POV: 19x2

Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball

In Japan, baseball is not a pastime — it’s a national obsession. And for many of the country’s youth, the sport has become a rite of passage, epitomized by the national high school baseball tournament known simply as “Koshien.” Four thousand teams enter, but only 49 are chosen to compete in the championship that grips the nation for two weeks every August.