A big change in Japanese baseball this year may be seen in the umpires. The former Central and Pacific League men in blue have been fully integrated under the NPB banner, each man now has his own assigned roster and sleeve number and there are crew chiefs for the first time in Japan.
The process to combine the league umpires follows a similar course of action in Major League Baseball and has taken two years to complete. In 2009, the umps in Japan still belonged to the CL or PL, but in 2010 they switched to the NPB logo, though the move went only halfway. The guys kept their numbers, so there were several cases where two umpires were wearing the same numerical designation.
Also last season, Central League games were called only by former CL umpires, and Pacific League contests worked only by ex-Pa Leaguers. In 2011, all umpires will be assigned at random to work Central, Pacific and interleague games. The revamped system is expected to give the Japanese umpires a higher status and, hopefully, more respect.
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