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[Home Run Level] A Compilation of Trivia & Fun Facts About Baseball
In Japan, there’s never a shortage of baseball talk—whether it’s professional baseball, the Major Leagues, or the WBC! Every year, countless baseball fans can’t help but wonder which team will be crowned the best in Japan, who will win the home run title, and which player will pull off a miracle play.
In this article, we’ll introduce fun trivia and tidbits that will make you love baseball even more! We’ve gathered facts from various angles, including the history of baseball and the curiosities behind things you casually see while watching games.
Even if you don’t know much about baseball, you’ll find yourself thinking, “Oh, really? That’s cool!”—so be sure to check it out!
Home Run-Level: A Collection of Trivia & Fun Facts About Baseball (1–10)
The “Cy Young” in the Cy Young Award is not his real name.
The Cy Young Award is the term synonymous with the honor given in Major League Baseball to the pitcher who performed the best that season.
The award is named after Cy Young, who is enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
However, “Cy Young” was not actually his real name.
His real name was Denton True Young, and he was nicknamed “Cy” because his fastballs roared like a cyclone—so powerful they were compared to a violent storm.
The minimum guaranteed annual salary for the first team is 16 million yen.
In Nippon Professional Baseball, the minimum guaranteed annual salary for players on the top team (ichi-gun) is 16 million yen.
This is money guaranteed as long as they belong to the team, even if they can’t play in games, and it’s an important system that lets players focus on baseball.
Thanks to this, rookies and young players can concentrate on practice and games without worrying about their livelihood.
It’s similar to how, in a school club, you can participate with peace of mind if paying club fees guarantees equipment and travel expenses.
The minimum guaranteed salary serves as a foundation that helps players keep working hard without being crushed by pressure, and it’s an important system that supports their pursuit of their dreams.
The tallest player in NPB history is 216 cm tall.
Among players who have been on NPB teams, the tallest is Loek van Mil, standing at an astonishing 216 centimeters.
Considering that the average height of Japanese men in their 30s is around 171 centimeters, the difference compared to Japanese players is certainly striking.
The towering Loek van Mil is also known for being the first player in Japanese professional baseball history to hail from the Netherlands proper.
During his time in Japan, he played for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, and afterward he went on to play for the Curaçao Neptunus in his home country of the Netherlands.
There are 108 stitches on a ball.
A baseball with striking red stitching on a white background—do you know how many stitches it has? In fact, there are 108.
When a baseball is hit with a bat, it experiences a significant impact, so it needs considerable strength.
The more holes you make for stitching, the weaker it becomes.
However, if there are fewer stitches and the thread connecting the holes becomes longer, the thread is more likely to break.
Taking this balance into account, 108 was chosen as the optimal number of stitches.
The ball’s surface is made of cowhide.
The surface of a baseball is covered with leather, and it’s said that cowhide is the mainstream choice.
This is due to its durability, grip, and appropriate hardness—factors that help standardize the ball and make the game fair and exciting.
In the past, horsehide was used, but it’s said to have been replaced by cowhide because of issues with tautness and durability.
The core is made of cork or rubber, along with wool and cotton thread, and it might be interesting to consider how differences in materials could change the game.
During the war, baseball terminology was converted into Japanese.
When it comes to baseball terminology, English is the standard, and it’s easy to understand because the same terms are used in any country.
However, during the war, even baseball terms were labeled as enemy language, and there were directives to replace them with Japanese.
It’s said that games proceeded using alternative words that reflected each term’s meaning or situation—for example, “strike” became seikyū (correct ball) or yoshi (good), and “out” became mui (futility) or soremade (that’s it).
Changes to the rules may have been difficult for the players, but it was a desperate measure born from the determination to keep baseball alive at all costs.
Koshien Stadium used to have a “Lucky Zone,” an area designed to make home runs easier.
Because a larger outfield makes home runs harder to hit, “lucky zones” were installed to boost home run totals.
At Koshien Stadium, they were placed in front of the outfield fence from 1947 to 1991, and were cherished as Japan’s first lucky zones for many years.
They were removed in 1991 to align with international standards, but they’re still remembered for producing iconic moments like those of the “Dynamite Lineup.” The fact that this uniquely Japanese rule was born in Japan is another fun aspect of the lucky zone.