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The story
In the summer Koshien final, Chiben Wakayama defeated Kendai Takasaki 4-3, taking the lead for good in the bottom of the 8th to claim their 4th championship in 5 years. On 5ch, discussion went beyond the game itself to cover differences in how the two schools recruit players and comparisons of broadcast ratings.
Kendai Takasaki 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0｜3
Chiben Wakayama 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 X｜4
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Source: baseball.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Even in the final, it was obvious both teams' defense had really dropped in level.
It was a low-level game.
These days the guys still playing 'yakyu' (mocking spelling of baseball) are just soccer's rejects.
If even Koshien is 'over,' baseball's really in trouble now.
You can really tell the athleticism has dropped.
It's a clear sign that baseball club membership has plummeted.
Baseball is just the dumping ground for soccer, basketball, and track-and-field rejects.
'Went to Koshien' and 'actually played at Koshien' are completely different things on your résumé afterward.
Still, I think they should've used him before it got to that moment…
The guy who got subbed out is a pinch-runner specialist who hadn't batted all tournament.
Everyone else on the bench is a pitcher — they wouldn't hit even if they got an at-bat — so they say he's the one with the most power at the plate.
https://tval-now.switch-m.com/
The ratings are amazing.
Too bad (for the other side).
Bragging about ratings that only old folks are watching doesn't mean much.
Gunma Prefecture representative, Kendai Takasaki — players' junior high schools
1 Ishigaki Satoshi · Okinawa, Ishigaki Dai-Ni JHS
2 Ōiwa Shoto · Shizuoka, Ōsuga JHS
3 Satō Maon · Gunma, Tomioka Minami JHS
4 Iwai Yurai · Gunma, Tomioka Minami JHS
5 Ishida Shodai · Chiba, Nanatsukadai JHS
6 Kanzaki Shoto · Aichi, Suenohara JHS
7 Hagiwara Yudai · Gunma, Haruna JHS
8 Ishida Yūsei · Tochigi, Sano Jōtō JHS
9 Kano Ren'i · Aichi, Ōbu JHS
10 Kitada Riku · Chiba, Tōyama JHS
Even after recruiting this many players from other prefectures, they still can't win lol
Takasaki lol
Still, there are 3 local guys.
Chiben Wakayama is much the same.
1 Wake Shota, 3rd yr, Osaka — Taishō Higashi JHS / Nakamozu Boys
2 Yamada Rinko, 3rd yr, Aichi — Ōe JHS / Tōkai Chūō Boys
3 Arai Yūsei, 3rd yr, Chiba — Toyoshiki JHS / Toride Senior
4 Kusumoto Ryūsei, 3rd yr, Wakayama — Tōyō JHS / Nanbu Senior
5 Kurokawa Ridairō, 3rd yr, Osaka — Yamada JHS / Senshū Hankai Boys
6 Kawahara Kazumasa, 3rd yr, Wakayama — Iwade JHS / Wakayama Uchida Young Tigers
7 Yamashita Kōhei, 3rd yr, Yamaguchi — Fukugawa JHS / Iizuka Boys
8 Nagatomo Yūsei, 2nd yr, Okayama — Ishii JHS / Lions Okayama Pony
9 Imoto Yōta, 2nd yr, Wakayama — Nisshin JHS / Kashihara Shiki Senior
10 Matsumoto Kotarō, 3rd yr, Nara — Tawaramoto JHS / Kashihara Shiki Senior
11 Kuba Ryōta, 3rd yr, Hyōgo — Nagasaka JHS / Kobe Chūō Senior
https://n.picvr.net/2608221150095021.gif
So the pitch missed the bat completely and hit him directly?
[Sad News] J.League Opening Match TV Ratings: 2%
That's Kirin Cup soccer-level.
No, even lower than that.
Already over 11% by the morning, huh.
Meanwhile the J.League opener only got 2% in primetime.
Lol, comparing a high schoolers' club tournament to a pro national team match.
Wouldn't be surprising if it hits 15% on TVal from here lol
Their builds are totally different too.
Well, by that logic, Y-Gakuin, the storied Kanagawa powerhouse, has around 100 members every year,
but they struggle just to make the round of 16.
Probably the practice is so brutal that people keep quitting.
So the ones who stick around end up all ripped.
Small and elite through tryouts.
Not taking in more than they can properly coach is a reasonable philosophy, honestly — even if it's not my style.
Argentina vs Spain — rating 22.1%
↑
4am kickoff
A match with nothing to do with Japan
And 'invincible' Koshien just got demolished lol
Bragging about a split-broadcast number doesn't mean much.
It's wild that you're this proud of a once-every-4-years pro world tournament with tens of billions of yen in prize money 'beating' a domestic Japanese high school tournament.
Chiben Wakayama only takes in 13 players a year.
Used to be just 10.
Ah, I see — so it's a full-on elite training school.
They're selecting talent from the very start.
That's few.
Guess they're confident they can develop every single one of them.
This style is honestly better.
Other schools should hold tryouts like this too.
Schools like Osaka Toin recruit a ton of players, but the ones who don't make the bench spend all three years just cheering from the stands.
It's brutal to think that those kids cheering in the stands were probably told by a scout back in ninth grade something like 'You could become a Koshien star!'
And yet schools still poach players early just so rivals can't get them.
Koshien is warped from top to bottom.
https://n.picvr.net/2608221148574379.jpg
Background and Key Points
Koshien is Japan’s national high school baseball tournament, held twice a year at Hanshin Koshien Stadium; the summer edition is the more prestigious of the two and functions as a de facto national spectacle, drawing broadcast attention that rivals professional sports. Chiben Wakayama’s win gives them a fourth title in five years, making them a genuine dynasty in a sport where single-elimination, no-tiebreaker formats usually produce more variance. Teams nominally represent their prefecture, but rosters are commonly built through nationwide recruiting of middle-schoolers, a practice both finalists’ rosters illustrate.
The thread’s real disagreement was less about the game than about what that recruiting system means. One camp read Chiben Wakayama’s small annual intake (as few as 10-13 players) as an admirable meritocratic model – scout carefully, coach intensively, don’t over-recruit – implicitly contrasting it with powerhouses like Osaka Toin that stockpile talent and leave most recruits benched for three years. Others pushed back that both finalists field heavily out-of-prefecture rosters, so the “hometown pride” framing of Koshien is itself questionable regardless of squad size.
A separate strand argued past each other over ratings, pitting Koshien’s numbers against a J.League opener and even the soccer World Cup final, without settling on comparable measures – broadcast platform, time slot, and audience age skew all differ. Readers should know TVal is a real-time, cross-platform ratings service distinct from traditional Video Research household ratings, so headline percentages from different sources aren’t directly comparable, which undercuts most of the ratings one-upmanship in the thread.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “[High School Baseball] Final: Kendai Takasaki 3-4 Chiben Wakayama — Another Comeback in the Bottom of the 8th! Chiben Wakayama Wins Their 4th Title in 5 Years!”
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