Besuboru Guy—Baseball Distribution

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On this day in Round and Square History 
6 September 2012—The Cortex Chronicles: Punting Down
6 September 2011—Styling Culture: Margins and Fonts

[a] Individual and Society RF

可飛ばせ, 川口!

Let 'er rip, Kawaguchi!  OR
Fly to base, Kawaguchi!

—Common Japanese baseball chant
(Kawaguchi is a common surname, like "Anderson")

And Japanese baseball players let 'er rip (and fly to base) all over the islands. You see, there are two leagues (not unlike the National and American that structure professional baseball in the United States). 

In general terms, the Pacific League teams play in the "west" and the Central League teams play in the "east." 

[b] Distribution PD

On many maps, these look like "south" and "north," respectively, but (trust me) almost everyone in Japan looks at the matter as "east-west."

Now look at the map. 

It's not quite so crystal-clear, is it? Hokkaido (the Wisconsin of the Japanese islands—a land of milk and cheese) is home to the Pacific League Hokkaido-Nippon-Ham Fighters. Want more? Two Central League teams play west of Kyoto.

The advantages should be obvious. Both leagues are all over Japan. And more? Well, the "Central" teams are at least relatively landlocked (this is a relative term in Japan, of course) and the "Pacific" teams are coastal.

The result? Great baseball from ocean to shining sea.

[If you don't read Japanese, but want to have some sense of the Japanese kana and kanji in these posts, just copy the phrases and paste them into translation software such as Babylon or Google Translate].

[c] Big baseball RF

[Originally posted on August 29, 2014]