[Special Feature: Youth and Sports] The Road to Pitch Count Limits in the High School Baseball Federation

On November 29 last year, the Japan High School Baseball Federation (JHBF) held a board meeting and officially decided to limit the number of pitches a single pitcher can throw to 500 per week in national and regional tournaments sponsored by the federation. This decision followed a report released on the 20th of the same month by the "Expert Committee on Injury Prevention for Pitchers," which was established at the request of the JHBF.

Based on my experience serving as the chairperson of this expert committee, I would like to discuss the background of this decision, the process leading up to it, and future challenges in this article.

High school baseball is a star attraction among the many student sports. The National High School Baseball Championship in August (Summer Koshien) is a major event held in the middle of summer vacation, taking over Hanshin Koshien Stadium for more than two weeks. During that time, attendance exceeds 800,000, and NHK broadcasts every game live. Last year's final reached a 15% viewership rating despite being on a weekday afternoon; it is no exaggeration to call it a national event.

However, signs of decline are beginning to appear even in high school baseball. The number of member schools in the JHBF (hardball) peaked at 4,253 in 2005 and has since turned downward, reaching 3,957 in 2019. Even more serious is the number of club members, which has decreased by 15% since the peak, with the number of first-year members dropping by as much as 25%.

The causes are clear. First, the number of young people in Japan as a whole is decreasing. In particular, the number of males aged 16 to 18 has decreased by 5.6 million over the past 20 years. Second, the options for sports are increasing. There were as many as 33 sports in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In recent years, sports such as basketball and table tennis have become increasingly professionalized, and baseball is no longer the only professional sport children aspire to. Third, there is a movement toward respecting the human rights of individual players. The image of a baseball club where all members shave their heads as if entering an ascetic training hall and do not hesitate to make any self-sacrifice for the group likely appears outdated to today's youth.

However, the problem is that these outdated elements have become the selling point of high school baseball. One might call it nostalgia for the "good old days." When you visit a high school baseball club's activities, every member without exception takes off their hat and greets you loudly with "Hello." Even during breaks, they practice almost every day from morning until night, covered in sweat and dirt. In games, they always play with full effort, and if they lose, they shed large tears and collect the soil of Koshien. Are there any such "pure" young people around these days? Many Japanese people are moved and touched by this "high-school-student-likeness," which could be described as an endangered species.

As a background to how this image became established, attention should be paid to the fact that high school baseball is considered "part of education." To begin with, baseball was brought to Japan in the early Meiji era at a school in Tokyo (Daigaku Nanko). From there, it spread to middle schools across the country, leading to the holding of the National Middle School Baseball Championship, the predecessor of the current Koshien tournament. However, as is clear when watching a baseball game, many of the players on the field are just standing around and do not appear to be exercising much. During an attack, almost everyone is sitting on the bench. It would not be strange if it appeared inappropriate as an activity conducted at a school where students should be striving in their studies and training their bodies. In fact, in the late Meiji era, the Asahi Shimbun ran a series of 22 articles titled "Baseball and Its Evils," severely pointing out the educational problems inherent in student baseball.

Therefore, a justification for young people playing baseball at school became necessary. The idea was to deflect criticism by introducing educational elements into baseball, which at first glance looks like play. In other words, hard and long hours of practice were justified as a means to cultivate "perseverance" and "mental strength," and strict adherence to discipline and the system of collective responsibility for violations were accepted as a form of moral education. Furthermore, this trend was strengthened when baseball was viewed as an "enemy sport" and became a target of criticism during the last war.

There is no doubt that this historical background influenced post-war high school baseball. As shown in Figure 1, long hours of practice almost every day have become normalized in high school baseball clubs. Additionally, there are survey reports indicating that about 10% of high school baseball coaches condone corporal punishment (*1). Since education has an investment aspect, it seems that even situations that seem unreasonable have been justified as being "for the sake of the future."

Among those involved in high school baseball, there were more than a few who showed a desire to improve the bad practices hidden behind the glamorous side. One of them was Nobuhiro Togashi, the president of the Niigata Prefecture High School Baseball Federation.

The direct trigger for the establishment of the expert committee was Togashi's declaration that he would introduce a simple and clear rule of "100 pitches per pitcher per game" to the Niigata prefecture tournament. This was widely reported, making Togashi a "man of the hour," but he had been embarking on various reforms since he served as the executive director of the Niigata Prefecture High School Baseball Federation. The key point was to abolish the vertical structure of the baseball world and ensure a player-first approach.

Specifically, he launched the Niigata Prefecture Baseball Council in 2009 to create a place where junior high school, high school, and adult baseball organizations could meet, and in 2012, he established the "Baseball Injury Care Network" with the cooperation of doctors from Niigata Rehabilitation Hospital. Of particular note was the distribution of "Baseball Handbooks" to all elementary and junior high school baseball players. These were designed to cover all information related to baseball-related injuries, allowing for the recording of growth such as height and weight, as well as records of various checkups and medical consultations.

In other words, the Niigata Prefecture High School Baseball Federation's "100 pitches per game declaration" did not come out of nowhere. When I was writing "The Economics of High School Baseball," published in 2016, Kazuhiro Tanabe, a director of the JHBF, strongly recommended that I meet and talk with Togashi. Some reports suggested that the JHBF was displeased with Niigata's preemptive move, but that is a misunderstanding. Rather, thanks to Niigata Prefecture, the JHBF found an opportunity to directly address the issue of pitcher injury prevention, which had been a pending matter. I presume that I was asked to serve as the chairperson of the expert committee, despite having no baseball experience, because I had published that book.

When I first saw the members of the committee, I had the impression that baseball-related people were well-balanced, but I also felt that it would be difficult to consolidate opinions because they were all people with distinguished achievements. It seems that from the beginning of the committee's establishment, the JHBF wanted to implement some form of pitch count limit by the 2020 Spring Senbatsu. Therefore, the mission of the committee was to reach a conclusion in a total of four meetings from April to November.

Being the coordinator of a meeting with high public attention was a heavy burden, but my experience as a government official was surprisingly useful. For two years starting in 2007, I was entrusted with the task of formulating the first "Basic Plan for the Development of Official Statistics" after the enforcement of the new Statistics Act as the Director of the Statistics Commission Office of the Cabinet Office. While the interests of various ministries conflicted, I had to hold meetings efficiently and decide the contents of the plan within the set time. If the hurdle is too high, it cannot be brought to a cabinet decision, but if it is too low, it will be criticized for what the Statistics Commission is for. The worst thing is for time to run out without a conclusion. I was honestly impressed by the excellence of the bureaucrats who were my subordinates in the office at that time. They conducted thorough and polite groundwork with the committee members, and a perfect scenario (agenda) was ready before the meeting. Of course, dissenting opinions would arise at the meeting, but the theoretical armament for refuting them was also perfect.

I applied this method directly to the expert committee. In the first meeting, I first had all the members state their own theories. "If you throw correctly, the number of pitches doesn't matter," "High school students are staking their lives on high school baseball," "We should review the daily practice methods rather than the games," and so on. All were opinions worth listening to based on rich experience, but if I accepted everything, no conclusion would be reached. On the other hand, if I suppressed them by force, the meeting would fall apart.

So, the first thing I thought of was to show some kind of "evidence." As known by the term "evidence-based policy," providing a persuasive policy requires a basis to show its validity. In the case of imposing pitch count limits, evidence that "over-pitching leads to injury" is necessary. Fortunately, a doctor who was involved in creating the "Recommendations for Baseball Injuries in Youth" issued by the "Japanese Society of Clinical Sports Medicine" in 1995 was a member. That recommendation clearly stated that "high school students should not exceed 500 pitches/week," and the supporting papers were also listed (*2).

Certainly, warnings from experts in medical sciences carry significant weight. However, that alone is insufficient. This is because resistance from the field was expected, with people saying, "We can't stand being regulated by such average values." Therefore, the next thing I thought of was the penalties assumed when such warnings were not followed. I had a member who is also a lawyer state that if a coach who disregarded the recommendations from the medical society caused some kind of "disability" by making a player throw more than "500 pitches/week," there is a possibility that a lawsuit for damages could be filed by the player's side. Of course, it is not easy to prove the causal relationship between the number of pitches and the disability. However, a disability is not just a simple injury; it means that the player will never be able to throw with full force again. I wanted the coaches in the field to realize whether they could take that much responsibility.

However, such "threatening" methods do not lead to a true sense of "conviction." As the chairperson entrusted with managing the expert committee, I wanted all members to be convinced about the pitch count limit. So, the last move I made was to have them have a sense of crisis about whether "high school baseball can stay as it is." The biggest climax of the committee came in September. Before the third meeting, an exchange of opinions was held in a format where the executive directors of the prefectural high school baseball federations from across the country and the expert committee members faced each other. I had already heard through questionnaires and other means that many were reluctant about pitch count limits, and as expected, opposing opinions such as "If we limit the number of pitches, high school baseball as we know it will change" came out.

In a normal meeting, the chairperson is a coordinator and does not state their own thoughts. However, in this exchange of opinions, I had to persuade the executive directors on behalf of the committee. After the doctor and the lawyer stated their opinions, I took the microphone to close the meeting. I cited industries that I had covered in my previous writings and spoke about how, if you prioritize your own convenience and take an inward-looking response, you will eventually be abandoned by society and head toward decline. Baseball is no longer a sport that children will show interest in even if you do nothing. It is necessary to make an effort so that young people will choose it. I explained that for that reason, we should set a new direction for high school baseball in this committee.

Surprisingly, the atmosphere of the meeting changed completely. Perhaps the executive directors also made up their minds. In the meeting held after the exchange of opinions, more positive opinions than ever before were expressed by each member, and I was convinced of the success of the expert committee.

In this way, we managed to complete the report in four meetings by November. The reaction at the press conference was generally positive, but some sharp questions were asked, such as whether "500 pitches per pitcher per week" is meaningful as a regulation since most participating schools already clear that condition. Of course, that is exactly as pointed out. Recently, the only one who would have violated this rule was pitcher Kosei Yoshida of Akita Prefectural Kanaashi Agricultural High School, who participated in the 2018 championship. However, the announcement effect of the JHBF establishing such a rule is significant. This is because by giving the public the impression that "high school baseball has changed," we can expect coaches across the country to prioritize the prevention of injuries to pitchers.

When each member spoke a few words after the final meeting, one member, a former high school baseball coach, shared his thoughts, saying, "At first, I was against the pitch count limit, but as I attended the meetings, I came to understand that we must change." I was truly happy.

It goes without saying that the struggle of the JHBF secretariat was behind the fact that we were able to issue a report in just over half a year. I think they were extremely busy with tasks such as creating agendas and scenarios for efficient meeting management, as well as minutes, while handling field work such as the summer tournament and the U-18 Baseball World Cup. However, by successfully finishing this committee, I am convinced that a high level of know-how has been accumulated in the secretariat.

Of course, this is not the end. This pitch count limit is merely the starting line for injury prevention. Injuries to pitchers who appear in the Koshien tournament are just the tip of the iceberg. Injury prevention in junior high school baseball is almost untouched, and many students already have some kind of trouble with their shoulders or elbows by the time they enter high school. I hope that the JHBF will continue to play an important role so that baseball remains an attractive sport for young people. (Titles omitted)

*2 Takagishi, K. et al., Shoulder and elbow pain in junior high school baseball players: Results of a nationwide survey, Journal of Orthopaedic Science, Vol.22, No.4, July 2017, pages 682-686.