Big 6 league which holds a long history beneath it.