Nippon Professional Baseball announced recently it will adopt new technology for next year. In addition to making the designated hitter rule available in official Central League games 52 years after the Pacific League began using it, both leagues will begin using a pitch timer and the PitchCom system to audibly transmit the catcher’s signals to the pitcher.
The pitch timer rule has shaved from 20 to 25 minutes off Major League Baseball game times, and it would seem like NPB would be all over that, but Japan – despite displaying green “Play Faster” posters in every dugout for the past decade – has dragged its feet.
A Japanese organization dragging its feet is in no way news. That’s the way Japan rolls. The interesting thing about the pitch timer announcement was “reason” for its introduction.
“The introduction at this time is not to shorten game times but to be in conformity with the international trend,” NPB secretary general Katsuhiko Nakamura said after an Aug. 3 NPB executive committee meeting.
The Japan Professional Baseball Players Association called for the pitch timer adoption at its extraordinary general session on July 28 for the purpose of shorter games and had also decided to call for the introduction of an ABS “robot umpire” system for calling balls and strikes.
The NPB assertion that it’s not to reduce game times is most likely just a jab at the union, in essence saying, “We don’t give a shit what you want the pitch clock for, we are doing it because we want it, and what you think doesn’t matter.”
Before I was kicked out of Kyodo News, our union negotiated for language that let us contract employees stay on after turning 65. The negotiations took years, with the company stressing it would be virtually impossible to accept before backing down when a strike was threatened.
On the day the agreement was signed, the company, which had argued for years it would be impossible for any of us to stay on past 65 without the language, said, “You know, we could always keep you guys on without the new language, so all your work was for nothing. Nobody cares what you do or say.”
The sudden need to keep up with the “international trend” is that Japan is still looking for excuses for March’s quarterfinal World Baseball Classic exit. Manager Hirokazu Ibata has been raked over the coals for eschewing small ball, while some have blamed NPB players’ unfamiliarity with the pitch timer and PitchCom.
