The intercity baseball tournament (都市対抗野球大会 ''Toshi Taikō yakyū taikai'') of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, commonly known as "Summer All-star or Mid-Summer Classic " (真夏の球宴 ''manatsu no kyūen''), is an annual nationwide industrial baseball tournament in

, organized by JABA and

Mainichi Shimbun The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English-language news website called , and publishes a bilin ...

and sponsored by the japanese

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications The is a Cabinet (government), cabinet-level ministry in the Government of Japan. Its English name was Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (MPHPT) prior to 2004. It is housed in the 2nd Building of the Centr ...

(MIC) by the grounds that "

regional development Regional development refers to a broad category of policies aimed at reducing regional disparities within an economy or across economies by devoting resources to underdeveloped areas. Regional development can be national or international in natur ...

is promoted through tournaments between teams that represent their cities." The tournament is considered very traditional in japanese baseball, since it predates the

Professional Baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Moder ...

and it is a way to reinforce the traditional regional sport rivalities existing across Japan, unlike the Industrial National Championship Tournament, the teams must represent the name of their town and use the flag or the seal/symbol of their cities in the right sholder of uniforms. The winners are awarded the "Black Lion Flag" (黒獅子旗 ''kurojishi ki''), runners-up are awarded the "White Lion Flag" (白獅子旗 ''shirojishi ki'').

Winners

A bracket after city and team in champion column indicates number of titles. (baseball team) links to Japanese wikipedia article except club team and team does not have an article.

Note

References

External links

Japan Amateur Baseball Association (JABA)
(Japanese)
JABA Station official youtube channel
Baseball competitions in Japan Long stubs with short prose {{Japan-baseball-stub