When mid-May arrived, the interleague games between the Central League and Pacific League commenced.
Before 2005, although Nippon Professional Baseball was nominally a whole, the states of the Central League and Pacific League were more akin to two independent leagues; except for the Japanese Series at the end of each season, all other match stages were conducted independently by the two leagues.
This led to the emergence of a phenomenon:
Since the popular Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers were both Central League teams, for broadcast ratings considerations, many local TV stations only chose to broadcast Central League games.
Even though the Pacific League teams had gradually risen since the mid-1980s and maintained a dominant record against Central League teams in the Japanese Series, this extreme disparity in popularity had not improved—many players before entering professional baseball didn't even know about the existence of the Pacific League.
