Female Umps to Take Field at Summer Koshien Baseball Tournament

Nishinomiya, Hyogo Pref., Aug. 4 (Jiji Press)–Female umpires are set to take the field for the first time in this year’s national summer high school baseball championship at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in the city of Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, from Wednesday. Five women were appointed to officiate games in the tournament to address the shortage of umpires and promote diversity. While female umpires have appeared in regional tournaments, they have never participated in national tournaments. Kana Sato, 39, a member of a federation of high school baseball teams from Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, works as an umpire while raising her 5-year-old and 3-year-old children. Sato began studying umpiring when she was in charge of the baseball club at the junior high school where she worked, believing the experience would help her coach students from a different perspective. When she serves as an umpire at regional tournaments, Sato takes her children with her and asks female student managers of participating teams to look after them. She plans to leave her children with her family in Osaka Prefecture, neighboring Hyogo, for the upcoming national tournament. The participation of female umpires at the upcoming tournament is viewed as an opportunity to encourage more women to become interested in umpiring. “I’ve been waiting for younger people to join, so I’ll be happy if (female umpires) increase,” Maki Morita, 49, another female umpire from Saitama who has more than 20 years of experience, said. Morita said that, when she began officiating games, baseball grounds did not have women’s changing rooms, so she changed clothes in waiting rooms after male umpires left. As the number of female umpires increased, changing rooms for women were set up last year, making it easier for her to officiate games. “I hope people will appreciate my voice, which is different from that of men,” Sato said of her debut at the national tournament. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]