The Japanese pro baseball league has decided that it's tired of the best Japanese players leaving for the United States, and doesn't want to see it happening any more. At least, not unless they can squeeze a couple years and a couple million dollars out of them, first.

Taking $51 million to allow Daisuke Matsuzaka to speak with a Major League team is perfectly fine. If Ichiro Suzuki wants to move to America after playing 9 years in Japan, that's fine too. But if the next young Japanese phenom wants to go straight to the States after high school, then he should be prepared to suffer the consequences.

An executive committee representing Japan's pro baseball teams announced that they will institute a 3-year ban on all players who go straight from high school to a non-Japanese pro league, and a 2-year ban on players who go overseas after college or after playing on a company team.

The decision came after Junichi Tazawa, a pitcher for Nippon Oil Corps, wrote letters to the various Japanese teams, announcing his intention to play in the United States, and requesting that they not draft him in the upcoming Japanese baseball draft. The ban would likely apply to Tazawa, forcing him to sit out for 2 years, if he were ever to decide to return to Japan.

While it might seem like this could help Japanese baseball, it's hard to believe that they'll stick with it. If Tazawa becomes a star in the Major Leagues here in America, and wants to do a "victory tour" late in his career with a Japanese team, are they really going to make him sit out 2 years, or will they seize the opportunity, and take advantage of the revenue that they will gain from having him pitch for them?

The other question is, how the hell is this sort of thing allowed to happen? Aren't there employment and discrimination laws in Japan? If this rule were even proposed in the US, people would be screaming racism, and unfair hiring practices. And those people would be right.

Hopefully the people in charge of Japanese pro baseball reconsider, and treat their young players a bit more fairly. If not, hopefully the good ones come over here, make their money, and go back to Japan and preach the virtues of fair business practices until the baseball executives come to their senses.

David Stern's age limit is ridiculous enough, but Brandon Jennings still won't get blackballed if he ever wants to play in the NBA. Guys like Junichi Tazawa should get the same courtesy from his country.


Japan baseball execs to introduce ban to curb drift to major leagues [The Mainichi Daily News]