Student Baseball in Japan

First, are you high school or collage age? If you're of high school age, there are various international exchange student programs that might be available between the governments of Vietnam and Japan. The Japan Consolate would be a good place to ask about such a program, if one exists.

If you've graduated from high school, and have had a very good academic career, then you might want to look into the Monbusho Scholorship Program [old, possibly out dated web site, but a good place to start]. Baseball will most likely be a secondary consideration under such a scholorship, but it's one way to get into a Japanese collage (after a lot of study) and realize your dream.

There are probably other programs to study in Japan. Your school councelor would be a good person to start with. While playing baseball may be your goal, keep in mind that education is what most scholorship programs are about.

If you don't want to study and just play baseball there are the Industrial Leagues (Japan Amateur Baseball Assocation). They have over 200 teams and there's one Vietnamese pitcher pitching there if I am correct. He did not want to be drafted in the low rounds by a professional team so he decided to play in the industrial leagues to improve his draft position and ultimately, the signing bonus.

Hello, Mr. Westbay. I'm Dung.

Thanks a lot for your reply. I'm 26 years old ths year. I would like to study and play baseball in a school or amateur baseball club. I wish to become a baseball athlete or coach after I graduate, if I can. Because there are many people in Japan good at baseball, I think it will be difficult for me. But if you can give me an example of a school or team, I'll try my best to make my dream come true! Can you help me with such news?

Another thing, when I hear you talk, I'm very surprised that there's Vietnamese baseball players in Japan. Thank you for the news!

I look forward to receiving your reply. Thanks a lot.

Dung Baseball

I hope this helps, but this is only what I experienced when I was an exchange student here for one year in a Japanese college, and, where I currently stand not in school but working.

When I studied as an exchange student at a major university here, there was a student activities office that I went to and asked about baseball clubs. There are baseball "clubs" in the college that are pretty serious on practicing and games, (how many depends on the size of the college) and there are also "circles" as they are known, where people just get together more for fun and play.

If you can join one of the "clubs" then you'll have an easier time getting field reservations, and probably even a little money from the college for feild fees and other small expenses. But, the commitment they expect from you will be pretty high, as the club is pretty serious, and you'd better expect to give your all if you want any playing time.

If you join one of the "circles" then you might get a little frustrated if you're a more serious player than everybody else. The circles have more of a friendly feel to them, but things are a little harder to come by, and meetings are less frequent than the "clubs."

What is available for you to join depends on the size of the school you attend, and how much effort you put into researching what and where clubs and circles exist. If you are going to just a language school, or a small technical or vocational school, then you might want to look into what the Japanese refer to as "kusa-yakyuu" or amateur baseball. These are in no way professional leagues, mostly just guys who throw a team together whether they are friends or work in the same company.

I had to do a little research first on the web, but if your Japanese is any good, it shouldn't be too hard. You can either go to Google and enter the area that you live near (or if you enter the city name + "kusayakyuu" ("

Thanks a lot of your reply and your valuable experiences!

My Japanese is not good enough to read and understand Japanese web sites (Kusa Cup Network Homepage). Can you explain kusa yakyu to me? I don't understand.

For example, I want to know about baseball schools or baseball amateur clubs in OSAKA. How will I write to know those addresses? Following your words, if I join kusa yakyu, I will play with a rubber-ball? For me , I'm playing hard-ball! So how will I do?

I look forward to reiceving your reply. Thanks a lot!

Sorry to disturb you again.

DUNG baseball!

Unfortunately, I live in the Tokyo area, so I have no idea about Osaka, I've never been there.

I think you're going to have a rough time finding information if you cannot speak Japanese, unless you have a friend who is or speaks Japanese to help you out.

Like I said earlier, if the school you are going to go to has an activities or student life center, then you can just go there, and they should be able to help you out. But I'm afraid there isn't any information that I know of about amateur baseball clubs in Japan available in English.

Kusa yakyu literally means "herb/grass baseball," and is taken as just teams that just play baseball for fun. It is also assumed that kusa yakyu = rubber baseball. I did a search on the net for hard baseball teams, and there are maybe about 1% or less than the number of teams that play with a rubber baseball, so unless you are playing for a college club (not the circles I mentioned) or for a real amateur team where you might get a small salary, then you'd better start looking into getting used to a rubber baseball.

The rubber baseballs are pretty different, even though it is still a baseball. The seams are there, but they are pretty much just part of the rubber ball, meaning that the ball won't break as much for breaking balls and curves. Forkballs and 2 seam fastballs still work just fine though. It'll just take you a little bit of time to get used to it though, that's all.

On the batting part with a rubber ball, get yourself the lightest bat possible, otherwise if you hit the ball with any power, the ball will just squish, and pop up. (I did that many times in my first few games using a rubber baseball.) I think ceramic bats are also the best for rubber baseballs, but that's just my personal opinion. During your first few practices, just use and try out all of your teammates' bats to see which ones you like. Then you can ask them to help you get your own.

About the only thing I can do for you since you don't speak Japanese and aren't coming to Tokyo, is to give you the links for the teams in Osaka, and you'll have to browse through them to see if there is any English on them, or if you can understand them. Click on each link on the page below and just start looking through them. (Most of the team names are in English, and those are the links you want to click on.)

Kusa Yakyu Osaka Area teams

After you click on the team name, the link on the next page you want to click on is the one starting with http://, and not the one near the bottom of the page next to the yellow "i" (for i-mode phones).

After you are done looking through the first 10 teams, click on the link at the top next to the numbers "1-10" (from the link provided above), that link says "next" in Japanese, and you'll get the next 10 teams. There should be 125 teams total, so 13 pages to look through.

I'm afraid I can't help you out searching for teams any further. You'll just have to try and find somebody in your school or neighborhood who can speak English to help you out.

* If by chance you find someone who speaks Japanese, here is another link that you can search for teams through: Descente Kusa Yakyu.