I'm starting this series of posts to introduce all Japanese collegiate baseball league in general to spread more insights and interest to new fans who unfamiliar with collegiate baseball.
Among all collegiate leagues that spreading along in Japan, I will introduce you first into the most popular league which had been running for more than hundred years and bringing a significant development through the professional league we have known nowadays, Nippon Professional Baseball Federation (NPB), in the history of baseball's growth in Japan. That is Tokyo Big Six league.
What is Tokyo Big 6?
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| Opening Ceremony of the League Seasons |
Tokyo Big 6 Baseball League (東京六大学野球連盟, Tōkyō roku daigaku yakyū renmei) is an intercollegiate baseball league that features six prominent universities in the Tokyo area. Before the 1936 establishment of the Japanese Baseball League and subsequent growth (after 1950) of Nippon Professional Baseball, the Big6 League was widely considered the highest level of baseball in Japan.This league consisting of six universities: Waseda, Keio, Meiji, Hosei, Tokyo, and Rikkyo.
Brief History
The Tokyo Big 6 Baseball League was established in 1925. It is also the origin of the Tokyo 6 Universities (東京六大学, Tōkyō roku daigaku) nickname that is given to the same six universities, with the founding of Six Universities League Federation. Its history spans 90 years, and continues to this day with the first round of the game held on September 20, 1925 as the first match since the federation was founded.
The first Soukeisen (早慶戦, Waseda-Keio) match was held in 1903 (Meiji 36), and in 1914 (discontinued from 1903), the three universities (Waseda, Keio, Meiji) organized a league match for the first time. became. After this, Hosei joined in 1917, and Rikkyo joined in 1921, but the irregular situation continued with no Soukeisen matches being played. However, in 1925, the University of Tokyo officially joined the Four Universities League in the fall, and the suspended Waseda-Keio match was revived for the first time in 19 years, and the Six Universities League began since then.
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| The early form of Three Universities League |
On April 1, 2013, the federation later registered as a general incorporated foundationーthe Tokyo Six Universities Baseball Federation (Tokyo Big 6), and made a new start as an organization with legal foundations.
The Basic Rules
There is some condition regarding the league's game rules and withdrawal game which some are affected by pro league's schedule in the evening that being held at the same day.
Game Rules
The league have two seasons each year, Spring season (which held by April-May) and Fall season (September-October). The game held regularly on weekends (Saturday-Sunday) which total of 4 teams and 2 games will be held together each day, and continue with the same rotation next day.
This league consists of six team from different universities. Two teams play against each other and they need to win two games to achieve one point. The number of points will determine the ranking in Leaderboard (the win written as "勝利" (shōri) and winning point as "勝点" (shōten) in japanese). If the points are tied, the team with the higher winning percentage (勝率, shōritsu) will be ranked higher.
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| Leaderboard in Tokyo Big 6 League (from Fall 2023) |
The champion of the league is determined by the team with the most series victories. The champion team is given the Emperor's Cup. This is unique in Japan in that the other Emperor's cups are given to national champions in other sports such as Emperor's Cup of Football.
The spring champion is allowed to participate in the All Japan University Baseball Championship Series while the fall champion is allowed to compete in the Meiji Jingu Stadium Tournament.
The league uses rules that are similar to the National and Central Leagues. The designated hitter rule is not used and the pitcher is required to bat. Also, unlike American university leagues, non-wood bats are banned.
The usual time for the match to begin each day is 11:00 AM JST. But when there is an NPB games that being held on the same day with Big 6 games, the scheduled time will be held earlier by 10:00 AM JST.
Withdraw Rules
When the points or the game being tied, the game that being held by Saturday-Sunday will be held again on Monday or the following day (The general rules said it only limited until Wednesday, and if the games continues beyond that, it will be extended by the next week).
The withdraw rules following as below :
(When a day scheduled with 2 games)
The total of inning will only be limited until 12 innings (9+3 extra innings) with no time limit. When the NPB games held at the same day, it will only limited until 9th inning which results as tied game.
(When a day scheduled with 1 game)
The total of inning will only be limited until 15 innings (9+6 extra innings) with no time limit. When the NPB games held at the same day and the game duration exceeds more than 4 hours 30 minutes, the game will have no extra inning which results as tied game.
Teams
- Keio University
- Establishment of the baseball team: 1892
- All–Time Record: 1,271 W–884 L–105 H
- League Championships: 40
- Last Championship: Autumn 2023
- Waseda University
- Establishment of the baseball team: 1901
- All–Time Record: 1,339 W–804 L–97 H
- League Championships: 46
- Last Championship: Autumn 2020
- Meiji University
- Establishment of the baseball team: 1910
- All–Time Record: 1,302 W–867 L–117 H
- League Championships: 43
- Last Championship: Spring 2023
- Hosei University
- Establishment of the baseball team: 1915
- All–Time Record: 1,234 W–912 L–132 H
- League Championships: 46
- Last Championship: Spring 2020
- Rikkyo University
- Establishment of the baseball team: 1874
- All–Time Record: 972 W–1,180 L–108 H
- League Championships: 13
- Last Championship: Spring 2017
- University of Tokyo
- Establishment of the baseball team: 1917
- All–Time Record: 257 W–1,728 L–63 H
- League Championships: None
- Last Championship: N/A
*Current as of Fall 2023
Champions
Hosei University and Waseda University are tied for the most league championships with 46 each. Meiji University has won 43 times and Keio University has captured 40 league titles. Rikkyo trails with 13, while the University of Tokyo has yet to win a championship.
| University | Number of championships |
|---|---|
| Hosei | 46 |
| Waseda | 46 |
| Meiji | 43 |
| Keio | 40 |
| Rikkyo | 13 |
| Tokyo | 0 |
Waseda vs. Keio : Soukeisen (早慶戦）
The series between Waseda and Keio, Sōkeisen (早慶戦), attracts the most attention and is greatly enjoyed by the students, not least because it causes classes at both universities to be canceled (A victory no longer guarantees the cancellation of classes at Waseda University). The game is still broadcast on NHK & Sportsbull (BIG6.TV) and it is the only series played during the last week of the season.
The name is a combination of the two university's names first kanji characters and the character for battle or match, sen (戦). Sō, is the alternate reading of Wa (早) in Waseda (早稲田) (also from the short name, Sōdai (早大)), while Kei (慶) is the first character of Keio (慶応).
The Sōkeisen actually predates the establishment of the Tokyo Big 6 League by over 20 years, beginning in 1903. The games often caused much tension between the two student bodies, often spilling out of the stadium and leading to the cancellation of games. In fact, this game has become the peakest game of all Tokyo Big 6 games that could assemble a lot of fans and visitors more than the usual games in league for both seasons.
Notable Alumni (OBs)
Hosei alumni
Keio alumni
Meiji alumni
Rikkyo alumni
Tokyo alumni
- Masatoshi Akihara (film director)
- Takeshi Shina (a member of the House of Representatives (Japan))
- Hirohisa Fujii (former Minister of Finance (Japan), a member of the House of Representatives (Japan))
- Kaoru Yosano (former Minister of Finance (Japan), a member of the House of Representatives (Japan))
Waseda alumni
Watch Game
1. By Offline : You can visit directly to Meiji Jingu Baseball Stadium which located at Shinjuku City, Tokyo, Japan, if you are live nearly here or around in Japan. You can also visit their official website here or download the Tokyo Big 6 official brochure here.
2. By Online : You can try watch the livestream through Sportsbull app or web and ABEMA. But please make attention that watching through these source are proceeding you to face some problems that occurs recently :
- ABEMA: Only recommended for you that live inside Japan because their application and web bans viewer from outside Japan due to their Privacy Policy. If you wanted to try watch through this one, I recommend you to use strong VPN that might cost high prices to use it. Not recommended for outsiders of Japan :(
Disclaimer: After SportsNavi adding livestream service for Tokyo Big 6 per Spring 2024, at the same time Abema now already stopped delivering the livestream service for Tokyo Big 6.
- Sportsbull: This app truly a live-saver and Godly when it comes to their exclusive contents that can be accessible for free. But when it comes to some contents other than Virtual Koukouyakyu (バーチャル高校野球) such as Tokyo Big 6 livestream, I only could accessed it smoothly by iPhone app only. Other devices—such as Android app & web, Windows, etc. need to use VPN to help me watch their livestream. But it doesn't need such a high-grade VPN and you can use free VPN.
- SportsNavi: SportsNavi has been adding the livestream service for Tokyo Big 6 since Spring 2024. The provider is the same with Big6.TV in Sportsbull, but for some countries the Yahoo service might be troublesome again so I'm really sorry that you have to use VPN for either both platforms :(
My recommendation for free VPN is Bright VPN on Windows and Octohide VPN for Android & smart TV. But I warn you that this is a free VPN so you might think twice to use it regarding your data safety. In my case of using it for three months for both smart TV and Windows, it works well and seems like my data hadn't been hacked or something.
Well, an OK sign as long as we can access and watch Tokyo Big 6 anywhere.
Here is the link for the livestream :
ABEMA: https://abema.tv/channels/world-sports-3/slots/CKooWxqeB1SeiT
Sportsbull: https://sportsbull.jp/big6tv/live/2023a/
SportsNavi: https://sports.yahoo.co.jp/livestream/bbu
*Note : all platforms had their own application available on both App Store and Google Play Store
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| Sportsbull is available on Google Play Store & App Store |
That's it from me, I hope more people gaining interest to college baseball, especially on Tokyo Big 6, and become my mutual or fans of them, to be honest :3
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