Time Machine: NPB games fit to be tied

This story originally ran in the Japanese newspaper Yukan Fuji in 2018.

TOKYO — One of the major differences between professional baseball in the United States and Japan is the matter of tie baseball games. In MLB, ties are not allowed. Games must be played until one team defeats the other, no matter how long it takes.  In Japan, ties have always been part of the game, something American gaijin players in NPB have a hard time understanding.

“The point of the game,” pitcher Brad ‘Animal’ Lesley once said, “is to win. Playing to a tie is like kissing your sister.” 

The subject of ties came up recently after the first game of the 2018 Japan Series between the Hiroshima Carp and the SoftBank Hawks was played to a 2-2 tie, after 12 innings, less than 24 hours after the Los Angeles Dodgers had defeated the Boston Red Sox 3-2 on a walk-off or sayonara, home run by Max Muncy in the bottom of the 18^th inning of a World Series game. It was a contest that took 7 hours and 20 minutes and was the longest post-season game ever played in MLB. Japanese import Kenta Maeda had pitched two shoutout innings in the 15^th and 16^th in relief.