2008 Spring Senbatsu

Great work on the table. That'll save me a lot of time when it comes time to make the tournament chart. They draw for positions on said chart this afternoon (March 14, 2008).

So, have people been working on finding Internet feeds for the games yet? Can we expect the same crowd as last year for the chat sessions?

I'll look for it. MBS will probably have coverage, I think.

Any favorites out there?

I don't know who's lost players, but there's:

• Tokoha Kikugawa - The defending champions looked strong, but did they lose too many players?


• Yokohama - You think the inside-the-parker during summer qualifiers last year have motivated them to run the table?


• Chiben Wakayama and Tenri - Perennial teams to the tournament. I have a personal spot for Tenri since I've stayed there twice in my three times to Japan. Sure Tenrikyo is probably a bit out there to some Japanese, but I like them.


• Chiba Keizai - Definitely a hard-working team. Seen them in person when they played in the '06 summer Koushien.


• Uji Yamada Shougyou - Another team I saw in person, this time during '06 Mie Prefecture qualifiers. In the game I saw them play, they looked dominant. But it was the prefectural qualifiers. Oh, and I think there's another light blue uniformed team (Kita Outsu being the other).


• Imabari Nishi - Another regular, definitely solid.

But to me it's all about the new teams, I always like to seem them do well. I especially like to root for the 21st century teams. I like the underdogs.

I just noticed the brackets up. I'll get my version up ASAP.

Just quit from my job, so I'll have all the time in the world to watch them. You can count me in the chat room every night. Good to see you guys again.

Your participating teams page says that Shimonoseki Shogyo is in Yamaguchi, but your tournament bracket has them in Tokyo. The participating table appears to be correct (according to the Japan High School Baseball Federation).

Yes yes, you are right. Also, it's Seibou Gakuen from Saitama. The brackets should finally be right (I hope).

Thanks. Now it's up to Deanna for the final check. If it passes her scrutiny, it's worthy of publishing.

Ack! Why me?

I don't see anything wrong offhand, although I do have one question: is there a way we could all somehow agree to translate/transliterate some schools and names the same way? Like putting "HS" or "Koukou" or whatever makes it really hard to unify between the different reports.

I do have one nitpick -- I always refer to Toyo Himeji as "Toyodai Himeji," and I think most other people do, too. I only notice it more because I was a huge Shigetoshi Hasegawa fan and he went there.

Westbay's brackets have a lot closer to the romanizations I'm used to seeing for everything, although he has a typo or two (Katoshima instead of Kagoshima - and Kita Ohtsu high school is in Shiga prefecture not Saga).

Why? Because you have a great eye for catching these sorts of things.

I've updated the tournament tree with your three corrections/suggestions.

Now that I have Deanna's seal of approval, I feel more confident for "real" news sources to propagate the bracket in spreading the news of Koshien. I'm releasing the bracket tree under the Creative Commons Attribute and Share Alike license, so there's no reason to hold back you lurking news agencies. Start writing about this Spring's Koshien!

I'd like to know what news agencies would be lurking here. And on a side note, I wonder how the networks would be keen on having an English announcer at the tournament? I think it'd be fun to do it!

Of course, I think it'd be cool to be a coach and get a team to Koushien, but that's just a fantasy of mine.