Just looking at the batting ball, it seemed like announcing the birth of an elementary school student ‘monster hitter’. In the ‘NPB12 Team Junior Tournament’ held last December, Haya Kokubo, who plays for the Chunichi Dragons junior team, hit a large home run over the middle wall of Jingu Stadium in Tokyo, Japan. The distance between the central wall of Jingu Stadium, which is also the home stadium of the Yakult Swallows of Japan Professional Baseball, is 120m. It couldn’t have been a monster.
However, it was not the power of an elementary school student ‘monster hitter’ that made a super-sized home run. It was a ‘monster bat’ made of a special material. The rules for this year’s tournament, the ‘NPB12 Club Junior Tournament’, in which junior teams from 12 Nippon Professional Baseball teams compete, have changed. In last year’s tournament, the organizers also allowed ‘composite bats’ if they were approved by the Japan Softball Baseball Federation, even if they deviated from the regulations according to the official baseball rules, but this time they decided to ban the bat. This year’s competition will be held on the 26th. 토토사이트
According to the Japanese media ‘Full Count’ on the 20th, in last year’s competition, most players used composite bats with urethane materials for the core. The average number of home runs increased by 3.6 times compared to the 2020 tournament without a composite bat, while the distance significantly increased compared to a regular metal bat. In particular, the Chunichi Junior team hit 7 homers in one game. Among them, Kokubo, the protagonist of the 120m home run, exploded 5 homers in one game.
Japan is suppressing high-rebound bats in high school baseball as well. Amid the decision to use low-resistance bats from 2024, wooden bats are being introduced in some competitions.