The history of the Japan-US friendly high school baseball tournament can be traced back to 1998. In years without the U18 Asian Championships, the Japan High School Baseball Federation selects standout players from the Summer League Champion Team as representatives to participate — to some extent, these players represent the strongest capabilities of Japanese baseball at this age level.
According to past selection criteria, most of the players chosen for the representative team are third-year players with good Summer甲 results. Lin Guanglai's selection was indeed an exceptional promotion — not without some subtle intentions from the Japan Baseball Association and Takano Ren:
