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New baseball film captures the tournament that made Shohei Ohtani, Yusei Kikuchi stars

High school baseball in Japan is a noisy, communal, hyperkinetic affair. It starts right away, as coaches hit pregame infield practice with three baseballs going at once, one after another after another, and the constant collision of chatter resembles an aviary. It's difficult to square this raucous spectacle with the perception of baseball in America, where detractors see a staid, inert sport incapable of capturing the attention of the terminally inattentive.

Every baseball field in Japan is considered sacred ground, and before each game the players gather in a ruler-straight line in front of their dugouts and bow to the earth to thank it for providing the canvas for their endeavor.