The Darkness of Violence and Coaching — Beyond Corporal Punishment and Hazing

Last time, we looked at the shadow surrounding money — the problem of baseball gambling. But the shadow the game needed to confront anew was not only the one tied to money. The passion to seek victory turns, before one realizes it, into a form that wounds people. That problem had long taken root in the professional world, and in the field of coaching that raises young players, too.

What this chapter deals with is the difficult-to-discuss theme of ‘violence and coaching.’ For that very reason, not in order to condemn any particular person, we will look calmly at why it happened and how it has tried to change, within the bounds of what became a public issue. The very wish to love baseball and to make players stronger is by no means something that should be denied. What is in question is the form that wish takes.

The Soil of Winning-at-All-Costs

In Japanese sports, and student baseball in particular, the idea that ‘strictness is what raises people’ has long taken root. Enduring grueling practice and obeying even the unreasonable in silence — such experiences were believed to forge the spirit, and at times even corporal punishment and hazing were tolerated as ‘tough love’ or ‘necessary guidance.’

Behind this lies the soil known as winning-at-all-costs. When winning tournaments and building strong teams are prioritized above all else, coaching tends to gradually become singularly focused on results. Coaching that wins is rated as effective and is supported by parents and alumni as well — and so a structure in which violence-laced coaching is sanctioned because ‘it produces results’ was seen in many places.

The ‘hazing’ that upperclassmen inflict on underclassmen is born from the same soil. Within harsh hierarchies, unreasonable treatment was handed down as ‘tradition’ or a ‘rite of passage,’ and a structure in which the harm was hard to bring into the open continued for a long time. Within a closed group, even those who sense something is wrong find it hard to raise their voices. That silence is what kept the problem out of sight.

The Year Society Called a ‘Crisis’

The violent coaching that had long been tolerated was sharply called into question as a problem for society as a whole over the span from 2012 to 2013.

At the end of 2012, in the athletic club of a certain high school, a tragic event occurred in which a student took their own life, driven to it by an advisor’s corporal punishment. The sport was not baseball, but this case gave a great shock to the entire Japanese sports world. A later investigation, it was reported, revealed the reality that, across many of that school’s club activities, violence and verbal abuse termed corporal punishment had spread. Furthermore, around the same time, violence by coaches surfaced in another sport as well, and the problem spread beyond a single school or sport.

So serious was society’s reception that the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology at the time is reported to have called it ‘the greatest crisis in the history of Japanese sport.’ Every sport, baseball included, was pressed to reexamine the very way it coached.

This declaration was not for a particular sport alone but was directed at Japanese sport as a whole. And ten years later, it was carried forward into new awareness activities aimed at eradicating violence and harassment. The problem did not vanish with a single declaration — that awareness, too, supported the ongoing efforts.

The Field of Baseball Tries to Change

The baseball world, too, has reexamined the way it coaches amid this current.

Student baseball holds a basic principle of permitting no violence at all, and when an act of violence is confirmed, sanctions such as suspension or a ban on games against outside teams are stipulated according to its severity. In the past, there were cases in which collective violence within a team became a public issue and a ban on outside games for a set period was handed down. Such sanctions are carried out not to socially condemn the individual students involved, but to show, as an organization, the principle of not tolerating violence.

In recent years, too, in cases where violence within a team surfaced, investigations by third parties were conducted, and based on the results, recurrence-prevention measures and reviews of the coaching structure have been advanced. The accumulation of such responses reflects a shift toward an attitude of not handling problems internally but bringing in outside eyes to examine them. Including recent cases whose evaluation has not yet been settled, the very way of confronting such problems can be said to still be in the midst of searching.

Coaching reform does not stop at eliminating violence alone. From the perspective of protecting players’ bodies as well, a great change has occurred in recent years. Symbolic of it is the effort to lighten the burden on pitchers.

Reexamining the Meaning of ‘Strength’

In the high school baseball of the past, the figure of a single ace piling up consecutive starts and pitching through, battered and bruised, was told as a stirring tale. But shoulders and elbows are consumable. The cases of young players overworking their bodies for a moment’s victory and having the rest of their competitive lives cut short were by no means few.

From such reflection, in recent years mechanisms setting an upper limit on pitchers’ pitch counts and a tiebreaker system to settle extra innings early were introduced. From values of not shrinking from overexertion if it is for victory, toward values that prioritize protecting players’ futures. The very question of what ‘strength’ is has been quietly updated. Of course, there is still debate over whether the current rules are sufficient, and views are divided.

The darkness of violence and coaching was a hard-to-speak-of shadow that Japanese baseball long carried. Even so, the game received the questions posed by society and has changed its course little by little. It has not arrived at a complete answer. But the will to head in the direction of not taking violence for granted, of protecting players’ bodies and minds, is surely growing.

And so the talents of players raised more healthily will, before long, cross beyond Japan’s borders. Players who take on the world’s highest stage and cross the sea. Next time, let us look at the beginning of that new story.