Japan National High School Baseball Championship
This is a big deal. From page 10 of the Thursday, May 21st Japan Times print newspaper. The All-Japan National High School Baseball Championship held annually at Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture and broadcast on live TV, is to be cancelled this year because of the novel coronavirus. It is the first time since the Second World War the tournament has been cancelled. The two-week championship among Japan's leading high schools is extremely competitive, and so revered that people collect dirt from the field to take away as a talisman.
Japanese approach baseball not as mere recreation, but as a marital art, a philosophy of life. Very serious indeed.
In this picture, Seiryo High School, from Ishikawa Prefecture, marches during the opening ceremony for the National High School Baseball Championship on Aug. 8, 2019.