Posted on 08/30/2015 8:33:59 AM PDT by FlJoePa
I suppose the demographics of the recruiting base might be a factor. Youth baseball in the U.S. is now primarily a small town and suburban sport, so the teams and players will be spread out. If baseball is still a city game in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, clubs would tend to have inherently larger player pools even without recruitment fun and games.
Back in the day Taiwan just cheated. Now I think the dominance simply comes from discipline.
Little League will never compete with club teams and traveling teams - I think they know that. Little League is more about community than it is about future scholarship/draft possibilities, and some people still like it that way.
This township in PA has 365 residents. Something to think about.
365 residents?
By the looks of those crowds, I’d say that town’s presently being overrun with home break-ins.
Game Time! ABC 3PM. Let’s go Red Land!
10-2 after one inning. Japan doesn’t know what just hit them. Looks like a beat down in the making.
Heckuva game so far. I hope Pennsylvania is able to rally.
CGato
If Japanese LL is anything like JHS and HS baseball here , these kids practice all-year round inc. winter .
The same things that put them at the top of all educational categories: dedication and discipline......
Look at the influx of Asians into the sports of golf and tennis.........
After the first inning, they were down 10 - 2 and now they're up 13 - 11?????? Just Wow!
This a great game!
Yes and no. The small towns with only 6 or 8 teams do not have a pool of talent to draw from and thus will never make it to Williamsport.
It's the larger metropolitan areas with the larger league teams who are consistantly making it to the finals.
Make no mistake about it, the US team from Red Land is a major youth baseball area.......
Check out my link on post #10
Now Japan 18 - PA 11 in the bottom of 6th . What a comeback !
Japan wins 18-11 .
Just wow! I'm glad I don't have a bookie because after that first inning, I thought for sure it was going to complete blow out for Penn......
Great game, congrats to Japan.......Gotta love their teeny tiny little catcher.........
I'll watch the LLWS any time over MLB...........
Can’t speak to the other countries, but in Japan sports are essentially club teams. Once you pick one, your involved year round. Most have two tournaments a year leading to national championships at the High School level. During “off season” there is still practice and such. A lot more focus on single sport vs multi-sport athletics.
Sometimes school teams will share athletes where the club doesn’t have enough to make a tournament. So for example if the volleyball team has a good jumper he might help out the track team in a meet long jumping or high jumping, but only for that specific tournament or meet. The track team might then provide some assistance back if the volleyball team has injuries or can’t quite scrap up enough folks to field a full team.
With baseball - it is by far the most popular sport, though tested by soccer in the 90s/00s it has regained prominence. I see it as the dedication to the single sport as the driver though.
Can’t speak to Taiwan’s cheating (though we’ve had our own scandals there with overaged, etc) but the culture there regarding sports is similar to japan with dedication toward a single sport. In both it is rare to find members leaving for another sport, usually if they leave they get out of sports all together and just figure it isn’t for them. At least based on discussions I’ve had.
” but in Japan sports are essentially club teams.Once you pick one, your involved year round “
This is true at the junior high and high school level , but not in elementary school . Kids play various sports after school ( usually from 4th grade ) inc. baseball and soccer .
Wonder if it’s regional or a newer thing then - my nephews in Chiba only did the one even in grade school, and my wife says in the Nagasaki region it was the same... though that would have been some time back.
Probably more to do with the school and its size . I’m judging by what I see around here in the Kumamoto countryside which no doubt is not representative of Japan as a whole . In fact , I was an ALT and used to visit ( once 5 now 3 due to dwindling population ) an elementary school once a week to teach English and play with the kids . Now live right next door to an elementary school and they switch between soccer and baseball depending on the season .
ok, that makes sense - since the more rural areas have fewer kids. I imagine in the more populated areas that there is more competition so they try to get a leg up if they really want to move on to middle/high school sports as well.
The area is no stranger to organized baseball, no doubt. That said, there are better travel teams in Williamsport itself than the York area.
This is about Little League though - and Red Land had a great concentration of talent, developed over years, that came together at the right time.
Central PA is producing more than its share of D1 baseball talent - most to the ACC.
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