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Game 4 of Pacific League Climax Series (final stage)

Softbank Hawks 5, Nippon Ham Fighters 2 Hawks lead best-of-seven series 3-2.

Game 4 of Central League Climax Series (final stage)

Hanshin Tigers 8, Yomiuri Giants 4

Hanshin wins best-of-seven series 4-1.

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Huge story in sports in Japan and no direct coverage of the Tigers victory. Seems like the Tokyo based JT may not be interested in teams outside of Tokyo. Well, the Japan Series will be without a Tokyo team this year.

Giants are old and tired. Obviously they need to revamp, which means spending more money than ever and bending the rules of NPB to favor themselves. Like the climax series rules which are insane. Next year the winner of the leagues will get a three game advantage maybe.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

4 leagues for me senseiman. 2 central leagues and 2 pacific leagues with at least 4 teams in each. Then you open up Japan baseball to new franchises.

I like that idea. Then you would just have the leader of each division play a League championship series (like MLB did until the early 90s).

Sadly, one thing that will need to happen for expansion to have a chance is for baseball teams to be actually run as baseball teams and not as mere advertising tools for newspaper, railway, department store and online retail companies. There is a huge market for baseball in Japan but NPB teams are so poorly run it is going to be a hard sell to get 4 more teams in the league. Its really no wonder that even aJapan focused website like JT only has actual articles about MLB baseball, while with NPB, even in key playoff games, you just get the bare score of the game.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Considering Hanshin just won the series, the story seems awfully played down, JT.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

4 leagues for me senseiman. 2 central leagues and 2 pacific leagues with at least 4 teams in each. Then you open up Japan baseball to new franchises. And then do away with that ridiculous rule of the league winner getting a 1 game advantage in the division final.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Yeah, I find that 1 game advantage to be kind of a ridiculous rule as well. It also seems unecessary. The idea was they wanted to give the team with the best record during the regular season an advantage. But they already have that, being the only team that doesn`t have to go through the Climax Series to reach the league series championship. It just feels really arbitrary and weird to give them a fictional win.

I`m guessing the Giants are the reason it exists - they are the team that has finished first place more than any other and probably insisted on this as a way of reducing the risk of another team having a good series and knocking them out of the playoffs.

Not that it helped them this time :)

They probably should simplify the whole playoff format though, its way too long and complicated.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Oh and thanks to the moderator for pointing out very clearly that Kyojin received a 1 game win just for the sake of being the season winners and despite the fact that nobody else awards a 1 game advantage just because you won the season division. I was probably being literal and factual, as opposed to the "ghost" 1 game that Kyojin won. In reality it was 4-0. For the fat cat TV execs and the J commission, it was 4-1 apparently.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

That was a great series (from the perspective of a Tigers fan at least). It was actually pretty shocking to see how awful the Giants performed, even with the home field advantage and automatic 1 game lead.

I am hoping the Hawks will win the PL and we`ll have a rematch of the 2003 Series.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It was 4-1. The Giants received a one-win advantage for being Central League champions.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Hanshin blew out Kyojin. Kyojin looked like DENA. I look forward to the Japan Series

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Come on. And by the way, the Tigers whitewashed Kyojin 4-0 not 4-1. In Tokyo.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

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