League Office?

Resume package for what position? Player, front office, or ????? The Central and Pacific Leagues (as well as Nippon Pro Baseball) do not necessarily follow through as a cohesive unit such as MLB. So, whether the leagues distribute your info is very 'iffy' !

Central League
Asahi Bldg. 3F
6-6-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku
Tokyo 104-0061

Pacific League
Asahi Bldg. 9F
6-6-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku
Tokyo 104-0061

Nippon Professional Baseball
Imperial Tower, 10F
1-1-1 Uchisaiwai-cho
Chiyodo-ku
Tokyo 100-0011

Yeah, I'm a player. That's a good point. So the best chance that the package is seen by every team is to ship them to every team individually. If I individually send them to every team would you suggest I address it to the general manager or the manager?

Thank you for the addresses as well.

I would suggest you read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about playing in Japan. Then get an agent who has dealings with the Japanese teams. Such an agent will know how to get you a tryout.

I've heard from many players over the last 15 years of writing for this site and its predecessor. They all say that there are two ways to get picked up by a Japanese team:

1. Agent arranged tryout
2. Japanese scout approached minor-league, Korean, Taiwanese, South American team

I'm afraid that I've never heard of anyone landing a playing job with a team by cold calling them.

I just throw in this information. In recent years, Chunichi distanced themselves from North American players mainly because of the incidents involving Kevin Millar and Tyron Woods, none of which are their fault. They now have a bullpen catcher who doubles as a Spanish-Japanese translator.

Orix seems to be following the same path. So does Yomiuri to a lesser extent, on the Ikusei front, that is.

Finally, the (Yokohama, soon to be changed?) BayStars are changing its ownership.

Amen to Michael Westbay! That's why I asked if he was a player or not!

What was the incident involving Tyrone Woods? I know the Millar debacle, but didn't Woods play for Chunichi for several productive years?

He took his agent to court in Japan for, I believe, embezzlement at the end of his career. As I said, by all accounts I remember, there was nothing wrong with Chunichi. It was strictly between him and his agent.

Another name people throw out for Chunichi's decision is Eddie Gaillard.

Right on, I understand that the chances of this working are less than .0001%, but that's better than the 0% chance I have by just sitting here. Anyways I'm not trying to preach or get any help or anything like that, just wanted the addresses. So thanks for all the info, I appreciate it.

Did you read the FAQ that Westbay suggested? What experience do you have?

Yes, I've read that page previously.

I was just trying to get the addresses for myself because I'm going to have trouble finding an agent who wants to represent someone who plays in an independent league. Especially when the players who typically get these jobs overseas are AA, AAA, and MLB players.

And to be honest I know there is no chance for me to get signed by the NPB, but I am really interested to find out more about their farm teams. I don't know if or how many foreign players they have playing there. I assume I'd need an agent for that as well, but I don't know what type of experience those players would have to have?

If you have any information about the farm teams or a link to some information about them that'd be helpful. Also I've read up on the Industrial League and was wondering, is that some type of minor leagues or more of just a semi-pro thing that the companies use employees to play?

Thanks again.

The minor leagues in Japan don't work like they do in the US. Each team has a top team and a farm team (called ichi-gun and ni-gun, or "first team" and "second team") So the "farm team" is basically just "the guys who are not on the 28-man top team roster," including young up-and-coming players, old down-and-out players, random guys sent down from not performing, injured guys, etc. They aren't separate teams from the main team, and people get moved up and down from them all the time, and there's really only the one level of minor league.

There is such a thing as an "ikusei" contract, where you don't take up a space on their 70-man team roster, and make very little money, and may not get very much playing time even on farm games. But I don't think you'd want to go that route unless you think you'd be able to survive here with a low level of support.

The industrial leagues are exactly that, teams of "company employees." Lots of college players get "jobs" at those companies and basically play baseball for a few years before settling into an office job for the company. (Or getting drafted, in some cases.)

What might be best for you to look at, if you are playing indie ball in the US, is to play indie ball here in Japan -- the northern coast 6-team Baseball Challenge League is fairly stable and the Shikoku Island League's main 4 teams are fairly stable, and a handful of guys get drafted from these leagues every year. There have been a few foreign guys who played in those leagues too -- for example, the BCL Niigata Albirex's Justin Staatz, who is apparently now playing in France? And Hideki Irabu famously tried for a comeback from the SIL Kochi Fighting Dogs team.

Deanna, thanks for all of that information. That's very helpful. I have thought about playing Indy ball in Japan. I think that would be a cool experience, and possibly a chance to be seen there. I just wasn't sure if I really wanted to and didn't know how to go about that. Do you happen to know what the arrangements are with their indy leagues? As far as salaries, housing, host families?

Right now I'm trying to get into the Atlantic League which is the best Indy league in the U.S. Hopefully I get a chance there and can see what kind of numbers I can put up. And possibly use that league as a stepping stone to further my career.

Thanks again.

There are some European semi-pro leagues that are looking for players- let me see what I can find out!

Kiyoshi, I appreciate your help, but do you have any information on how to get in contact with some independent teams in Japan? If I was going to play overseas I would choose Japan over Europe.

I know the answer will probably be "read the forums" or "get an agent." But I would think that there aren't too many people who have asked about this. I actually contacted the American player listed above and asked him how he got over there. I am waiting on his response.

Anyways I have been looking into the Independent leagues and if you have any information on which one would be the best, how much the salaries are, maybe what the living situations are like, etc. I would appreciate it. I also read about a new one that may be starting next year.

Thank you very much.

Well, one thing about the indie leagues is that they have a lot of Japanese guys who played abroad for a while -- and by abroad, I don't mean the guys who were in the MLB, but I mean in indie leagues and minor leagues and all, stuff like the Samurai Bears and whatever. Yuji Nerei played ball all over the world before being a player/coach for the Nagasaki Saints; Hideki Nagasaka bounced around various indie leagues in the US for like 8 years before coming back to Japan. (He replaced Justin Staatz for the Niigata Albirex. And for the record, he told me that the way he's gotten all of his baseball jobs both in the US and the one back in Japan, is that it's what his agent found for him. So even the Japanese guys sometimes need agents to find them this stuff.) There are others, too. So there are definitely guys to chat with in English, but I don't think the teams actually have interpreters per se. Justin would be able to answer that for you, if you can reach him (and out of curiosity, it'd be neat if you could report some of what you find out here).

I don't know much specific about the living situations that the teams set you up with, but I can tell you (from having gone to a bunch of indie ball games here) that all of the indie teams are located in areas that are fairly "countryside" places, where there aren't going to be many foreigners at all, people will stare at you funny all the time, there won't be a lot of English everywhere, and you'll be lucky if your town even has a McDonald's. The other thing is that they don't consistently play at one home stadium, but rather rotate around 3-4 stadiums in their prefecture, so you may find yourself on a lot of loooooooong bus rides. Some of the stadiums will be big relatively nice places like Nagano's Olympic Stadium or the new Hard-Off Eco Stadium in Niigata that seat 30,000 people and have great facilities.. and sometimes you are going to wind up in a place that seats 2,000 people and is mostly used for high school regional tournament games, with no facilities, an all-dirt infield, and nothing but Japanese-style toilets.

As far as which is the best, that's a hard question to answer. The Shikoku League is slightly older (2005), but it's on Shikoku, which is a separate island from the big main island of Honshu. The Baseball Challenge League is newer (2007), but closer to Tokyo and such relatively. Those two are fairly stable and have some pretty set sponsors and a reasonable fanbase set up. The Kansai league that formed this year wasn't even able to pay all of its players, supposedly.

Hey Deanna, thanks for all of the information. I haven't heard back from Justin, and now that you said he was released out of that league I highly doubt I will hear back from him. Thanks for all of the info though.

Just saw this thread today, I know I'm a little late.

Anyways I'm Justin Staatz. If anyone out there still needs some questions answered I can help. To my knowledge I'm still the only American to ever play in the BCL to date.