Things Learned from Japan HS practice

In September, I attended a baseball practice at a local Japanese HS in Tokyo. This was at the tail end of a baseball trip to Japan during which I saw several professional games throughout the country.

Here were a few of my observations from watching the practice (I saw about an hour-hour and a half of the workout).

1. Culture of Respect

In Japan, respect for all things is important, and this was noticeable during the workout. After taking infield/outfield, all players bowed to the field and to the coaches. Also, while walking into the workout, all players removed their hats and greeted me as a visitor to their practice session. Also, anytime that a player spoke to a coach, the player would always remove his hat while listening to the coach.

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Notice above player has cap removed while addressed by coach. Also notice the glove lineup on the table — all gloves placed perfectly, palms facing down on top of table.

2. Hustle and communication

Players would hustle from station to station, even during the clean-up after practice. You can see some of the hustle here in this video.

Communication was also evident during a competition that occured later in the practice.

The competition was setup like this -
5 players would start near home plate, closely lined up along 3B line. You’d have a player for each INF position plus a catcher.

Before taking the field, each player would yell something - mostly just random “rah rah” type stuff.

After all the players have said something, they would all take off for their positions. The SS and 2B would both be in the same position at 2B.

The competition would start with the catcher taking the ball and throwing it to 3B, who would then throw to 2B, who then throws to 1B who then throws back to the C. The team would throw around the horn in this manner 3 times (2B and SS alternate receiving throws at 2B). The goal was to complete the throw it around (3 times) within 17 seconds). You can see a video of the compeition below. If the team failed, they would start over from the beginning, starting from where they took the field.

As you can tell from the above, there was a lot of communication/talking/enthusiasm going on while the drill was happening.

The middle school team also practiced at the same time as the HS team - while the HS team was using the infield, the Jr High team would use the outfield and vice-versa.

3. Japanese live batting practice.

Another thing that the teams did during BP was to do a batting practice with a live pitcher and the bases loaded. The runners at 1B and 2B would always steal, working on jumps, while 3B would work on live reads of batted balls. Each batter would have live counts.

Video of the BP session is below.

Other videos of the practice session are below.

Generally, here are some other observations from watching Japanese professional baseball -

• During INF/OF, when hitting to the 1B, never have the 1B throw to 3B. How many times do you see a 1B make a throw from 1B to 3B in a game, yet this is pretty standard in most people’s infield/outfield routine. Instead, have the 1B make a play that is more likely to happen, like starting a double-play to 2B.
• On the throw it around - most coaches will have their 3B finish off the throw it around by flipping the ball back to the pitcher. In Japanese throw it arounds, they would finish it off by having the 3B make a real throw back to the SS. So, on an out at first, if you would do 1B-SS-2B-3B-P, have the players do 1B-SS-2B-3B-SS-3B with the 3B making a real throw to the SS and back to the 3B then have 3B flip it back to the pitcher. Some Japanese teams would have the SS and 3B make multiple throws back and forth between the SS and 3B before returning the ball back to the pitcher.
• When turning two on the INF, don’t forget about your catchers - after the 1B has done his “turn 2”. Roll a ball out in front of HP and have the catcher do a turn 2.

Here are some video of various Japanese professional INF/OF routines -

Picture of Japanese equipment room.

Here are some other scenes from Japanese baseball -