Nippon Professional Baseball All-Star Series
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The Nippon Professional Baseball All-Star Series is an annual baseball series of All-Star Games between players from the Central League and the Pacific League, currently selected by a combination of fans, players, coaches, and managers. The All-Star Game usually occurs in early to mid-July and marks the symbolic halfway point in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) season (though not the mathematical halfway point; in most seasons, that takes place one week earlier). Each series consists of two or three games.
History
[edit]The first NPB All-Star game was played in 1951.
For many years, mimicking the gaijin waku rule of the NPB,[1] each All-Star team was limited to two foreign players.[2]
Game results
[edit]Hanshin Tigers player voting controversy
[edit]The fan votes of the starters of the 2023 All Star Series revealed 9 of the 10 highest voted starters were Hanshin Tigers players. It was the third time in NPB players from the same team led the voting in all positions.[6] The controversy was garnered as some of the positions, such as catcher, which in question was Ryutaro Umeno, were voted in for the sole purpose of being voted in by fans, as he did not produce numbers good enough to warrant an all star game appearance, compared to that of a player like Takumi Ohshiro. Others, like Teruaki Sato at third base, were good, but there had been players who were much more deserving to start, like Toshiro Miyazaki and Kazuma Okamoto.[7]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Foreign Player Restrictions?". Japanese Baseball.
- ^ Whiting, Robert. You Gotta Have Wa (Vintage Departures, 1989), p. 275.
- ^ "Kotaro Kiyomiya walk-off homer lifts PL in NPB All-Star Game 1". 27 July 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-07-27.
- ^ "Yuki Yanagita lifts Pacific League with home run in All-Star series finale". The Japan Times. 28 July 2022. Archived from the original on 2022-07-28.
- ^ "Yanagita earns MVP as Pacific sweeps series". japannews.yomiuri.co.jp. 2022-07-28. Retrieved 2025-03-27.
- ^ "日職／阪神虎人氣太狂 明星賽9位置全「霸榜」拿下最高票│TVBS新聞網" [Hanshin Tigers are too popular, and the 9 positions in the All Star game are all "dominant" and win the highest votes]. TVBS (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2023-10-30.
- ^ "日職》明星賽一隊霸榜讓日媒直呼異常 挨批：粉絲程度就這樣了 - 自由體育" [The first team of the star game of "Japanese Career" dominated the list, which made the Japanese media call it abnormal and criticized]. sports.ltn.com.tw. 2023-06-20. Retrieved 2023-10-30.