, commonly referred to as simply Koshien Stadium, is a

baseball stadium A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into two field sections called the infield and the outfield. The infield is an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined in part ba ...

located near

Kobe Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

Nishinomiya 270px, Nishinomiya City Hall 270px, Aerial view of Nishinomiya city center 1985 270px, Hirota Shrine is a city located in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 484,368 in 218,948 households and a population density ...

, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. The stadium was built to host the national high school baseball tournaments, and opened on 1 August 1924. It was the largest stadium in Asia at the time it was completed, with a capacity of 55,000. The name comes from '' Wood Rat'' of the

sexagenary cycle The sexagenary cycle, also known as the gānzhī (干支) or stems-and-branches, is a cycle of sixty terms, each corresponding to one year, thus amounting to a total of sixty years every cycle, historically used for recording time in China and t ...

system. The year of the stadium's founding, 1924, was the first year in the cycle. The design of the stadium was heavily influenced by the

Polo Grounds The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 to 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built for the ...

in New York City. In

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...

it became the home stadium for the Osaka Tigers (current Hanshin Tigers), now with the

Central League The or , also known as the for sponsorship reasons, is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League i ...

. On 14 February 1964, Hanshin, the Tigers' owners, was appended to the name of Koshien Stadium. In addition to the annual

National High School Baseball Championship The of Japan, commonly known as , is an annual nationwide high school baseball tournament. It is the largest scale amateur sport event in Japan. The tournament, organized by the Japan High School Baseball Federation and ''Asahi Shimbun'', t ...

, played in August, the stadium hosts the annual

National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament The National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament (選抜高等学校野球大会 ''senbatsu kōtō gakkō yakyū taikai'') of Japan, commonly known as "Spring Kōshien" (春の甲子園 ''haru no kōshien'') or "Senbatsu" (センバツ ...

in March, a smaller, invitational tournament. Both tournaments are generally known simply as '' Kōshien''. The high school tournaments are given a higher priority, with any tournament games that need to be rescheduled forcing the Tigers to postpone conflicting home games. It also hosts Japan's American

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

national championship game, the Koshien Bowl. Legendary baseball player

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional Baseball in the United States, baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nickna ...

played an exhibition game at Koshien on his Japan tour in 1934. There is a plaque at the stadium commemorating the event.

Repairs

The

Great Hanshin earthquake The Great Hanshin Earthquake (, ) occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46:53 JST in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, including the region of Hanshin. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum intensity of 7 o ...

of 1995 affected Kōshien. Cracks appeared and part of the stands collapsed. In July 2004, a concrete plan surfaced for improvement of the complete baseball ground facilities. Construction began during the off-season of 2008 while the stadium continued to be used for baseball. Later stages followed during the off-season, and the large-scale construction was completed in 2010. The main points of the plan are as follows: * As much as possible, the present conditions of the baseball grounds are to be preserved, including the

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a ballpark on the North Side, Chicago, North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charl ...

-inspired ivy, which has become a symbol of the stadium. * The infield continues to be all-dirt. * The outfield continues to be natural grass and be open to the air (no roof over the grounds). * The Ginsan roof over the grandstand was removed and replaced with a modern Ginsan roof without pillars. * The

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

was reduced to 47,808 people to help make the stadium barrier-free.

Price ranges

The stadium has four seating price ranges. The top seats are the green seats (sold in season tickets) directly behind home plate and under the Ginsan roof. These seats are entirely covered and corporate. The seats in the infield are colored green on the first base side and the third base side under the Ginsan roof and called "Ivy Seat". Both sides are ¥4,000. The outfield benches along the lines are called the "

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

" and they are ¥2,500. The outfield seats are ¥1,900. As with all Japanese stadiums, the home supporters sit in right field and the away supporters in left field. However, even if the opponents are the

Yomiuri Giants The are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Bunkyo, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams based in Tokyo, the other being the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. They h ...

, the away supporters rarely constitute more than one section high up in left field. On most nights the stadium is jam-packed with cramped seating.

Appearances in fiction

Due to its reputation as the main stage of high school baseball, Koshien plays a big part in many baseball manga series, including ''

Touch The somatosensory system, or somatic sensory system is a subset of the sensory nervous system. The main functions of the somatosensory system are the perception of external stimuli, the perception of internal stimuli, and the regulation of bo ...

'', '' Cross Game'' and '' H2'' by Mitsuru Adachi and in other author's works like Higuchi Asa's '' Ōkiku Furikabutte'' and '' Rookies'' by Masanori Morita and '' Ace of Diamond'' by Yuji Terajima. It was talked about in ''

Major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

'' where Koshien is the aim of all high school baseball teams to play there. The park plays a part, in name, in the

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

'' Princess Nine''. The events of the two-hour ''

Detective Conan ''Case Closed'', also known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. It has been serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Sunday'' since January 1994; its chapters are collected in 107 ...

'' special episode " Miracle at Koshien Ball Park! The Defiants Face the Dark Demon" take place in the stadium. In the light novel and anime adaptation of '' Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya'' (specifically the episode "Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part 5"), Haruhi's explanation of why she searches for the supernatural involves a baseball game she viewed with her family in Koshien. The stadium appears as a stage in the fighting game ''

The King of Fighters '97 , often shortened as ''KOF '97'', is a 1997 fighting video game developed and published by SNK for its Neo Geo (system), Neo Geo multi-video system (MVS) arcade platform and its AES home console. It is the fourth game in ''The King of Fighters ...

'', crowded and adapted for the ''KOF'' tournament, with the fighters standing on a catwalk-like structure. In '' Nodame Cantabile'', the heroine Megumi Noda kept a bag of soil from Koshien Stadium. In ''

Angel Beats! ''Angel Beats!'' is a 13-episode Japanese anime television series produced by P.A. Works and directed by Seiji Kishi. The story was originally conceived by Jun Maeda, who also wrote the screenplay and composed the music with the group Anan ...

'' Hinata says he was part of a baseball team that was aiming to play in Koshien. In '' Silver Spoon'', Ichiro Komaba is determined to get his baseball team to Koshien to go pro and make money for his family farm. In an episode of the ''

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

series '' Devilman Crybaby'' it is featured as the arena for a track and field event. It is the home stadium for Osaka Tempters in Gurazeni.

Access

Koshien Stadium is a two-minute walk from Koshien Station on the Hanshin Main Line. There is no parking lot at the stadium. Regular television commercials during game broadcasts encourage the public to use public transportation.

References

External links