The exhibition game season officially began on Saturday with 1 game between the Chunichi Dragons and Yakult Swallows at Yomitan Stadium (the game ended in a 5-5 tie).

There are no further games on the schedule until the 26th when the Softbank Hawks play host to the Hiroshima Carp at Yahoo Dome.  The schedule then hits full stride the following day with 6 games.

You can view the complete exhibition game season schedule at the official NPB website.

And for the those that need it, here is the legend for what each of the letters stand for:

• G = Yomiuri Giants
• D = Chunichi Dragons
• S = Yakult Swallows
• T = Hanshin Tigers
• C = Hiroshima Carp
• YB = Yokohama Bay Stars
• F = Nippon Ham Fighters
• E = Rakuten Eagles
• H = Softbank Hawks
• L = Seibu Lions
• M = Chiba Lotte Marines
• Bs = Orix Buffaloes

The Western League released their 2010 schedules on Friday.

You can see the new schedules (in Japanese) at the official NPB site. Here are the direct links to each month.

• March / April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• Inter-League

And for the those that need it, here is the legend for what each of the letters stand for:

• D = Chunichi Dragons
• T = Hanshin Tigers
• Bs = Orix Buffaloes
• H = Softbank Hawks
• C = Hiroshima Carp

The Eastern League released their 2010 schedules on Friday.

You can see the new schedules (in Japanese) at the official NPB site.  Here are the direct links to each month.

• March / April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• Inter-League

And for the those that need it, here is the legend for what each of the letters stand for:

• G = Yomiuri Giants
• M = Chiba Lotte Marines
• SR = Shonan Searex
• S = Yakult Swallows
• F = Nippon Ham Fighters
• L = Seibu Lions
• E = Rakuten Eagles

The NBP released full schedules for the Central League on Wednesday (now includes game times).

You can see the new schedules (in Japanese) at the official NPB site.  Here are the direct links to each month.

• March / April
• May
• Inter-League
• June
• July
• August
• September

And for the those that need it, here is the legend for what each of the letters stand for:

• G = Yomiuri Giants
• D = Chunichi Dragons
• S = Yakult Swallows
• T = Hanshin Tigers
• C = Hiroshima Carp
• YB = Yokohama Bay Stars

Of particular interest with the 2010 Central League schedule:

Opening day is 3/26, about a week later than the PL (3/20).

The CL will play a 2-game series in Okinawa (6/29, 6/30) for the first time since 5/18/1975.

There are 112 day games on the schedules (up 26 from last season).

The NBP released full schedules for the Pacific League on Tuesday (now includes game times).

You can see the new schedules (in Japanese) at the official NPB site.  Here are the direct links to each month.

• March / April
• May
• Inter-League
• June
• July
• August
• September

And for the those that need it, here is the legend for what each of the letters stand for:

• F = Nippon Ham Fighters
• E = Rakuten Eagles
• H = Softbank Hawks
• L = Seibu Lions
• M = Chiba Lotte Marines
• Bs = Orix Buffaloes

Of particular interest with the 2010 Pacific League schedule:

Opening day is 3/20, about a week earlier than the CL (3/26).

The PL will play their first night game in Niigata on 6/29 at Hard Off Eco Stadium Niigata.

The NPB posted the updated exhibition game schedules (now with times) today.  Exhibition games will begin on 2/20 with the Dragons facing the Yakult Swallows.

There are a total 90 games on the schedule, down 31 from last year.

The NPB site doesn't have the schedules listed yet, but Sanspo does.

The NPB released the exhibition game schedules on Wednesday.  The exhibition season will begin on February 20th, with the Chunichi Dragons taking on the Yakult Swallows at Chatan Stadium, and will end on March 22nd.  There are a total 90 games on the schedule, a drop in 31 games from the previous year.

And while not included on the actual schedule, the Softbank Hawks will play host to the Lotte Giants of the KBO on February 28th at Yahoo Dome.

Game Breakdown

The complete schedule can be found at the official NPB site (in Japanese, but should be fairly easy to figure out).

The 2010 Inter-league schedule was released today.

Inter-league play will begin on 5/12 and end on 6/13. The four days following the final day of Inter-league play have been reserved as make-up dates for games that were canceled due to rain.

Each team will play a total 24 Inter-league games, 4 games per team (the same format at his past season).

=== UPDATE 1/26/2010 12:18pm JST

The NPB released the complete Inter-league schedule (with times) on Monday.

And as usually, the following Awards will be handed out:

• Inter-League Champion (1st place finish) - 50M yen
• MVP (selected from the 1st place team) - 2M yen
• Nippon Seimei Award (selected from the other 11 teams, one from each league)

=== UPDATE 5/23/2010 5:05pm JST

The following three games have been added to the Inter-league schedule after rain canceled four games today.

May 25, 2010

Hanshin vs Lotte at Koshien Stadium - 18:00

Hiroshima vs Seibu at Mazda Stadium - 18:00

Yokohama vs Softbank at Yokohama Stadium - 18:00

=== UPDATE 6/8/2010 5:40pm JST

The following four game were added to the Inter-league schedule:

June 14, 2010

Nippon Ham vs Yakult at Jingu Stadium - 18:00

June 15, 2010

Nippon Ham vs Yakult at Jingu Stadium - 18:00

Softbank vs Yokohama at Yokohama Stadium - 18:00

June 16, 2010

Nippon Ham vs Chunichi at Nagoya Dome - 18:00

Central League Climax Series

Pacific League Climax Series

Nippon Series

The schedule for the Central League Climax Series has been posted.

First Round

Second Round

A couple of notes:

The First Round is a best of three series.

In the Second Round, the first place team will start off with a 1-0 advantage for a best of four series.

If there is a tie during either round, the team with the better regular season record will advance.  In all cases, if the team with the better regular season record is guaranteed more wins than the opponent, the team with the better regular season record will advance.

Tie games will go no longer than 12 innings.  Any games that end in a tie will not be made up and will be counted as a tie.

In order for a player to be eligible for the Climax Series, they must be added to the regular roster (as opposed to the active roster) by 8/31.  Rules for activating and deactivating players are the same as the regular season.

There will be 6 umps presiding over the games.

The winner of the Second Round will be given the Climax Series trophy immediately at the end of the game, regardless of where that game might be (home or away).  One player from the winning team will be picked as the MVP of the series and will be given a prize reward of 1,000,000yen.