How To Find Old Japanese Baseball Broadcasts On YouTube
Hidden Treasure Map
How To Find Old Japanese Baseball Broadcasts On YouTube
Do you ever feel like you’ve already seen it all?
I mean, you shouldn’t. There’s a lot of baseball content out there that you’ve never seen before. Trust me.
The This Is Where You Find Baseball YouTube channel alone provides more content than you could possibly watch in a lifetime. There is simply no way that you’ve already seen it all.
But, if you feel bored, there are other options.
Japanese Baseball
There are old Japanese baseball broadcasts on YouTube.
It might surprise you, but you can find them. There aren’t a ton, but there are more out there than you think.
For example, you might remember this famous Sports Illustrated cover from 1994:
I was 10 years old at the time, and was absolutely devastated that there was no baseball on television in October. It was almost painful to read about a championship series that I couldn’t watch.
Little did I know that I’d be able to watch the whole thing on YouTube 30 years later. Here’s the first part of Game 1, for example:
And, yes, the original commercials are included.
How To Find This Stuff
It’s actually not hard to find this stuff. You don’t need to speak Japanese, though it helps if you do, of course.
You can find the Japan Series by searching for 日本シリーズ. That will get you close to what you want, though you’ll probably come up with some odd results in the mix (things like the “Japan Mahjong Series,” etc). It’s works a bit better if you stick a year in there, like 1991.
Sure, you can use Google Translate or ChatGPT to read the results. However, it’s really not hard to teach yourself. In a series, 第1戦 means “Game 1,” and individual parts tend to be marked with numbers in circles like ①.
You can also find other interesting things, like Japan All Star Games. All you have to search for is プロ野球オールスター (you can probably omit プロ野球 if you like). You’ll come across stuff you’ve never seen, like this:
And, of course, if you are interested in the annual Koshien Baseball Tournament, all you have to search for is 夏の甲子園, followed by a year. These broadcasts go really far back; here’s one from 1969:
There’s more out there than just this, of course. More to come!