The 2023 Asian Professional Baseball Championship will kick off in Tokyo in a little more than 24 hours from right now. National Teams from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia will play a round-robin tournament from Thursday to Saturday to determine seeding for the two final games on Sunday - the third place game at noon and the championship game at 1800. There's a bit of twist to the rosters - all but three of the players must be age 24 or younger (born on or after January 1, 1999) and the other three must be 29 or younger (born on or after January 1, 1994). Japan's first game will be at 1900 Thursday evening Tokyo time against Taiwan and they'll play Korea Friday night at 1900 and Australia Saturday afternoon at noon.
11/27 UPDATE - It was pointed out to me by a commenter that I had the name of the tournament incorrect. It was the "Asian Professional Baseball Championship" as the "Asian Baseball Championship" will be held next week. I've updated the post.
This will be the first test for new Samurai Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata and he's got an interesting roster. It's lacking a lot of star power as some of the young NPB stars like Munetaka Murakami and Roki Sasaki are not on the roster (which probably isn't a surprise with Sasaki as he's coming off of an injury). I believe the only member of last spring's WBC champion Samurai Japan team who is on this roster is Shugo Maki although there's at least five guys (Maki, Shota Murakami, Shunsuke Sato, Teruaki Sato and Takahisa Hayakawa) who have suited up for the collegiate Samurai Japan team. Sato also played on the Samurai Japan team that played a couple friendlies with Australia a year ago, With guys like Maki, Morishita, Yuki Okabayashi and Chusei Mannami though, this team might be a lot of fun to watch. Here's a card of everyone on the roster:
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| 2022 BBM Giants "Make Debut" #MD2 |
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| 2021 BBM 1st Version #187 |
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| 2021 Marines History 1950-2021 #89 |
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| 2023 BBM 2nd Version #432 |
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| 2020 Calbee #075 (Tatsuya Imai) |
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| 2019 Epoch NPB #394 |
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| 2023 BBM 1st Version #269 |
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| 2022 BBM 2nd Version #396 |
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| 2022 Bowman NPB #6 |
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| 2020 Epoch Carp Rookies & Stars #28 |
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| 2023 Topps Global Stars #46 |
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| 2023 BBM 1st Version #156 |
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| 2023 Topps NPB #192 |
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| 2022 BBM Fighters #F31 |
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| 2022 BBM Buffaloes "Brightest Hope" #BH3 |
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| 2019 BBM 1st Version #076 |
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| 2021 BBM Icons-Progress #27 |
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| 2021 BBM Tigers #T16 |
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| 2021 BBM Carp #C39 |
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| 2022 Epoch Lions Premier Edition #09 |
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| 2022 Topps Now Samurai Japan #012 |
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| 2022 BBM Dragons #D24 |
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| 2022 BBM 2nd Version #573 |
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| 2023 BBM 1st Version #170 |
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| 2020 Epoch Pacific League Rookies #24 |
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| 2023 Epoch One #1004 (Kojiro Yoshimura) |
2 comments:
It's Asian Professional Baseball Championship, not Asian Baseball Championship. Asian Baseball Championship will start on December 3.
Oops! Thanks for the correction. It's been a little confusing with two "Asian Baseball Championships" this fall, neither of which was part of the "Asian Games"!
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