It's said that even Japanese people who don't like baseball still get caught up in the annual summer high-school baseball tournament, which happens to be taking place right now at Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture. Apparently, this same paradox applies to at least one American. On the Internet message board for the documentary "Kokoyakyu (High School Baseball)," which was aired by the U.S. public broadcaster PBS on July 4, a viewer stated that he or she hates baseball but found the film totally uplifting.
Alex Shear and Kenneth Eng, the two Americans who made the documentary, say on the PBS Web site that they thought the idea of a film about koko yakyu would provide "a great window into Japanese culture." Certainly, one of the best ways to compare mores and attitudes is to choose a point of convergence, and baseball provides a perfect one for Japan and the United States.
But the Koshien tournament, as everyone points out, is about much more than baseball. Former Japan Times sports columnist Marty Kuehnert says in an interview available on the "Kokoyakyu" Web site that Koshien is considered "the last bastion of amateurism," an event that isn't tainted by money or personal ambition. It's about "the love of the game."