Western League (Japanese baseball) League contains the minor league affiliates of five Japanese professional teams (minor league homefield shown in parentheses): Western League (Japanese baseball) The is one of the two minor leagues ("ni-gun") of Japanese professional baseball. The league is owned and managed by the Pacific League of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). Teams in the Western League generally play an 80-game schedule every year. The league was created in 1952 as the Kansai Farm League, and was initially completely separate from the workings of the Nippon Professional Baseball. It featured the minor league teams of the six professional teams that had their homefields
Akira Yoshida Akira Yoshida Educated at the Keiko Gakuen Junior High School, he served as captain of his college's rugby team during his high school days, finishing second at the 69th All-Japan High School Rugby Football Championship. Then, Yoshida attended Kyoto Sangyo University regularly since the first year. He was also the captain at the university's rugby team in 1993. In 1994, he joined Kobe Steel, as regular centre since his first year in the club, contributing to achieve the seventh consecutive victories in the All-Japan Rugby Company Championship and in the Japanese Championship for Kobe Steel. Yoshida also contributed to the