The Nippon Professional Baseball All-Star Game is an annual

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

series of

All-Star Game An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or div ...

s (in most years, two games are played, but three such games can and have been played as well) between players from the

Central League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consist ...

and the

Pacific League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the annual Japan Series. It currently consis ...

, currently selected by a combination of fans, players, coaches, and managers. The All-Star Game usually occurs in early to mid-July and marks the symbolic halfway point in the

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning ''Professional Baseball''. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation ...

(NPB) season (though not the mathematical halfway point; in most seasons, that takes place one week earlier).

History

The first NPB All-Star game was played in 1951. For many years, mimicking the ''

gaijin is a Japanese word for foreigners and non-Japanese citizens in Japan, specifically being applied to foreigners of non-Japanese ethnicity and those from the Japanese diaspora who are not Japanese citizens. The word is composed of two kanji: and ...

waku'' rule of the NPB, each All-Star team was limited to two foreign players.

Whiting, Robert Robert Whiting (born October 24, 1942) is a best-selling author and journalist who has written several books on contemporary Japanese culture - which include topics such as baseball and American gangsters operating in Japan. He was born in New Jer ...

. ''You Gotta Have Wa'' (Vintage Departures, 1989), p. 275.

Game results

References

{{Reflist 1951 establishments in Japan All-star games Nippon Professional Baseball competitions Recurring sporting events established in 1951

History

Game results

See also

References