Amateur baseball players from Japan and overseas are playing real games in the warm weather of Okinawa Prefecture in December, a time when pros spend the offseason with their families and amateurs practice in the cold.
The Japan Winter League opened its inaugural one-month season on Nov. 26 at Atom Home Stadium in Ginowan, offering players from high school to corporate level, including those from Uganda and Curacao in the Dutch Caribbean, the chance to catch the eyes of professional scouts.
The league's games are played in four stadiums and can be seen on a YouTube stream. The broadcasts provide tracking data on pitch velocity, vertical and horizontal break, and batted-ball exit velocity.