The Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (日本野球機構) used to have three sets of different professional All-Star Events that ran at different points each year. This includes of course the current annual NPB All-Star and Fresh All-Star Games. Two other series of all-star exhibitions ended a few decades ago: the Pacific League All-Star East vs. West Game, and the Central League All-Star Game. That’s one game each season for each of the NPB’s two pro leagues, both being held separately at the end of the NPB season.
The Pacific League All-Star East vs. West competition was held most years at Shizuoka Kusanagi Stadium in Shizuoka, Japan from 1982-2006. This event was held 19 times, meaning 19 total Pacific League All-Star games took place across 25 seasons. So it wasn’t quite an annual event.
NPB Pacific League All-Star – East vs. West Game Baseballs (Mizuno or Sun-up)
1999 Pacific League ASG & 50th Anniversary, Kusanagi. 2000 Pacific League ASG, Kusanagi. 2002 Pacific League ASG, Kusanagi. 2003 Pacific League ASG, Kusanagi. 2005 PL ASG Placeholder—Souvenir/Logo ball. 2006 PL ASG Placeholder—Souvenir/Logo ball.
This gallery only features a handful of those ultra-rare official Pacific League All-Star Game balls, for a few reasons: We only have four NPB-PL ASG official on-field game balls, and there likely weren’t specially stamped game balls made for this event until late in its run, at least as far as we know. We’ve only seen balls from 1999-2003, and the final Pacific League ASG in 2006. The 2004 game was canceled.
We’ve only seen a “throw-in” souvenir style leather commemorative ball for 2005 and 2006 — slightly softer than a typical hardball baseball. We’ve pictured those two as placeholders to give collectors at least some visual and potential logo. Official on-field game balls may very, and likely did to some extent. Perhaps there are also a few official game balls for this event from the 1980s, or at least a few more from the 1990s yet to be discovered? I sure hope so!
There was also an end-of-year Central League All-Star game as mentioned earlier, that ran from 1979-1999, but we’ve never seen a special game ball for it. Pity.