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Henoko fight Koshien is ‘Field of Dreams’ for Japanese baseball youth Tokyo tries to soften Okinawa with ¥300 billion budget T he Japanese National High School Baseball Championship Tournament, known as ‘Koshien’, is a high school baseball tournament taking place two times every year, in spring and summer, in which 49 high school teams vie for the top spot among the high school baseball teams in the nation. ‘Koshien’ gets its the name of the Hanshin Koshien Baseball Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture, in which the championship has been determined for more than 100 years. The first tournament was played in 1915, with a break only during the war years. Practically the whole nation focuses its attention on Koshien Stadium during the tournaments, and it can justly be considered as the holiest of holy temples of Japanese high school base- ball. The teams, which sur- vived the regional champi- onships as basically just one team will be selected per each prefecture, began to play in this year’s tour- nament on Aug. 6th. Playing at the Koshien tournament is the dream of every high school boy in the nation playing baseball and, at the same time, the biggest chance to go on to a professional career in baseball. Players like Hideki ‘ Godzilla’ Matsui, Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka all played for their school teams at the Koshien tournament attracting the attention of talent scouts. Ichiro played there twice, in summer and spring tournaments, although he did not get much attention at that time and his team lost in the first round. All these players became professionals and went on remarkable careers in the U.S. Major Leagues. The Japan National High School Base Ball Tournament celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, and the Koshien tourna- ment will take place over 15 days from August 6th. Every high school team in the tournament has enthusi- astic supporters at Koshien Field to cheer them up, while people who are unable to go to the venue follow the games glued to their TV sets, as all match- es are broadcast live on the national TV. Talk about Koshien is everywhere in schools and work places, Continues on page 3 Konan High School baseball team after winning the National Summer Champioship title in 2010. The team’s coach Masaru Gakiya is standing on right. Konan High School team went to Koshien for the first time in 1966. I n an apparent attempt to alleviate ten- sions between his government and Okinawa Prefecture over the construc- tion of the replacement facility for MCAS Futenma in Henoko, Prime Minister Shinzo pledged to do all he can to earmark more than ¥300 billion ($2.4 billion) for the development of Okinawa in the fiscal 2016 budget. Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga had made a request for ¥300 billion when he had a meeting with Abe on Aug. 7 in Tokyo. In a news conference on the same day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga had stated, “We will promote development of Okinawa as a national strategy.” The announcement came after the Abe government has seen opinion polls showing his support number going downhill lately, mainly because of the security legislation that Abe is trying to ram through the Diet, but is facing a stiff opposition from almost all quarters of the society. The government apparently fears that its support rate could tank further if the fight with Okinawa gets out of hand. To sweeten the pot, Abe already had announced on Aug. 4th the suspension by one month of all construction work related to the Henoko plan, during which the gov- ernment intends to have ‘intensive dialogue’ with Okinawa. The first such meeting took place Monday, when Suga arrived at Okinawa and had a dinner meeting with Governor Onaga. The second meeting took place Tuesday afternoon. According to many observers, while the truce offers at least a temporary relief from hostilities in relations between Okinawa and Tokyo, prospects for reaching a resolution to the conflict are next to nil. “It will be diffi- cult to make a drastic change in the plans,” a high-ranking official of the central govern- ment said before the talks in Okinawa. Okinawan officials insist that there is no room for compromise with the central gov- ernment on the relocation. Some are suggest- ing asking the central government to extend the suspension period indefinitely. “The best solution for now would be the extension to become indefinite for now,” an official with the Okinawa side said informally. Aug. 13, 2015 - Aug. 19, 2015 ¥150 Fantastic Okinawa Local News Classifieds Okinawan Culture Weather JU Weekly Raffle Events this week English Lesson Horoscope Recipe 2 2 Fantastic Okinawa
