TOKYO (AP) — A team with ties to the ethnic Korean community for the first time has won Japan’s famous high school baseball tournament, known as the “Koshien.”
Kyoto International High School on Friday won the coveted championship, defeating Kanto Daiichi High School 2-1 on a tie-breaking run in the 10th inning. The biannual tournament, held in the spring and summer, is one of the most followed sports events in Japan.
The championship is played in the Hanshin Koshien stadium in the western Japanese city of Nishinomiya.
Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani played in the tournament in 2012 and, although his Hanamaki Higashi High School did not win, he caught attention with a fastball that touched 100 mph (160 kph).
Ohtani has compared the Koshien tournament to North American baseball’s World Series.
The victory by Kyodo International is followed across Japan, but also in South Korea — two countries with a strong baseball culture but with a historical divide.
The result should draw attention to the improving relations between the two Asian neighbors. But it also highlights the bitter past between the two countries because of Japan’s brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula, which ended in 1945 with Japan’s defeat in World War II.
In a statement, a South Korean residents organization said the victory “brought together the hearts of all ethnic Korean residents in Japan as one and served as a bridge between South Korea and Japan.”
The statement from Mindan, or the Korean Residents Union in Japan, pointed out that the game had also received the attention of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
In a Facebook post, Yoon said the team’s championship “instilled pride and courage” in Korean residents in Japan and expressed hope that “South Korea and Japan can grow even closer together through baseball.”
“Baseball is great indeed,” Yoon said. “It creates so many moving moments.”
The Kyoto International High School was originally set up in 1947 for Japan’s Korean population, many of whom were displaced to Japan as forced labor during the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial rule.
The school is now recognized by education authorities in both Japan and South Korea. About one-quarter of the students have Korean roots.
Kyoto International also reached the semifinals of the tournament in 2021.
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Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
Stephen Wade, The Associated Press
