The most watched team sport in Japan is probably baseball. I have not searched this data up, but I am confident that this is correct. That is for almost every Japanese citizen understands current events and basic facts about Japanese professional baseball. Almost every Japanese person knows who Ichiro Suzuki is, almost every TV channel reports when Shohei Ohtani hits a home run in the major league, and are able to answer at least two professional teams that currently exist in Japan. If baseball is that famous, does Japan have a huge baseball population? The answer is not quite. Although baseball is well known in the country, the baseball population of children and teens are in a steep decline for the past 20 years. That reason? It is in the over focusing of outcome goals.
Outcome goals are goals that “focus strictly on the competitive result of an event” (Gruman et al. 147). From an early age, Japanese little league players are taught this theory of team goals, sometimes to the extreme extent. As early as elementary school, young baseball players are taught that outcome goals are the only goals that exist in the team, without letting their voices be heard about setting their own goals as a team. The emphasis on outcome goals reaches its peak in high school baseball, to win the national high school tournament more known as Koushien. The Koushien tournament is a single elimination tournament that is held only once a year, which teams put almost everything in to get the glory of being the champion. The best teams recruit middle schoolers across the nation like they are professional athletes, and some of these players go to far schools and still are not able to get playing time. Players practice every day, even in days of extreme temperatures that go over 110 degrees in Fahrenheit. To make it worse, some of the rules set for achieving goals don’t even make sense. Many schools require players to shave their heads to a certain hair length, which makes current teenagers avoid joining teams for they don’t want to do that. There have been incidents of coaches using violence to have authoritative power in the team and getting arrested. The obsessive focus on outcome goals are getting to insane levels sometimes, especially considering what year we are in. The results of the motives and actions led to the decline of young baseball player population, for they don’t want to experience the bad and ugly of the sport.
Professional players that have experienced the Japanese amateur baseball system also criticize the current system. One famous advocate for change is Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, currently playing for MLB’s Pittsburgh Pirates. Tsutsugo is concerned with the decline of baseball population among children, and he attempts to fix the problem by hosting baseball classes during his off season and giving his opinion to the media about baseball reform. In an interview held last month, Tsutsugo clearly mentions the problem of focusing on outcome goals. Translating the interview, he answers “In a tournament, players only get one shot so they cannot think about their future as a player. They can only think about the game in front of them, the win, and how they did today based on statistics… What is important for young players is not the results of today, but what they can do tomorrow, how to improve next time” (Hiroo). The focus of outcome goals results in losing the ability of learning from mistakes for the better of next time. Tsutsugo goes on that tournament should be less emphasized and focus on a league format, just like professional baseball (professional baseball seems more relaxing than Japanese high school baseball). American amateur baseball does that, so this seems very valid. Other players, although not speaking up directly, have episodes of their struggles in high school baseball that shows the negative aspects. For example, Takayuki Kishi, a pitcher of the Touhoku Rakuten Golden Eagles answered an interview once that he chose his high school because he didn’t have to shave his head like most high school baseball teams (no joke!). This statement is scary for the sport for the weird rule for outcome goals could have ended a talented player’s baseball career. I too, would have not played baseball if I was in Japan, due to the extreme measures to achieve outcome goals.
If the Japanese baseball officials want to fix the problems of grassroots baseball, I think it starts from getting rid of the emphasis of outcome goals. There are many players that give up on playing the sport because of the goal focus. Not all players want to be professionals or have a strong desire for a championship; they just want to be better ball players. Like Tsutsugo stated, I think Japanese little league should focus on other goal approaches, starting from the format of competitions. As a MLB fan, I like seeing players of my country succeed in MLB, so I don’t want the current system to ruin prospects that have a chance to be the next Japanese baseball star.
References:
Gruman, Jamie A., et al. Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. SAGE, 2017.
Hiroo, Kou. “「後々苦労するのは子供たち」。筒香嘉智が問題視する少年野球から高校野球にまで蔓延する‘勝利至上主義‘という病（Real Sports）.” Yahoo News Japan, Real Sports, 26 Jan. 2022, https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/420dcb1d4411197943a93a2af1ab173eaf2b5c55.
Very good read on a national pastime. I’ve watched baseball in the US and have seen how Japan loves it in much the same way. For a decline to go unanswered is a shame. Looking over proposed solutions reminds me of the debate between Outcome and Process goals. For this topic I would be interested to see how a mixed approach might yield better results.
Reference: https://www.sportpsychologytoday.com/sports-psychology-articles/outcome-goals-vs-process-goals/