Taro's Blog

If you are a Japanese baseball fan, have you wondered why high schoolers collect the sand from Koshien Stadium right after their defeat?

🇯🇵 The scene after the end of a game at the Koshien tournament. There is a custom that players collect sand and take it home. There is a custom for players to collect sand and take it home, as Koshien is considered a sacred place. They may also give the sand to people who have helped them.
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For many years, I dismissed the idea as stupid and meaningless. I thought bringing the sand home would not improve your team’s basecall skills.

As I get older, I start to see it differently. It’s got nothing to do with sports. It’s spiritual. 1. You appreciate the fortune that you were selected to pilgrimage to the sacred site. 2. You share your fortune with others who were not able to join the pilgrimage as a souvenir.

I figured out its root precisely. It’s the Shikoku 88 (四国八十八ヶ所霊場) Sand Stepping (お砂踏み). For high school baseball players, Koshien Stadium (甲子園球場) is the ultimate goal and destination where the national championship baseball games are played. You dedicate your whole life to winning in your local tournaments and representing your prefecture at Koshien. It’s a pilgrimage.

Because it’s a pilgrimage, before you leave the sacred ground, it’s a duty for the pilgrims to collect a portion of the sand to take it home for the people who supported them or were unable to join the pilgrimage.

Thus, handing out the sand in small packets would make sense.

For the Shikoku 88, they pushed the idea a little further. Instead of giving out 88 packets of sand, they use the sand from 88 sites to recreate a miniature or a shortcut version of the pilgrimage. Instead of spending weeks or months hiking, lodging, and visiting sacred sites in Shikoku, the guests would spend less than an hour visiting all 88 sites at their convenience.

About Sand Stepping by Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage

Wait, there’s more. If you don’t have money or time to travel around the world, no worries. You can visit Tobu World Square to travel around the world in an afternoon.

Tobu World Square