On Mar 26, 4:48 pm, CL <flot...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> John W. wrote:
> > Outside of the major league teams, what options are there for going to
> > see some competitive baseball? I'll be heading to Himeji in late May
> > (finally) and my son wants to go see a baseball game. I know there are
> > leagues, but Google didn't help me too much (though I didn't look
> > beyond the third page of results).
>
> Do you mean "baseball" or "Japanese baseball flavored product" a.k.a.
> "yakyu."  The former will have done their spring tour and left by the
> time you arrive and the latter have a team (sic) just up the road in
> Kobe, the Orix-Hankyu Blue Buffalo Wave or some post merger name like
> that.  As for alternatives, the main ones are (check your own listings
> for local games):
>
> The Masters League which is made up of a lot of yakyu retirees and whose
> season may be up by the time you arrive.  Lots of beer industry
> sponsorship and lots of discount coupons for cheap or free booze get
> passed out.
>
> The Kyushu League which is sort of like Major League Class A or American
> Legion Ball in the US Midwest.  The teams are made up of guys who want
> to play yakyu but didn't get an invitation to Spring Training and are
> trying to impress the scouts enough to get a tryout.
>
> You can also get in to see the yakyu ni-gun teams (farm teams / second
> string of the major teams) for next to nothing and they play in more
> local stadiums.  The Blue Assed Buffalo Thingies do several games a year
> in a local Himeji stadium.
>
> Kin-chan (Hagiwara Kinichi) has his Ibaragi Golden Golds, which are a
> sort of Harlem Globetrotters that do exhibition games against teams made
> up of locals.  Sort of a cross between yakyu and the typical Japanese
> after the evening news freak show programming.
>
That's the sort of info I was needing; I don't want to travel to Orix
if I can help it; it's a bit of a slog from the in-laws, though I do
actually like that area (or did 14 years ago when I taught a class
nearby).

Someone on another forum gave me this link:

http://english.baseball-museum.or.jp/home/link/index.html

It's pretty useful, interesting, etc.

John W.