a spot in the tournament each hold a 30-minute practice on the grounds of Hanshin Kōshien Stadium. This is mainly to help the players adjust to the environment of the stadium. In the summer, due to scheduling conflicts with the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball, the Tigers are forced to host their home matches on Osaka Dome, on older days, the Tigers used to make a road trip every year during this period to allow the tournament to take place, this period was also called "The Infernal Road" due the difficulties the team had to endure. In addition, teams are able to practice during the tournament at public and private facilities made available in Nishinomiya, and neighboring Osaka, Amagasaki, and Kobe. Usually, 1st year students are not selected to take part in Spring Kōshien, so in three years of high school there are five chances for a player to go to Kōshien. Notable episodes Spring/Summer Champions Known in Japanese as 春夏連続優勝 (haru-natsu renzoku yuusho) or Spring-Summer Consecutive Champions, this signifies the winning of the senbatsu (Spring) and senshuken (Summer) tournaments in a calendar year. To date there have been 8 instances of such a feat: Participation of overseas teams Before World War II, teams from Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria, which were all part of the Japanese Empire at the time, participated in the tournaments (in the spring only Taiwan took part). The first overseas teams to participate were Pusan Commercial School of Korea and Dalian Commercial School of Manchuria in the 1921 Summer Kōshien. Foreign teams have made it as far as the championship game, but have never won the tournament. The last tournament including foreign teams was the 1940 Spring Kōshien. Six-time Kōshien participants Currently, the maximum number of times a player can appear in Kōshien is five. However, under the old secondary school system, a player could appear more than five times. Here are two examples. Makeshift Kōshien The tournament was suspended due to the war from summer 1941 until spring 1946, with the exception of a "Promote the Fighting Spirit" tournament held by the Ministry of Education in 1942 at Kōshien. The number of teams was only 16 compared with 23 at the previous tournament, but each region held qualifying tournaments and sent teams to a national tournament. The military theme was prevalent at the tournament, with military slogans posted on the scoreboard, and names on