Japanese baseball holds an immense importance in the lives of Japanese people. Baseball in Japan was introduced in the year of 1872. The name of the person who is responsible for the dawn of a new era in baseball game is Horace Wilson. He was a professor of English in the University of Tokyo. However, it took almost six years to make the first formal Japanese baseball team in Japan.
Japanese baseball has become quite a popular game in the country. Baseball in Japan is called Yakyu combining the Japanese terms for field and ball . The game is played mostly in the Junior and Senior high school levels. There are two most notable tournaments of baseball in Japan that are played in the senior high level of school . These tournaments are organized by Japan High School Baseball Federation. For the spring tournament this federation works with Mainichi Shimbun and for the summer season of the tournament the federation works in association with the Asahi Shimbun. The final game of the tournaments is played in Hanshin Koshien Stadium . All the qualifying games are broadcasted along with the final game of the tournaments.
In Japanese baseball the highest game is the Nippon Professional Baseball. This is called Puro Yakyu in Japanese. This professional baseball tournament began in the year of 1920. It has mainly two leagues that are named Central League and Pacific League. However, there are some leagues that are in the secondary level of baseball professionals. These leagues are Eastern League and Western League.
With the improvement in the standard of baseball in Japan , Japanese players have begun to play with several prestigious American Major Leagues also. With the participation of Japan Samurai Bears in Golden Baseball League in 2005, Japan started playing in American professional baseball leagues.
