July 12, 2010 - A man sitting alongside the third base side at Omiya Stadium (Saitama Tournament) was apparently reported to the police after he was suspected of taking an excessive amount of pictures of the support section on the first base side using a telephoto lens.  According to stadium officials, there were about 1,000 images in the man's camera, including images of high school cheerleaders.

The man was taken into custody by stadium officials and transferred over to the Omiya police.

According to the Japan High School Baseball Federation (JHBF), 4,028 high school across Japan are participating in the Summer Koshien Regional Tournaments.  That's down 13 from last year.

At its peak (in 2002 and 2003), a total 4,163 high schools participated in the Summer Koshien Regional Tournaments.  Since then,

The Kanuma Shoko High School baseball manager was apparently caught slapping two of his players on the cheek during a practice game on the 4/4 (both cheeks, four times).  The director of the team happened to be standing nearby and restrained the manager from continuing.

Kanuma Shoko High School handed down a one month suspension to both the manager and the director of the team that was dated 5/1.

Kanuma Shoko will be appointing a different person to manage the team for the Tochigi tournament that begins on the 10th.  The prefectural baseball committee has already given them the ok.

7/7/2010 12:36pm JST

Another update: Ivy Stadium has been closed off, so the tournament will now take place at two venues instead of three (Sun Marine and Himuka); a maximum of 4 games will be played out per day in order to account for the loss of Ivy Stadium.  The tournament will be extended one day with the final round taking place on the 28th.

7/6/2010 7:04pm JST

The Miyazaki High School Baseball Federation decided to limit admission to player guardians.

5:24pm JST

Another outbreak of foot and mouth disease was reported in Miyazaki.  And plans to lift some restrictions in the prefecture on the 16th will now be put off until, at the earliest, the end of the month.

Due to this recent outbreak, the Miyazaki High School Baseball Federation held an emergency meeting today in order to go over additional options for their upcoming tournament (including closed games without anyone in attendance and changing tournament dates).  It seems there's also a chance they won't be able to use Ivy Stadium because the recent outbreak is close by.

I'll be updating this post with more information as it becomes available.

The Japan High School Baseball Federation (JHSBF) announced today that for the first time in 13 years, they saw a slight dip in the number of high school baseball players from 169,449 in 2009 to 168,488 this year.  The number of school participating in the Federation dropped for a 5th straight year (4,132 last year to 4,115 this year).

The Japan Student Baseball Association met on the 7th to determine punishments for 6 high schools.

Game Suspensions

Sogo Gakuen High School (Gifu) - 1 month beginning on 6/8 - violence outside the club

Hiraoka Shofu High School (Osaka, soft baseball) - 3 months beginning on 5/24 - violence within the club

Supensions

Johoku High School (Tottori) advisor - 1 month beginning on 5/22 - violence outside the club

Kitakyushu High School (Fukuoka) director - 1 month beginning on 6/11 - violence outside the club

Kobe Dai Ichi High School (Hyogo) director - 3 months beginning on 5/25 - violence within the club

Sugimori High School (Fukuoka, soft baseball) manager - 1 year beginning on 6/16 - did nothing when he caught players smoking

The steering committee for the Spring Koshien decided that the tournament next season will go along with the standard 32-school format.  That's 28 schools based on region (Hokkaido x 1, Tohoku x 2, Kanto / Tokyo x 6, Tokai x 2, Hokushietsu x 2, Kinki x 6, Chugoku / Shikoku x 5, Kyushiu x 4) and 4 special slots.

The 4 special slots are still up in the air as the 21st Century Team rule will be re-examined after the 2010 season.  The 4 special slots for the 2010 Spring Koshien were made of up 1 team from the Meiji Jingu Tournament and three 21st Century Teams.

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A special board of directors meeting for the Miyazaki tournament was held earlier today and ruled to delay the start of the tournament until the 16th.  That's the same date when the prefecture is set lift boundary restrictions that were set in order to prevent spread of foot and mouth disease.  The board of directors also decided not to place any limits on the number of people allowed into the stadium.

The tournament will last 12 days (down from 14 days) and take place in three venues instead of two.  Cars and clothes will also be thoroughly sterilized.

Yosuke Fukutomi (福富洋祐) stepped down as a Toyo University coach, effective today.  Seems Fukutomi accepted a job as Seisa High School's first baseball manager (beginning in April 2011).

Matsunaga High School decided to drop out of the Hiroshima Tournament on Friday after players on the team were caught smoking.  Seems they felt they wouldn't be able to put together a team good enough to compete in the tournament.

The Miyazaki Tournament Qualifier could be delayed due to the foot and mouth disease.  The July 10th start date is still not official.  Making matters worse is not knowing if / when an outbreak might occur near a baseball stadium they are using -- they seem to have a back-up for Ivy Stadium (Himuka Stadium) in case it isn't ready for use by the time the tournament begins, but it doesn't seem as though they have a back-up for their main venue, Sun Marine Stadium.

In either case, the Miyazaki High School Baseball Federation will be meeting on 7/1 to solidify the schedule for the tournament and decide whether or not to allow spectators.

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In other high school baseball news, Ryosuke Ito (Shinko Gakuen) broke Sho Nakata's national high school career home run record yesterday after going 12 straight games with out a homer.

Ito's 88th career high school home run came against Amagasaki High School on a 2-1 count fastball in the fourth inning with one out and traveled an estimated 120 meters.

Ito hit 23 homers in his first year, 37 in his second year, and currently has 28 homers in his third and final year.