Eight years after turning their backs on visiting major league all-star tours, Japan's players are welcoming the big leaguers back with open arms for games in November.
For the first time since 2006, a team of major league all stars will visit Japan in November for a series of games against the Japan national team in what some see as a reincarnation of what had become a biennial "Nichibeiyakyu" (Japan-America Baseball) series. But for Nippon Professional Baseball and its union, it is something altogether different.
"I don't like calling it 'Nichibeiyakyu,' " Toru Matsubara, the secretary general of the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association told Kyodo News on Tuesday.