All posts by Jim Allen

sports editor for a wire service in Tokyo

NPB news: Sept. 29, 2024

We entered the weekend with one of six playoff spots set and on Saturday we had three. The Yomiuri Giants clinched the Central League pennant by crushing the Hiroshima Carp, who tied a franchise record for losses in a month with their 19th, with Tomoyuki Sugano earning his 15th win, matching the two-time Sawamura Award winner’s second best season total from 2018.

To keep up the theme from last weekend’s post about how this year’s dead ball affected the fortunes of the Hiroshima Carp, “Better red AND dead,” the Giants joined the SoftBank Hawks as league champions. The Carp, Hawks and Giants are all good at winning without power because of their pitching and defense. When the power switched back on, the Carp faded, while the Giants and Hawks just rolled on.

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Lowering the boom on NPB via antitrust

This past week, Japan’s Fair Trade Commission officially warned Nippon Professional Baseball that it was believed to be illegal by requiring players agents be licensed attorneys in Japan. The news came with the acknowledgement that NPB had rescinded that law on Sept. 2 having been informed in August of a potential breach.

What’s interesting here is not that the rule may have been illegal, but that it came under the heading of antitrust law, which is, according to Evan Drellich of THE ATHLETIC, where the Japanese Professional Baseball Players Association is now pursuing a course of action to reduce the service time needed to file for unrestricted free agency.

Continue reading Lowering the boom on NPB via antitrust