Nippon-Ham Fighters builds new stadium but doesn’t meet the provisions of the official baseball rules

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The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters is a team with a huge following and the team and its fans should be celebrating their new stadium, Escon Field Hokkaido.

But there is a major problem, the new stadium does not meet the provisions of official baseball rules set by the NPB, in the fact that the size between the home plate and where people are sitting is not long enough.

Under official baseball (NPB) rules, the distance from the home plate to the fence on the backnet side must be at least 60 feet (18.288 meters), but the new stadium is only about 15 meters.  Many of the other Japanese stadiums are 18.288 meters (in comparison to the US, Houston Astros is 14.9 meters).

Nippon-Ham baseball team president and acting owner Kawamura explained the circumstances and apologized. Confirmation and inquiries to NPB were insufficient.

President Kawamura presented a renovation plan to comply with baseball rules. In response to this, it was agreed that the 12 teams will be allowed to play official games with the current specifications for the next season but the 2023 off-season and 2024 off-season will be devoted to the construction period.

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