Masters League

Check these sites out.

http://sports.nifty.com/baseball/masters/
http://www.89master.com/index-c.html

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I was at the JavaOne conference all day today (and will be through Friday) at the Yokohama Pacifico Exhibition Hall. I got to meet some people I'd only known from technical mailing lists up until now.

First of all, I'll link to that original Baseball America article so people can click instead of cut and paste. The article in question about the Masters' League is all the way down at the bottom.

As you can probably guess by Fusianasan's post, yes, there is a Masters' League being played right now. The Tokyo Dreams are currently in first place with a 6 and 1 record. (I got the standings from the Professional Baseball Masters' League web site mentioned above.

Bass plays for the Osaka Romans, currently ranked 3rd out of the five teams with a 5 and 2 record.

Of note, it wasn't Bass or any other big slugger who hit the first home run in the Masters' League. The first home run was hit by former "slumbering" Hanshin Tiger Kameyama, who only hit 14 home runs in his 9 year (377 games) professional career. Kame-chan has added quite a bit of weight since he and Shinjyo were two of the most popular Tigers back when they were a threat in the early '90s. Kameyama was finally benched and demoted as a disciplinary measure when he became chronically late for practices and even games. His inability to wake up in time to make it to the ball park eventually got him fired. After leading a Little League team to a world championship in 1999, the 32 year old Kame-chan appears to have finally worked out his problems.

Note: The above links (other than to Baseball America) are all in Japanese. Thank you Fusianasan for them.

Is there much interest in the 40 game Masters' League? While I haven't seen any games televised, I'm sure that I or somebody else could translate some of the reports from the above two sites. And I read the Kameyama thing in Nikkan Sports, so it is getting some mainstream press. I was under the impression that most people were more interested in off season trades and/or defections.

Thank you for the information.

I would be interested in news from this league. Any baseball from November to February is good baseball.

I took a look at the sites. Very interesting stuff. My knowledge of japanese characters is next to nothing, but I was able to glean some info from the URL names.

Did I correctly read that the Tokyo Dreams have both Yutaka Entasu and Isao Harimoto on their roster? Are there many Meikyukai/Hall Of Fame players in the league?

Thanks again for the information.

Here are some of the famous names in each team;

Sapporo
Nishimoto Takashi, Miyamoto Kazutomo, Yamakura Kazuhiro, Ishige Hiromichi, Nakahata Kiyoshi, Minoda Koji, Yashiki Kaname

Tokyo
Enatsu Yutaka, Ozaki yukio, Matsuoka Hiromu, Murata Choji, Watanabe Hisanobu, Ohya Akihiko, Harimoto Isao

Nagoya
Ushijima Kazuhiko, Kaku Genji, Komatsu Tatsuo, Uno Masaru, Tao Yasushi, Takagi Morimichi

Osaka
Nakanishi Kiyooki, Noda Koji, Yamamoto Kazuyuki, Yamaoki Yukihiko, Tabuchi Koichi, Oishi Daijiro, Randy Bass, Ishimine Kazuhiko, Kurihashi Shigeru, Sasaki Makoto

Fukuoka
Imai Yutaro, Ohno Yutaka, Sotokoba Yoshiro, Yamauchi Takanori, Yamane Kazuo, Ikenaga Masaaki, Tatsukawa Mitsuo, Wakana Yoshiharu, Kobayakawa Takehiko, Takahashi Yoshihiko, Doi Masahiro, Mimura Toshiyuki, Motoi Mitsuo, Matsunaga Hiromi, Yamamoto Kazunori

Hope this helps

Thanks once more for the information. This is a very impressive list of players.

How serious is this league? Are the guys on the rosters that are in their 60's actually playing much? Is this more like slow-pitch softball?

Thanks again.

I don't know about the guys in the 60s but it is definitely not slow pitch softball. Chouji Murata who is 53 years old was throwing in the 85s!!! Incredible man.