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TheNippon Professional Baseball All-Star Series is an annualbaseball series ofAll-Star Games between players from theCentral League and thePacific League, currently selected by a combination of fans, players, coaches, and managers. The All-Star Game usually occurs in early to mid-July and marks the symbolic halfway point in theNippon Professional Baseball (NPB) season (though not the mathematical halfway point; in most seasons, that takes place one week earlier). Each series consists of two or three games.
The first NPB All-Star game was played in 1951.
For many years, mimicking thegaijin waku rule of the NPB,[1] each All-Star team was limited to two foreign players.[2]
The fan votes of the starters of the 2023 All Star Series revealed 9 of the 10 highest voted starters were Hanshin Tigers players. It was the third time in NPB players from the same team led the voting in all positions.[6] The controversy was garnered as some of the positions, such as catcher, which in question wasRyutaro Umeno, were voted in for the sole purpose of being voted in by fans, as he did not produce numbers good enough to warrant an all star game appearance, compared to that of a player likeTakumi Ohshiro. Others, likeTeruaki Sato at third base, were good, but there had been players who were much more deserving to start, likeToshiro Miyazaki andKazuma Okamoto.[7]
