Japan

Organized Panel Session

(1) - “When You Come to the Fork in the Road, Take It!” The Crisis in Japanese Professional Baseball of 2004 and the Nature of Change in Heisei Japan

The June, 2004 announcement of the proposed merger of the Kintetsu Buffaloes with the Orix Blue Wave inaugurated a summer of crisis for Japanese pro ball. The basic narrative of the crisis, which brought in to question the viability of Nippon Professional Baseball, mirrored the declensionist narrative for Japan which had established itself by the mid-point of the Heisei period.

Over the course of the next few months a cast of characters came forth in the form of team owners and potential team owners, fans, and players which challenges the primacy of the declensionist narrative in favor of a narrative of tribulation, resistance and resilience. In short, framing the Heisei period as the story of one or more lost decades blinds us to what was found, what was created, and what changed over the course of the era. Like postwar Japan’s political economy generally, Japanese professional baseball could no longer survive by following its existing model, and while the owners worked hard to preserve their privileged positions they were challenged by players, fans and new ownership. While the crisis failed to give the NPB the sweeping structural reforms it required, enough did change to keep Japanese pro baseball viable and perhaps set the stage for further change. Examination of the crisis in Japanese professional baseball allows us to evaluate the nature of change which took place during the Heisei period.

Speaker(s)

• PD

  Paul Dunscomb

  University of Alaska Anchorage