Marinerds, etc.

2009 NPB Fan Fests Schedule

2009-11-19T05:27:00.000-08:00

Hi guys -- I'm not dead, honest. Just feeling kind of burnt out after the season, and was REALLY busy last week with my school, and well, there's no real reason for me to translate news when someone else is doing that. I even skipped the Jingu HS/college baseball tourney last weekend in favor of watching hockey instead. (Which was really awesome. Thanks, Simon!)

But, this Sunday I'll be going to the U-26 NPB vs. College game, which I'm psyched for, though I'm not really sure who I'll cheer for. (Probably the college kids, since the NPB team couldn't be bothered to include Hiroki Ueno. No, just kidding. Mostly.)

And the other thing I'm planning to go to, unless the weather turns truly crappy, is the Shonan Sea Rex fan fest on Saturday. That's the Yokohama Baystars minor-league team, which I am infinitely more interested in than the ichi-gun team these days. So while I was looking up info for that I figured I'd check in and see when all the NPB fanfests are -- if I get bored and the weather's reasonable, I might try to stop in on the Seibu Lions or Yakult Swallows fan fests on Monday too. I figure there can't possible be anything this year more disturbing than Yoshinori and Masaru Satoh in drag last year...

Anyway, almost all of the fan fests are during this 3-day weekend, though one or two are next weekend. And there's the Giants parade on Sunday too.

Pacific League Fan Fests

Nippon Ham Fighters
November 21st (Saturday)
11:00 - 16:00
Sapporo Dome
300 yen

Rakuten Golden Eagles
November 23rd (Monday / Holiday)
10:00 - 16:00
Kleenex Stadium
Free

Softbank Hawks
November 22nd (Sunday)
11:00 - 16:30
Yahoo Dome
1200 yen

Seibu Lions
November 23rd (Monday / Holiday)
10:00 - 15:00
Seibu Dome (and surroundings)
Free

Chiba Lotte Marines
November 21st (Saturday)
10:00 - 15:00
Chiba Marine Stadium
Free

Orix Buffaloes
Nov 29th (Sunday)
10:40 - 14:30
Kyocera Dome Osaka
Free

Central League Fan Fests

Yomiuri Giants
November 23rd (Monday / Holiday)
Starts at 10am
Tokyo Dome

Also, there's a Yomiuri Giants Victory Parade
November 22nd (Saturday), 10:00 - 11:00am, Ginza area (Otemachi to Shinbashi)

Chunichi Dragons
November 28th (Saturday)
11:00 - 14:00
Nagoya Dome

Yakult Swallows
November 23rd (Monday / Holiday)
Starts at 11am
Jingu Stadium
Free (I think)

Hanshin Tigers
November 21st (Saturday)
Starts at 11am
Koshien Stadium
(This event seems to be sold out.)

Hiroshima Carp
November 23rd (Monday / Holiday)
10:30 - 15:30
Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium Hiroshima
(I think this is also sold out, actually)

Yokohama Baystars
November 23rd (Monday / Holiday)
10:00 - 15:30
Yokohama Stadium
Free

Shonan Sea Rex (Baystars minor-league team)
November 21 (Saturday)
11:00 - 14:30
Yokosuka Stadium
Free

I haven't really been to a LOT of fanfests here aside from the Fighters Kamagaya ones and a Baystars one a few years ago, so I don't have any particular recommendations, just throwing this info out for anyone who might be interested in it. I'll certainly try to blog about this weekend for y'all, whatever I end up doing.

Japan Series Game 6, Kamagaya Report: And So It Ends

2009-11-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

Saturday, November 7th, my half-birthday, the Yomiuri Giants won the Japan Series by beating the Nippon Ham Fighters 2-0 at the Sapporo Dome. Yet again, just as in 1981, the Giants beat the Fighters in the Japan Series 4 games to 2, and for the Giants, this was their 21st Japan Series title, which of course is still almost double the next-highest winning team, the Seibu Lions with 13 titles.

If you want to know about what actually happened in the game, I recommend reading up on it in other places:

Japan Times: Giants scratch seven-year title itch
Daily Yomiuri: Giants finish off Fighters / Capture 21st Japan Series title as 6 hurlers combine on shutout, MVP Abe provides punch
Japanball: Giants down Fighters in Game 6 to win Japan Series title
Yakyu Baka: Giants shutout the Fighters 2-0 to take the Nippon Series in 6!
and even Bleacher Report: Japanese Yankees Win Their World Series Too, where I want to punch the author by the end but he does have a valid point: have the damn Yankees and the damn Giants play each other already! Seriously!

As for me, what I'm going to share with you is the fan experience of watching the game at Fighters town Kamagaya on Saturday night, since I didn't keep a scorecard and the only moments of the game I really remember very well are Shun Tohno getting knocked down in the first inning and being replaced by Utsumi, and I remember when Ejiri came out to pitch, and I kinda remember the Giants scoring their runs because we were all like "OMGWTFINABA", and of course the last inning, where we really hoped the Fighters could put one or two of the guys on base into home plate for once but I think we all knew in our hearts it wasn't going to happen.

(More photos and videos at the end of the post.)

Kamagaya, for those tuning in for the first time, is a small town in Chiba prefecture, about 30-40 minutes out of Tokyo by train. The Fighters built a minor-league stadium and training center and dormitory there back in 1996, when their major-league team was still based in Tokyo. When the team moved to Sapporo, they kept the minor league team in Kamagaya, and as such, it has become a bit of a gathering place for the relatively large remaining contingent of Tokyo-area Fighters fans.

I read on the Fighters website that they would be having a free "Public Viewing" of Game 6 (and 7) at Kamagaya. They would set up a big TV and seating outside the stadium, and they advertised that there would be merchandise tables with special postseason stuff, and food stands and "fun events" and the minor-league mascot Cubby and some "presents" and whatnot.

So I emailed Hiromi and she emailed Ojisan, and by the time we arrived at Kamagaya around 5:30, we found Ojisan and another friend Chizaki sitting at a picnic table, and they had also saved some seats up front for us as well!

Before the game, I wandered around, said hi to friends I saw there, looked through the merchandise (there was a LOT, but none of it screamed out to me that I HAD to buy it), went to the food stand and bought some curry and rice, and sat down with my friends to have a little mini-picnic, since we had all brought snacks and whatnot to share with everyone. Chizaki had even brought a huge thermos full of hot water and some packets of powder to make coffee out of.

The "presents", by the way, turned out to be plastic folders, which you could get for free if you wrote your name and address and phone number on an information form for Tokyo Dome and Kamagaya 2010 season tickets. The PL championship folder is pretty cool though, has the entire team on it and says "WE DID IT" in big letters.

I was interviewed by a lady reporting for Chiba TV. Or more like, Ojisan dragged her over like "You HAVE to talk to Deanna! Get the international angle!" So after clearing up that yes, I can speak Japanese, I was filmed for about 3-4 minutes. Oddly, most of what she asked me was things like, who is your favorite player? Why is Imanari your favorite player, what do you like about him? Do you come to Kamagaya a lot? How long have you been a Fighters fan? Stuff like that, rather than about the Japan Series itself or anything. I'm just hoping that it didn't actually make it onto TV, or at least that nobody I know SAW it.

The pre-game festivities included having EVERYONE throw out an imaginary first pitch, and then singing the entire Fighters sanka (team song), all three verses, with the lyrics up on the big screen karaoke-style. They also lit up some strings of Christmas lights behind the screen to look like Mt. Fuji, and we did some cheering with Cubby, the mascot. Almost everyone had brought cheer sticks and wore jerseys, usually over several layers of jackets. Some people brought signs. A group of guys in the back even had big Fighters flags on poles that they waved as if we were in a real ouendan at the stadium.

During the game itself, the atmosphere was not entirely unlike being spread out in the Fighters side of the Seibu Dome outfield, just without the trumpets and drums. Most of us tried to do the cheer songs along with the TV as we could hear them, including the Kensuke call and Inaba jump and the chance themes and even just clapping and yelling "Kattobase" and "Go go let's go" and so on. Guys waved flags in the back when Fighters got on base, and we all generally cheered as appropriate, although for the most part people stayed seated rather than standing up to cheer, partially because the seats were on flat ground and standing up would really get in other people's way.

Between innings, the TV display kept showing Kamagaya mini-commercials. Occasionally, there were even little mini-events between innings. Notably, we did YMCA at the same time they did it at the Sapporo Dome, and another time, they called out, "We have a special timed discount starting now! It's the 38 discount! Does anyone know what 38 is for? Yes, it's Masaru Takeda's uniform number! So from now, we'll be selling hotdogs for the next 38 minutes for 100 yen each! So hurry up and buy some!"

(You would be surprised how many people don't want a hot dog for 200 yen, but when you make it 100 yen, the entire place storms the food counter.)

They also often walked around yelling out advertisements for the merchandise there. "See the super-warm and comfortable Fighters 2009 Pacific League Champions parka she's wearing? Oh, it's very comfortable and so fashionable! And if you buy it now, along with a scarf and bag and cheer sticks, it only costs 5000 yen! What a deal!"

Cubby was out there for pretty much the entire game, cheering along with everyone. In the 8th and 9th innings when things were starting to look pretty bad, Cubby was going up to people and patting them on the head and high-fiving and making motions of "Come on, we can do it!"

Anyway, here are some photos and videos from the evening...

Here we are about 10 minutes before the game, doing the "first pitch" together.

Lighting up "Fuji".

And this was the view from my "seat" in the front.

Utsumi coming into the game after Tohno was knocked down and out.

Here's another view from sitting at our picnic table, towards the side.

One of the flag-waving guys way in the back.

Out in back, near where some charcoal grills were set up for people to come warm their hands by, people had hung out all of the normal big banners that they hang in the stadium during games during the season.

I got a photo in the midst of the "We Love Fighters" one.

Here's the merchandise tents.

A display of Fighters bears in various outfits, on a table with Japan Series programs. They also had the Cubby pinbadge capsule machines out as well.

Food stand.

Food stand being swamped by 600 people trying to get 38 hot dogs.

And, as promised, some videos...

Here we are doing the Inaba Jump in the 9th inning. (It starts with us waving cheer sticks for "I Was Born To Love You" though.)

And the Kita no Kuni Kara chance theme, for Naoto Inada's at-bat in the 9th inning. He eventually walked, and you can see how excited the crowd got every time Kroon threw a ball instead of a strike.

In case you are wondering, by the way, I do believe there were a few Giants fans watching the game there, but for the most part, they weren't vocal. (One guy was fairly vocal in the first inning, and he was either escorted out or told to stop it by the police.) I don't think there was any particular ban on Giants fans, but as someone else put it in Japanese, "Can't that idiot read the atmosphere? This is NOT a place to be cheering for the Giants."

(Seriously, if you're a Giants fan, shouldn't there be a better place to watch the game than sitting out in the cold with 600-700 Fighters fans at their minor-league facility?)

And overall, it was actually a pretty neat experience to be sitting out in the cold with a few hundred Fighters fans. I had been waffling about going because it takes me almost 2 hours each way to go there, but in the end I think it was worth it to finish off the season with my friends.

Thus the 2009 season comes to an end, and in theory in the worst possible way, having the Giants beat my Fighters and the Yankees beat my hometown Phillies, but really, I think I'm already over it for the most part, and focusing on how unbelievable the year actually was. Sometimes I think being a Fighters fan has actually turned me into a nicer person and mellowed me out a lot.

And don't worry, there's still more baseball on the horizon for me in 2009, even if it's not pro yakyu. Jingu Taikai next weekend, fanfests and the JUBF-U26 game after that, Master's league and other crazy things after that. Also some hockey, hopefully. I love this place!

Japan Series Game 5 Report: Fighters vs. Giants @ Tokyo Dome - Hisashi Handed Heartbreaking Homeruns

2009-11-06T14:27:00.000-08:00

I thought about just posting the following:

The Fighters got a run in the 2nd inning off of two Giants errors, and held the 1-0 lead for most of the game, which became tied 1-1 in the 8th off Takahiro Suzuki's clever baserunning and Noriyoshi Ohmichi's pinch-hit single. Shinji Takahashi hit a go-ahead home run in the top of the 9th to make it 2-1, and then closer Hisashi Takeda gave up two home runs to the Giants in the 9th, the second one being a walkoff shot by Shinnosuke Abe, and the Giants won 3-2.

Because seriously, I don't really want to think about this game any more. The entire game really did come down to that totally devastating last 20 minutes where the Fighters were suddenly not winning, then winning, then completely not winning.

Both starters were really good -- Shugo Fujii and Dicky Gonzalez both went 7 innings and didn't give up an earned run.

I was sitting in the second row of the Fighters cheering section in the outfield for this game, actually, thanks to a friend of a friend scoring excellent tickets and being nice enough to offer one to me.

And you know what the crazy thing is?

It honestly didn't feel any different from any other game this year, aside from being more crowded.

I mean, back in June, I also sat in the second row of the visitor's cheering section for the Fighters-Giants games in interleague, and for the most part, this felt exactly the same -- lots of people who all love the Fighters and hate the Giants united in the purpose of yelling and screaming and singing cheer songs until our team won or lost. I'm really not sure there was any big change in atmosphere between this game and the other ones. Maybe we were slightly louder than usual.

I guess the only main difference is, back on June 5th when last we saw Fujii vs. Gonzalez as a pitching matchup, Shugo Fujii gave up 4 runs in the first inning and it was pretty clear we were unlikely to come back from that, so it was a slightly different mood.

I'm not sure how to explain it, but when you're behind for the entire game and lose, that has a completely different feeling than being ahead for the entire game and then to suddenly have it all yanked out from under you at the last moment.

The worst thing was, I think, having this happen at my last Fighters game of 2009. (For real. I know I've had four "last game of 2009" games this year, but this is REALLY the last one.) Afterwards, outside Gate 11, there was just a huge congregation of Fighters fans, and everyone's mood was some combination of:

- "I really wanted them to win their final game in Kanto..."
- "It's not over yet! Are you going to Sapporo for Games 6 and 7?"
- "I can't go to Sapporo."
- "I hate the Giants so very very much."
- "I hate Shinnosuke Abe so very very much."
- "I hate the long long winter with no baseball so very very much."
- "It's been a great year anyway, hasn't it? We'll all be back next year together, right?"

(And a little bit of "Why do you have 嫌 on your t-shirt?" to which I'd turn around and display the "俺はジャイアンツが大っ嫌いだぁ！" ("I HATE the Giants!") message, generally to laughs.)

So there were a lot of goodbyes, a lot of people exchanging contact info to maybe get together over the winter, a lot of "see you next year", some "see you in Sapporo", things like that. Some of us already have a plan to get together for dinner in a few weeks. (And a whole gang of us headed to an izakaya together afterwards anyway.)

I mean, that's the thing: this really HAS been an amazing year. Running around before Game 3 saying hello to a bazillion people really knocked that into my head. I went to 60 Fighters games this year, counting minor league, and all over the country. Everywhere I went, I met amazing new people and had a great time cheering and hanging out and being a Fighters fan.

Win or lose, the bottom line is still that this was a great year for the fans. It would have been a great year even if we'd finished in last place, I think, but finishing in first certainly made it that much better.

On that note, I'm going to Kamagaya today for their "public viewing" of Game 6. It's going to be pretty chilly this evening, and Kamagaya's pretty far from where I live, but I figure that it'll be a good place to be watching with everyone.

Japan Series Game 4 Report: Fighters vs. Giants @ Tokyo Dome - Our Takahashi Is Better Than Theirs

2009-11-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

Wednesday morning, I went to an English speech contest with a few of my students. One of them is a big Giants fan and we talked about the Japan Series on the streetcar over, since she grabbed my cellphone and was looking through all of my Fighters charms and straps dangling from it. When I asked who her favorite player was, she told me she likes Tetsuya Matsumoto. I had to admit that of all the members of the Giants starting lineup, she did pick the only one that I don't have any reason to dislike, aside from that he displaced Takahiro Suzuki, who used to have the honor of being the guy in the Giants lineup that I didn't dislike.

I said I was heading back to the Tokyo Dome for the game in the evening, and that the Fighters were going to win.

She seemed unsure whether trash-talking her English teacher was a good idea or not, but assured me she would be watching on TV and that her beloved Matsumoto-kun was going to kick ass.

Well, she was right. Matsumoto was the only player on either team who reached base all 5 times he came to the plate.

Fortunately, it didn't matter.

The game started out as an epic battle between two lefty starters -- Hisanori Takahashi for the Giants, and Tomoya Yagi for the Fighters. Hisanori started out by striking out the side in the top of the 1st, which was a bit ominous.

But then the Fighters totally beat the crap out of him in the 3rd, which made up for it. Shinji Takahashi came up with the bases loaded and hit a single to left which scored Kensuke and Hichori to make it 2-0 and two batters later Eiichi Koyano hit a triple to center which scored Inaba and Shinji to make it 4-0.

The Giants answered that with one run in the bottom of the 3rd, as Hayato Sakamoto led off with a double and advanced on a wild pitch and then scored on a Matsumoto single to make it 4-1.

Shinji Takahashi hit a solo home run in the 5th to make it 5-1.

Kimura Takuya, who had allowed Hichori to get on base in the 3rd, also got himself picked off first in the 5th, a really embarrassing tagout on the base path.

The Fighters added one more run in the 7th after Kensuke Tanaka hit a triple and Hichori Morimoto squeeze-bunted him in, 6-1, and two more runs in the 8th off of reliever Shota Kimura, who gave up three hits and two runs in three batters before being escorted off the mound, a Shinji single, Sledge double, and Koyano 2-RBI single. 8-1.

I think I need to take a brief break from describing the game action to actually talking about my situation at the ballpark. See, I was sitting in the infield for this game again, about 21 rows up from the field behind the 3rd-base excite seats. This time I was there with a friend of mine from college, Shin, who also hates the Giants. Last year we watched Game 7 of the Japan Series together on his Sony PSP because it was the best option at the time. This year we had a slightly better vantage point.

While it wasn't quite the same as Tuesday, there were a fair number of Fighters fans scattered around the area we were sitting in, so during the scoring frenzy in the 3rd inning, we all kept standing up and singing and yelling. There was a lady sitting a few sits down who had a Shinji sign, so when Shinji got his home run in the 5th, we got up and banged cheersticks together and also got the people in the row behind us. By the 8th, I was actually running up a few steps up the aisle to bang cheersticks with some other small groups of Fighters fans a bit further up.

So the bottom of the 8th started with the Fighters holding a huge lead and me answering an email asking whether I could come up to Sapporo on Saturday for Game 6 (the answer: no), and Takayuki Kanamori taking the mound. Amazingly, Yoshinori Tateyama had come out for an inning with nothing disastrous happening, and Naoki Miyanishi also had a 1-2-3 inning aided by a nice double play.

The first batter Kanamori faced was Hayato Sakamoto, who hit a huge foul ball out to right field, and Atsunori Inaba chased it down and DIVED headfirst into the Excite Seats, but made the catch.

The second batter was Tetsuya Matsumoto, who was 3-for-3 at that point. Matsumoto hit the ball to short, and Yuji Iiyama, a late-inning defensive replacement, dropped the ball, so Matsumoto was safe at first yet again. Ogasawara followed that up with a single, and then Alex Ramirez came up to bat with two guys on, and BLAM, he sent a line drive into the Giants cheering section. Suddenly it was an 8-4 ballgame.

Kanamori walked Kamei after that, and I wrapped my towel around my head. "We survived Tateyama... why is Kanamori doing the honors today?"

Yoshitomo Tani singled, and I said "Okay, they're bringing out Masanori Hayashi next to face Abe." Shin said, "Really?" I said "Yeah. I have no idea how he'll DO, but I can tell you for sure that he's going to be the next pitcher."

And Hayashi was the next pitcher. And he got the next two batters out. Whew.

Despite a 4-run lead not being a save situation, Hisashi Takeda came out to pitch the 9th inning. And he made things interesting by giving up a leadoff hit to Shigeyuki Furuki, though Sakamoto hit a pop fly out after that. Tetsuya Matsumoto grounded to short, Iiyama making a FANTASTIC play to snag the ball and get it to second base in time for the force on Furuki, though there was no chance on a double play against the speedy Matsumoto, who reached base for the 5th time that day.

Michihiro Ogasawara's clean-shaven doppleganger came up to the plate as the only thing standing between the Fighters evening it up at 2 games each and the Giants taking a 3-1 lead. And Ogasawara stared at his former teammate and then proceeded to hit a single to right field...

...and get himself thrown out at second base trying to stretch it into a double. GAME OVER and the Fighters win it 8-4.

Shin kind of raised an interesting question at that point though -- it seemed like Matsumoto had made it home before Ogasawara was thrown out, and it WAS a valid single, so it's curious they didn't count him as scoring. I don't think it really matters either way, as the Fighters still won the game, though it might matter for Hisashi's postseason ERA someday or something like that.

Either way, woohoo!

Shinji Takahashi and Eiichi Koyano were the game heroes for knocking in those 4 runs in the 3rd inning. Shinji was 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs, and Koyano was 3-for-4 with 4 RBIs, accounting for almost all the Fighters runs.

And once the legions of Giants fans cleared out from the section a little, I also made Shin take the following picture:

which is not a very good photo of me because I was too tired to hold a smile at that point, but at least it serves well enough as a "No really, I was at the Japan Series" photo.

After the game we made our way outside, with me running into a whole bunch of people on the way, including some of the English newspaper writers I hadn't seen in a while, and then a whole bunch of Fighters fans I hadn't seen in a while. I ran into my one friend who carries a Fighty stuffed animal with him to all the Fighters games and whose son is named Yukio, and he lent me the Fighty so I could go up and get a photo over the Japan Series sign. Sadly, it didn't really come out, but it was pretty funny at the time:

Anyway, onward to Game 5! Let's hope the Fighters win this one too -- it'll make the weekend that much more interesting!

A Blog Backdated 75 Years

2009-11-05T09:21:00.000-08:00

Rob Fitts is blogging the All-American baseball tour of Japan.

It's going on through November...

...1934, that is.

Remember, if you want to go see baseball in a stadium Babe Ruth played in, in addition to Fenway, you can always come to Japan and go to Jingu or Koshien! :)

(I'll be writing a bit about Japan Series Game 4 shortly -- sorry for the delay.)

Japan Series Game Report: Fighters vs. Giants @ Tokyo Dome - Duped Again By Ogasawara's Clean-Shaven Doppleganger

2009-11-04T15:22:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I finally got to go to an actual Fighters Japan Series game! How cool is THAT?

Now if only they hadn't LOST, it would have been even better.

Because November 3rd is a Japanese national holiday, Culture Day, the area around the Tokyo Dome was already full of people several hours before game time. This was the crowd outside Gate 22 (where lots of people get their photo because the big Nippon Series sign is up there):

I got inside around 4:15pm, after going through some serious security measures -- metal detector scanners and people ACTUALLY looking through my bags.

Went to try to take some photos of batting practice, only to discover the following things:

1) The Dome lighting sucked even more than usual, and
2) It was already retardedly crowded. There were at least a hundred media-pass-wearing folks on the field, and then several rows deep of fans trying to take photos of the entire thing:

This is the only clear shot I got during BP at all, go figure:

(It's Sho Nakata, if you don't know/recognize him.)

So I gave up and decided to go look for friends instead. Partially because people had tickets for me, and partially just because it had been a full month since my last Fighters game, and almost TWO months since our final Fighters game in Kanto, not counting Kamagaya.

First I went upstairs since I knew a few people would be up there. I found a nice uncrowded shopping stand and got a Japan Series pen and keychain and program (which came with a ticket holder -- convenient!), and then went to hunt down a Giants thing I saw during the playoffs and wanted to take a photo with. Fortunately, just as I found it, I also found a Fighters fan friend of mine who took the photo for me. It might have been a little hard to convince a Giants fan to take this one:

If you tapped the fists with your fists, it said various Giants-supporting messages in Hara's voice. Me, I just wanted to pretend I was going to punch Hara.

I also bought dinner, my new favorite Tokyo Dome bento, the "Hit-and-Lunch" bento. It's a funnier pun in Japanese. Honest.

After that, I snuck into the outfield Fighters cheering section (I had an infield ticket, and technically was not supposed to be there). It was like some crazy reunion, seeing a whole ton of people I hadn't seen in weeks or months. I couldn't even walk more than a few feet without seeing someone else I knew or having someone come up to me like "Hi! Long time no see! How are you? (Do you remember me?)" It was great to find everyone there, though -- people had come from all over the country due to the holiday, I think. Some people had just taken off work this week and come to Tokyo for all 3 games. In addition to pretty much ALL the usual suspects from the Kanto area, I saw folks from every ouendan group, and a lot of fans who live in Hokkaido, and people from the Sendai cheering groups, and the women from Osaka who had reserved our group's dinner at Nakatani, and a friend from Fukuoka, and I even met up with my friend from Nagoya who I hadn't seen in two months.

I also met a few people who read my blog -- I was very surprised, I don't really make a big deal about it around my Japanese friends for the most part. That was really cool!

So I was feeling pretty happy and well-loved by the time I got back to my seat for lineups and the pregame ceremonies. I can't say enough how much the Fighters fans have meant to me, especially this year. In some ways it takes "summer family" to a whole new height.

My seat was really good, and in a pocket of Fighters supporters in the 3rd-base infield, which was great. The people to my right were a couple with a one-year-old daughter who was adorable, and they even recognized me from Kamagaya, so that was nice to have people to talk to.

I tried to take some photos of the opening ceremonies.
Here are the Fighters being introduced...

Yet again, Sho Nakata is the only person my camera seems to have gotten a clear shot of.

This was a kind of weird exchange that happened when the Giants were coming out.

Hichori yelled something and made some gesture at Marc Kroon...

...and Kroon smiled and yelled something back, and this went both ways for a few lines. Both guys were smiling.

(Just the two lineups. Actually, the shot after this, which was blurry, had Konta smack Murata... they were joking around for most of the time on the field.)

Some famous model came out to do the traditional pre-game flower-giving:

(Here's Nashida receiving a big pile of flowers which he is just going to hand to Kensuke Tanaka, who is going to give it to some bat boy, who is going to put it somewhere that nobody will ever remember it exists.)

Then a famous singer sang Kimigayo, and I swear I somehow completely missed who it was. Oops.

THEN the craziest part of the opening ceremonies happened -- and as it turns out, the reason for us to get scanned by metal detectors and so on...

...the ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by George W. Bush!

You know, I wonder whether people should be looking at that like "Wow, there's Sadaharu Oh standing behind George Bush" or "Hey, that's George Bush walking by Sadaharu Oh..."

Actually, his first pitch was FAST. It was like, one minute, this white guy is walking out to the mound, and by the time most people in the stadium realized who he was or what he was doing, he had already thrown the ball to home plate and was being rushed off the field.

(I bet some people are already wondering if he'll appear as a First Pitch card for BBM next year, or in the Japan Series card set...)

Since I was in the infield for a change, I took a few photos of the Fighters ouendan during the first inning. (I don't usually get to see what this looks like from the other side.)

Before the game, the "駆け抜けろ王座奪回への道" banner we've had up at most games this year -- roughly, "Running Down The Road To Recapturing the Throne" or something like that. I find translating "kakenukeru" into English difficult for some reason.

Kensuke Tanaka banner.

Atsunori Inaba banner and flags!

Fans aside, the starters for the game were Wilfin Obispo for the Giants, and Keisaku Itokazu for the Fighters. The lineups:


Fighters                 Giants
--------                 ------
Kensuke 2b               Sakamoto ss
Itoi cf                  Matsumoto cf
Inaba rf                 Ogasawara's Clean-Shaven Doppleganger 3b
Shinji 1b                Rami-chan lf
Sledge lf                Kamei rf
Koyano 3b                Lee 1b
Nioka ss                 Abe c
Tsuruoka c               Wakiya 2b
Itokazu p                Obispo p

(Makoto Kaneko is mildly injured, so Tomohiro Nioka got to make a start in the Tokyo Dome against his former team.)

And for the first half of the game -- literally the first 4 and a half innings -- all the scoring in the game that happened was on home runs. By the end of the top of the 5th, the game was tied 3-3:

1st inning top homerun by Atsunori Inaba: 110 meters to left field, 1-0 Fighters
2nd inning top homerun by Eiichi Koyano: 120 meters to centerfield, 2-0 Fighters
2nd inning bottom homerun by Seung-Yeop Lee: 135 meters to right, 2-1 Fighters
2nd inning bottom homerun by Shinnosuke Abe: 115 meters to left, 2-2 Tie (and these were back-to-back)
3rd inning bottom homerun by Michihiro Ogasawara: 110 meters to right, 3-2 Giants
5th inning top homerun by Kensuke Tanaka: 120 meters to right, 3-3 Tie

(The towel-waving Giants fans, after Ogasawara's home run.)

It was a little strange, to be sure. Not only were all the points on home runs, but on SOLO home runs at that.

Then things changed for the worse.

Itokazu was pitching the bottom of the 5th, and he got two quick outs from the bottom of the order before walking Hayato "Wonderboy" Sakamoto, and then Tetsuya Matsumoto (who I am fairly sure is smaller than several of my 9th-graders) singled to left, moving Sakamoto to second. Michihiro "Clean-Shaven Doppleganger" Ogasawara came up to bat at that point, and, BOOM, he hit a shot to center that wasn't a home run but bounced off the wall for a double, scoring the other two guys. 5-3 Giants.

That was not particularly good.

Itokazu pitching.

Ogasawara at bat (note a theme, the only clear pictures are guys I have grudges against?)

Ogasawara back out at 3rd base, bowing to the stands for his 2-RBI double.

Things got even worse a bit later, and I don't mean in terms of strange guys stalking the Giants dancers:

(This was really funny, actually -- the Kroon jersey guy had been yelling to Alex Ramirez every inning asking for a ball until he got one, and then when the Giants dancers came out, he seriously pretty much was just stalking this one dancer girl taking photos of her on his cellphone. Unlike most people who surreptitiously take one or two photos of the cheer girls, he was just ogling her. It would have been freaky if it wasn't so funny. He was clearly pretty drunk even before the game started.)

Anyway, former Giant Masanori Hayashi pitched the bottom of the 6th against his old team. He did okay. And Kazumasa Kikuchi pitched the bottom of the 7th just fine, too. But the Giants were still ahead.

Tetsuya Yamaguchi came out to pitch the top of the 8th, being left-handed and all, same as most of the top of the Fighters lineup. But he started things out by hitting Kensuke Tanaka with a pitch. Then he tried to pick Kensuke off first, but his throw went wild and Kensuke ran to second instead on the error. Following that, a pinch-hitting Hichori hit a grounder to shot, but Sakamoto's throw to first ALSO went wild, and Kensuke was able to run home while Hichori was safe at first on THAT error. 5-4.

Something pretty funny happened at that point: the ouendan finally had the opportunity to do an Inaba Jump, and as I mentioned, I was sitting in an island of Fighters supporters in the middle of a sea of Giants fans. So we all spontaneously got up and jumped too... looked at each other... laughed, and sat down afterwards. Inaba walked, and then what may have been the pivotal play in the game happened -- Shinji Takahashi came up with no outs and runners at the corners, and it seemed he should bunt, but he DIDN'T bunt, and by the time it became clear he wasn't bunting, the Giants fielders got set up to turn a double play. Ugh. Sledge also grounded out after that, and that was pretty much it for the Fighters' chances.

And to make things worse, Kikuchi returned for the bottom of the 8th, and things started to break down. After Matsumoto grounded out, Ogasawara walked on four straight pitches, and then Ramirez hit a scorching grounder to third that Koyano was able to dive and stop but wasn't able to stand up in time to make a throw anywhere. That was it for Kikuchi, and the lefty Naoki Miyanishi came in to face Kamei.

Kamei hit a huge shot to center that Hichori caught in front of the wall, and Matsumoto moved to third. Yoshitomo Tani was announced as a pinch-hitter for Lee.

Miyanishi left the game and Shintaro Ejiri replaced him. The people sitting next to me were apparently friends of Ejiri's, and we were all like "Oh god, please don't let him give up a run here!!" But he walked Tani, and then gave up a single to Shinnosuke Abe, and that brought both Ogasawara and a pinch-running Takahiro Suzuki home, making it 7-4 Giants.

As expected, Marc Kroon came out to pitch the 9th, now with a 3-run lead instead of a 1-run lead...

I swear the new Giants catcher gear makes Shinnosuke Abe look like freaking Batman.

Marc Kroon.

Anyway, Kroon closed out the game. That's really all there is to it. I'm not sure he's ever blown a save when I've been at the stadium watching him pitch. Koyano hit a pop out, Nioka lined out RIGHT to his younger replacement Sakamoto, a pinch-hitting Naoto Inada got on base after Kroon threw over first base on a grounder to the mound... but then the last batter of the game was this guy, pinch-hitting for Ejiri:

And it shouldn't surprise anyone too much, but Kroon struck out Sho Nakata to end the game.

(It's kind of sad that the Tokyo Dome would probly be a decent launching pad for Sho, but he can't field so there's nowhere to really put him into a game in this series.)

So the Giants won it 7-4.

I left pretty soon after the game ended, going out to Gate 25 after that to commisserate with other Fighters fans.

And then I went home -- it was a pretty long day full of way too much baseball, as I also spent the afternoon hanging out with some people at Jingu watching Hosei's underclassmen get beaten by Keio at the Rookie Tournament. And I didn't even get to see Kei Tamura, so I was kind of grumpy about that. (I did, however, get to see a kid named Eiji Egashira from the Saga Kita miracle squad who I remembered seeing in Koshien 2 years ago, so that was kind of neat.)

I am not going to bother bringing my big camera back to the Tokyo Dome for any more of the games, but I will be there for Games 4 and 5 too.

Takafumi Nakamura, from Chuo to Cleveland?

2009-11-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been rumored before, and now that the draft has passed, the Indians are infact signing Takafumi Nakamura, it seems.

I don't have a lot to say about him since I only saw him play once. (He doesn't play on the top team much ever since Yamasaki and Sawamura showed up.) He played a lot more when Chuo was a 2nd-tier team (the Tohto league has 4 levels and relegation), but seems to have walked a lot of guys.

I wasn't even keeping score of the game I saw him in, either. Records show he pitched 1.2 innings and walked 2, and I remember he walked in a run. So.

Takafumi Nakamura

Takafumi Nakamura

I'm mostly posting these photos to see how long it takes someone to steal them :) Somehow I'm guessing there aren't that many English-speaking bloggers who have actually seen this guy play...

Anyway, Patrick pointed out that MLB teams like taking guys who they think they can develop, so I guess with Nakamura's huge frame (he's listed as 195/89, which IS gigantic for a Japanese guy) and CAN reach the 90's, it makes sense. Who knows. Maybe we'll see him back here in Japan in a few years like Tadano... it'll be interesting to see what happens with him, I guess.

Soukeisen Sunday Game Report: Keio wins! So Meiji wins!

2009-11-02T10:15:00.001-08:00

I kind of assume people reading this know what Soukeisen is, but in case you don't, let's get that out of the way first: it's the word used for any competition between Waseda and Keio, and in this particular case, it's the bi-annual baseball match between the two universities, which has been going on for over a hundred years, and is probably the single most famous college rivalry event in the entire country. (Think like Harvard and Yale, only a lot more of the country cares about it than in the US.)

It's a big enough thing that I first heard of it way back when I was still in college in the mid-90's. I had a Japanese conversation partner that was an exchange student from Keio, and she didn't really care about baseball at all -- we played volleyball together sometimes -- but even she told me she was happy that the US college semester ended in mid-May so she could come back to Japan in time to go to Soukeisen with her friends and get totally drunk and sing their school songs together at Jingu.

Unfortunately, it's also a big enough thing that it gets ridiculously big crowds of people, especially since Yuki "Handkerchief Prince" Saitoh, the most famous college pitcher in recent history, enrolled at Waseda. The Saturday games of Soukeisen have been drawing crowds of around 26,000, which is pretty huge. Me being me, I prefer to go to the less-crowded games and sit right up front and take photos and really see and hear the players, rather than having to hunt and claw for an empty seat up high and face huge lines at the food stands and the bathrooms. On the other hand, it is kind of fun when both teams have ouendans set up in the infield and outfield. Waseda even splits its brass band, so you get TWO groups playing music and yelling during their inning halves, and a lovely not-really-echo when the two groups are singing "Konpeki no Sora" after scoring a run.

Anyway, I hadn't been to a Soukeisen in a few semesters due to scheduling and the crowds. And last semester, I really regretted it after the incident known as "Ohishi Theater" where Tatsuya Ohishi, Waseda's closer and my favorite college player, started the Sunday game at shortstop and played there for most of it before pitching the last few innings, also getting in a few hits, and essentially being a one-man show for the team.

On Saturday night, I looked at the game results for the game, where Keio TRAMPLED Waseda 11-2 behind the ever-steady Nobuaki Nakabayashi. I checked the Waseda pitcher list -- Saitoh, Matsushita, Kusuda, Fukui, Ohno. There was one name glaringly missing from that list, so I came to two conclusions:

1) Something really freaking bizarre was going to happen on Sunday
2) It was going to involve Tatsuya Ohishi.

I was still waffling about going up until around 11:40am, when I left my house to go to the train station. I was riding the train downtown, and I checked the Tokyo Big 6 page around 12:25 to see if the starting lineups were there, and they were!

AND IT WAS GOING TO BE KEIO'S KOMURO AGAINST WASEDA'S OHISHI.

Oh, this was going to be good.

Junpei "JP" Komuro is a 4th-year who basically split pitching duties equally with Nakabayashi in the spring, and had a couple of good games in the fall too, but he basically spent his entire career at Keio not pitching in league games thanks to Katoh, Aizawa, and Nakabayashi. He's a righty sidearmer from Omiya and he's actually a lot of fun to watch, but I would never call him an overpowering pitcher per se.

And Ohishi... well, I've babbled about him a ton. He's been known to top out at 154km/h on the guns at Jingu. He throws a slider, a fork... when he's on, he's unhittable. In 106 innings pitched in college, he's notched 153 strikeouts. (He had an 11-strikeout game this semester... in relief.) And up until Soukeisen, he had allowed one earned run this semester. If he'd wanted the league ERA title, all he had to do was sit on his butt and not pitch at all for the weekend and run off with his nice little 0.37 ERA.

But well, that's not really his style.

So I get to Jingu around 12:40pm, and see the huge lines to get into the seating behind home plate, and I see a huge line to get into Waseda ouendan/student seating, but surprisingly, there is NO line to go sit on the Keio side at all, so I basically go in and walk up the stands and ask, "Is this seat empty?" at the first place I see a promising seat, and it is. So that worked out well, at least.

This was my view:

You can see that the stadium is fairly full.

My view of Waseda's cheering group. That's this year's big Waseda Bear, which only seems to surface for Soukeisen.

I was much closer to Keio's cheerleaders, though still a few sections over.

I should also mention the somewhat bizarre ramifications of this game:

1) If Keio won this game, they would win Soukeisen, and Meiji would win the Tokyo Big 6 Fall 2009 championship.
2) If Waseda won this game, there would be a third game on Monday. If Waseda could win on Monday too, THEY would win the Tokyo Big 6 Fall 2009 Championship.
3) If Soukeisen went 2 days, the Rookie Tournament would start on Monday, but if it went 3 days, the Rookie Tournament would start on Tuesday.
4) Tuesday is a national holiday. But the interesting matches of the Rookie Tournament don't start until the 2nd day, once Todai is eliminated.

So, the best-case scenario was really for Keio to win this game. Especially since Keio hadn't actually won Soukeisen since 2006, so that would DEFINITELY be a strange occurrence.

(I'm really not a Waseda fan. I'm just an Ohishi fan. I don't really HAVE a college I root for per se, but if I had to pick one I'd probably go with Hosei.)

Anyway, Ohishi came out there and started working his usual magic. Urushibata, strikeout! Fuchigami, strikeout! Yamaguchi... okay, Yamaguchi singled to right. And then he stole second, and Waseda freshman catcher Shota Sugiyama chucked the ball into centerfield, so Yamaguchi got all the way to third base. But then, Hayata Itoh... STRIKEOUT!

I briefly wondered if the day's bizarre event would be Ohishi striking out 18 guys, which is what he would need to pass Kenji Tomura's strikeout total of 46.

But, no, that is NOT what would come to pass.

Kazuya Onodera led off the top of the 2nd inning for Keio, and hit a solid double to right. Tatsushi Yumoto followd it up with another single to right, moving Onodera to third. And then Ryosuke Yamamoto followed that with ANOTHER single, this time to left, scoring Onodera. 1-0. These were all pretty hard-hit balls, I should add, and Ohishi was only throwing in the 130's and low 140's, not his usual flamethrowing stuff when he's pitching in relief.

Masahiro Nagasaki then made the first out of the inning, trying to bunt, failing, trying to bunt again, failing, and on the third try first baseman Hironobu Hara just watched the bunted ball roll foul.

Junpei Komuro came up and bunted, but this time Ohishi was ready for it and fired the ball to third base, getting Yumoto on the force. Two out, runners at first and second...

...and Keio captain Tetsuya Urushibata hit a huge one out to centerfield. It wasn't a home run, but it went to the wall and Hiroki Kojima was scrambling for it as Yamamoto scored, Komuro scored... and Urushibata made it to third for a triple! 3-0. Hitoshi Fuchigami then walked on four straight pitches. (This was ALSO strange.) There was activity in the Waseda bullpen, but Ohishi continued pitching... and Yamaguchi got ANOTHER hit, this time a double to left. Urushibata scored, 4-0. Yamaguchi would eventually be 4-for-5 on the day with 3 doubles.

Hayata Itoh walked, and it was back to Kazuya Onodera again, who had led off the inning. Onodera grounded out to first, though, the throw to Ohishi covering the bag, and that crazy inning came to an end.

Meanwhile Komuro was just setting down the Waseda batters like it was no trouble at all. It was surreal.

The 4th inning saw Keio go postal on Ohishi yet again. Urushibata led off with a single and stole second. Fuchigami bunted... and Ohishi threw out Urushibata at 3rd base yet again. Oops. Yamaguchi doubled again, and Fuchigami had to hold up at 3rd. Itoh struck out, but then Kazuya Onodera, the Fall 2009 batting champ, hit a single up the middle and that scored Fuchigami and Yamaguchi. 6-0. Yumoto walked before Yamamoto hit a pop fly out.

Ohishi was up to 96 pitches through four innings, and moved to play centerfield at that point as Yuya Fukui entered the game as pitcher.

Things settled down between both teams for a few innings at that point, so I'm going to interrupt this post for a minute to just point out that before Soukeisen, in 24.1 innings this semester, Ohishi had given up 13 hits and 4 walks and 1 earned run, and in this game alone, in 4 innings, he gave up 9 hits and 4 walks and 6 earned runs.

My conclusion? Ohishi can throw fast! He can hit! He can run! He can field! He can play centerfield or shortstop! He can fly through the air with the greatest of ease!

However, he CAN'T effectively be a starting pitcher.

I wonder what the difference really is in mentality, since he's been able to do things like pitch 5-6 innings in relief in his alter ego as Superman, but every time he's been a game starter, it's been a diaster. Is it just in his mind, or is there something he's seriously doing differently that makes it impossible? I worry, because you know I think he's a fantastic pitcher, and I really enjoy watching him pitch, but I also come from a mentality of "Relief pitchers are the guys who aren't good enough to start", and I'd rather think of him as being a lights-out closer rather than a pathetic failure as a starter.

Anyway, Komuro had a shutout through 7 innings, until the bottom of the 8th when Masato Fujiwara pinch-hit for Kenta Matsushita as an "obligatory 4th-year" appearance, and ended up SLAMMING one out to right field, I thought it was gone but it bounced at the wall over a jumping Yamaguchi and dropped for a triple. Taketo Shinsako, also a 4th-year, pinch-ran for Fujiwara, and then Ayuki "Keijiro's Little Brother" Matsumoto hit a sac fly to center which scored Shinsako to make it 6-1.

(The obligatory appearances by 4th-years is because Soukeisen is effectively the retirement game for these guys -- many of whom will probably not continue playing baseball once they graduate -- so in a lot of cases you'll see a whole bunch of 4th-years put on the roster for the last game, and they work their way in as pinch-runners or whatnot, just to make a last appearance.)

Yuki Saitoh came out to pitch the 9th, I guess since he only made it through 4 innings on Saturday and it was a blowout, they figured he might as well make the crowds happy. And he did... only it was the Keio crowds, as he gave up an infield single to Itoh. Itoh then stole 2nd base on the 2nd pitch to Onodera... and the third pitch to Onodera was wild and moved Itoh to third. The 4th pitch to Onodera hit him on the back. Yikes. (It was 4 straight balls, too.) So then Yumoto grounded out, and Itoh scored on the play. 7-1.

I was surprised to see Komuro still pitching the 9th given that he was up to 103 pitches and there were plenty of seniors who should have been able to get their obligatory last appearances in, but he continued. With one out, he hit Shohei Habu in the leg with a pitch, though, and then Yusuke Ohmae pinch-hit for Hara. Ohmae is a pitcher as far as I know, but I guess in this case he was just a lefty bat in a blowout game. But Ohmae ALSO surprised everyone by singling to right, moving Habu to 3rd! A freshman, Koki Sasaki, pinch-ran for Ohmae, and stole second during Shota Sugiyama's at-bat. Sugiyama, also a freshman, hit a sac fly to right, scoring Habu. 7-2. And before the out-of-sync ouendans could finish a round of "Konpeki no Sora", Toshiki Yamada singled to center, scoring Sasaki. 7-3.

And Komuro kept pitching. After all, there were two outs.

Captain Yosuke Yamakawa, another dude we've barely seen this semester, pinch-hit for Saitoh in the 7-spot, and fouled off pitches. Foul, foul, foul. After 4 fouls and 10 pitches total, he singled to left, moving Yamada to second.

That was 128 pitches for Komuro, and he came out of the game.

People saw a big lefty coming in from the Keio bullpen and were like "Oh my god, is that Nakabayashi?" but no, it was Takumi Matsuo, #17, also a 4th-year lefty.

So Yuya Watanabe pinch-ran for Yamada at second base, and Koji Udaka pinch-hit for Little Brother Matsumoto.

And naturally Udaka slammed a double to right, scoring Watanabe. 7-4.

Now, if the Bizarre Ohishi Effect was truly to take place, he should have come to bat at that point and hit a 3-run home run and tied the game, right?

Except the Waseda manager thought differently and pulled their lefty-batting closer-turned-centerfielder and put in a pinch-hitter, righty sophomore Daisuke Ichimaru, whose first and only appearance this semester was on Saturday.

And Ichimaru grounded out. Game over, Keio wins 7-4. And so Keio won Soukeisen as well, for a change.

Both teams went to bow and wave goodbye to their respective cheering sections. Urushibata, the Keio captain, was BAWLING. Players kept coming over and playfully hitting him or turning his cap or whatever. The thing is, for him and Nakabayashi and a few of the other guys, this marks the end of SEVEN YEARS playing baseball in a Keio uniform, since they were all together at Keio high school as well. That's got to be pretty overwhelming.

I was kind of bummed to be sitting so far back though, because the postgame interview was Urushibata, Komuro, and Onodera. Urushi was still wiping his eyes, and Onodera kept waving to random people in the stands. And I couldn't really see/hear any of it.

Anyway, I left shortly after that, with the interest of getting something to eat and getting home in time to watch the Japan Series game 2, which would start at 6:15pm and supposedly have Darvish pitching. The good part is, I got home in plenty of time. The bad part is, I apparently missed the closing ceremonies and the Meiji victory announcement. I kind of realized that on my way out of the park when I saw the Meiji baseball club bus parked out there, but wasn't about to head back in or whatever.

(But there are a few photos from it up on the Meiji baseball team blog, and it looks like I would have had to stay until past 5pm, which was just not happening.)

I'll probably try to go to at least some part of the fall Jingu taikai, which involves both high school and college teams -- if nothing else, to see Meiji (U), Soka (U), and Teikyo (HS)...

Semi-liveblogging: Japan Series Game 2, Fighters vs. Giants -- Darvish!?

2009-11-01T17:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, I made an executive decision this morning to go Jingu for Soukeisen (the Waseda-Keio rivalry grudgematch), on the hunch that something weird was going to happen and it was going to involve Tatsuya Ohishi. I was right on both counts, but I'll be writing a separate post about that.

As a result, I'm at home tonight again, and I'm going to semi-liveblog much like yesterday, which is a lot less stressful than trying to write down every play of the game. As usual, you can come join the chatroom on japanesebaseball.com or comment here or whatever.

                     

Sakamoto ss                Kensuke 2b
Matsumoto cf               Hichori lf
Shaven Doppleganger 3b     Inaba rf
Rami-chan dh               Shinji 1b
Turtleface rf              Sledge dh
Tani lf                    Koyano 3b
Shinnosuke c               Itoi cf
Lee 1b                     Tsuruoka c
Furuki 2b                  Kaneko! ss

----------                 ----------
Utsumi (9-11, 2.95)        Darvish (15-5, 1.73)

Yes, Darvish is starting for the Fighters, so apparently all of that DOOM AND GLOOM we have been hearing is either the Fighters trying to deceive the media, or them just not wanting to get our hopes up, or... who knows.

All I have to say is, if he struggles out there, they BETTER pull him the minute it seems he's having trouble.

6:17 Game on. Sakamoto hits a pop fly out to lead off. Hooray.
6:18 Matsumoto grounds out to short.
6:20 OGASAWARA'S CLEAN-SHAVEN DOPPLEGANGER STRIKES OUT!!!!!

Well, that's a good start so far. Let's hope he can keep it up!

6:28 Inaba two-out single followed by a Shinji single to right, advancing Inaba to third... I'll take that!
6:31 But then Sledge strikes out and that's the first inning down. 0-0.

6:33-6:41 Rami leads off with a double to right, followed by a Kamei strikeout that takes bloody forever, and a Tani strikeout, and an Abe groundout. Darvish still looks good!

6:46 My once-per-game moment of "Thank GOD we converted Itoi from being a pitcher" just happened, of course (he singled to right-center). And Tsuruoka bunted him up. Now we're just hoping Kaneko can drive him in...
6:50 Nope, strikes out. So that's two innings down, still 0-0.

7:05 I was getting all ready to write "Nothing interesting happened in the third inning except SY Lee getting caught stealing second, ha ha" except then with two outs INABA LAUNCHED A HOMERUN INTO THE RIGHTFIELD STANDS right at two Giants-towel-wearing people, making it 1-0 Fighters!! and Shinji followed it up with a double and this is getting exciting!

Also after hearing the Fighters ouendan sing "Shiroi Ball Fantasy", which is the Pacific League renmeika (official league song), I am wondering, does the Central League have a renmeika too?

7:09 Sledge launches a single to left, scoring Shinji! That makes it 2-0 Fighters!!

7:11-16 Weird play there, Koyano hit a hard grounder up the middle and the throw didn't beat Sledge to second. Ha! So still with two outs, the Fighters are attacking... two on for Itoi... who BOOM! Double to right! Sledge and Koyano score! 4-0 Fighters! And Utsumi is being summarily escorted off the mound for being unable to get left-handed batters out. Shun Tohno enters the building. And strikes out Tsuruoka.

So that's 3 innings down now, Fighters have a 4-0 lead!

7:26 Um, Ramirez got a hit and Yoshiyuki Kamei hit a two-run homer to left field that bounced off the foul pole, so now it's 4-2 Fighters. Doh.

7:34 Kensuke walk, Hichori hit, Inaba pop out,
7:38 Shinji strikes out :( So still 4-2 Fighters, now through 4 innings.

7:44 Giants are pulling this two-out stuff too now, with Furuki and Sakamoto AND MATSUMOTO getting hits, three in a row... luckily Matsumoto's was to shallow center and Itoi was able to charge it but... DANGEROUS...
7:48 OGASAWARA STRIKES OUT! YAY! And leaves all 3 guys still on base.

Darvish's best pitch tonight, by the way, seems to be his curveball, which has actually been landing for strikes almost all of the time, and seems totally unhittable. 148km/h might be the fastest I've seen a pitch of his, too.

7:53 Fighters go down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 5th, so it's still 4-2 Fighters, now through 5.

8:15 Still 4-2 through 6. Darvish is finished for the evening and Naoki Miyanishi replaced him. Also, I HATE "Toukon Komete", the Giants song.

8:35 Still 4-2, now through 7. Kiyoshi Toyoda pitched the bottom of the 7th, anyway, and Takayuki Kanamori comes out to pitch the top of the 8th...

8:50 Finally some CHANCE MUSIC! Genghis Khan theme for Kaneko, who comes up with one out in the bottom of the 8th. (Itoi singled -- he's 3-for-4 today -- and Tsuruoka bunted him up.) Unfortunately he grounds back to the mound. By the way, Kimura Shota is pitching the 8th apparently.
8:52 No he's not. Norihito Kaneto replaces him to pitch to the lefty Kensuke Tanaka.
8:54 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang chance music.
8:56 Fly out, inning over, still 4-2 after 8 innings. I think it's Hisashi Takeda time...

8:57 Why yes, it is Hisashi Takeda time.

9:06 ...and now it is two outs in the top of the 9th with Kamei on first. SO close. Come on...!

9:08 Shinnosuke Abe hits a pop fly! Out to right! Right to Inaba!

FIGHTERS WIN IT 4-2!!!!
Darvish gets the win and Hisashi gets the save, I believe.

Well, that at least guarantees all three games will happen at the Tokyo Dome! Hooray!

Nashida admits in the manager's interview, "Brian Sweeney was prepared to start today as well -- if Darvish hadn't been okay..."

Few TV shots for fun:

Hisashi time!

Final score, and ouendan.

Darvish interview!

Semi-liveblogging: Japan Series, Game 1

2009-10-31T18:02:00.000-07:00

For various reasons I'm home to watch the first game of the Japan Series. At least this year I *can* see it on BS1. I probably won't be home for any of the other games, though.

I'm liveblogging, but I'm not going to be translating every batter -- more like, as stuff happens that I want to call out, I'll note it here. To be honest, I'm still working on Draft photoposts as I watch the game. I've been discovering neat things about some of these guys as I work on it.

There's also a chatroom on japanesebaseball.com if you want to come in and chat about the game.

                     

Sakamoto ss                Kensuke 2b
Matsumoto cf               Hichori lf
Shaven Doppleganger 3b     Inaba rf
Rami-chan dh               Shinji 1b
Turtleface rf              Sledge dh
Tani lf                    Koyano 3b
Shinnosuke c               Itoi cf
Kimutaku 1b                Tsuruoka c
Furuki 2b                  Kaneko! ss

----------                 ----------
Gonzalez                   Masaru Takeda

6:16pm: Sakamoto strikes out to start the game. That makes me happy.

6:21pm: Hey, how many former Fighters can you spot in the Giants' lineup? (There are three.) Or more like, can you guess how many guys in their lineup were actually DRAFTED by the Giants? (There are three.) Whereas the Fighters lineup has exactly one guy in it that has played for any other teams in Japan -- everyone else came up through our system or in the case of Sledge was signed with us first.

Anyway, three up three down in the first for the Giants. Whee.

6:26pm: Three up three down for the Fighters in the first. Also, Shinnosuke Abe looks like freaking BATMAN with this weird orange thing on his chest protector. WTF.

6:31pm: uh, Yoshitomo Tani just hit a ball into the front row of the Fighters' cheering section in left field. So uh, 1-0 Giants. But everyone else went down peacefully in the top of the 2nd.

6:39pm: Terrmel Sledge shows Tani how a REAL MAN hits a home run and sends one about 10-15 rows back IN CENTER FIELD. YEAH! 1-1!

6:48pm: Two on! Two on! Two hits! And sadly Makoto Kaneko is rung up on a called third strike to leave Itoi and Tsuru-chan standing there. Two innings down.

6:54pm: Highlights from the 1981 Japan Series on BS1! Korakuen showdown! And the Fighters ouendan are singing "Shiroi Ball Fantasy", the Pacific League song, which is usually only for interleague. Cool!

7pm Inaba singles, Shinji hits one to short that even Wonderboy can't come up with, Sledge... grounds out. Oops. That's three innings...

7:05-9pm Soka-soka boy Koyano dives for a nice play on Matsumoto. Ogasawara's clean-shaven doppleganger singles, and it's really weird seeing him standing next to Shinji both wearing #2. Rami hits one out to the gap in left-center but Itoi is too good to let it fall. And Kamei grounds out to Kensuke!

7:24pm I don't like how the Giants have so many guys on base. But at least Shinji saved Masaru from totally bobbling a bunt there. Now if only he could strike out Wonderboy to end this threat.... CRAP, Wonderboy hits it to left. At least it's not a home run, it bounces against the wall just below the yellow line, but that's gonna be a double and score both of the dudes currently on base. 3-1 Giants.

7:38pm Hey, Kensuke and Hichori singled and now Inaba's up and there's an Inaba jump and only one out in the bottom of the 5th, I should pay attention! Except Inaba strikes out :( And Shinji grounds out. And that's 5 innings gone.

7:58pm Bottom 6th, two on, Itoi at bat, no outs, Genghis Khan chance theme!

7:59pm BUNT FAILS. Two on, Tsuboi pinch-hitting, one out, still chance theme.

8pm ...Gonzalez has left the building. Now introducing Yamaguchi...

8:04pm ...now introducing pinch-hitter Nioka instead...

8:08pm and Nioka singles to left, Koyano scores! 3-2 Giants still, but we're catching up!

8:11pm Chitty Chitty Bang Bang chance theme sees Kaneko strike out and Kensuke hit a fly ball out to center. Sigh.

8:15pm Great, Yoshinori Tateyama takes the mound for us. Fortunately the Giants already have the lead, so he can't possibly give it to them.
8:18pm And Hayashi is already out there. So both recent former Giants have appeared.

8:21 Shinnosuke on second, Tani on third, and Kimutaku batting, no out. I hates Giants, I do.

8:29 I went away for a minute or two and suddenly Ejiri is pitching and Seung-Yeop Lee is batting and singling in a run. Grr. 4-2 Giants.

8:31 Ejiri strikes out Wonderboy!

8:56 It's the bottom of the 8th and nothing's really changed. Though Daisuke Ochi is out there now, so maybe they will.

9:15 I'm so lazy. Now Marc Kroon is out there, for the top of the Fighters order...

9:17 Kensuke hits a weird grounder just over Kroon that takes a weird bounce that Wonderboy can't get either! Infield single.

9:21 Hichori grounds out to short (on like a 3-1 pitch), Kensuke to second. Mound conference for Kroon, eh?

9:23 Inaba, fly ball to right, Kensuke tags up to third, but...

9:25 SHINJI HITS A DOUBLE TO THE WALL! Kensuke scores, 4-3 Giants. Kita no Kuni Kara chance theme continues...

9:29 Sledge walks, on a pitch in the dirt, after a full count and some fouls. OMG SUSPENSE.

9:34 Koyano gets called out on a third strike. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT CALL?

Man, that sucks. I hope the Fighters win tomorrow, they really need to at least split the Sapporo games.

Friday Foto: NPB Draftees, Part 1 - Central League

2009-10-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

I said I'd compile a post with photos of all the 2009 NPB draftees that I've taken, so here we go. These are from all sorts of amateur baseball games, from the Koshien HS tournament to college baseball league games and tournaments, to the industrial league tournament, even to some independent baseball like the Shikoku-Kyushu Island League.

Let's try this in team order by 2009 standings, especially since that puts my least favorite guy up first.

Giants

Hisayoshi Chono (OF, #1 pick, Chikuyo Gakuen HS -> Nihon University -> Honda)

If you don't already know, there isn't a single amateur player out there that I despised more than Hisayoshi Chono. And fortunately, there isn't a single team out there that I despise more than the Giants. So this is going to be a good combination.

Chono basically said straight out that he refused to play for any pro team besides the Giants. Sure, there are a LOT of kids who grow up as Giants fans thanks to either their parents, or their area of the country only getting Giants games on TV, or whatever, but most boys with aspirations of becoming a pro baseball player realize that it's more important to PLAY BASEBALL than it is to BE ON THE GIANTS.

Chono first pissed off most of the entire island of Hokkaido in 2006 when the Fighters drafted him out of Nihondai -- right after winning the Japan Series -- and he said "You guys suck, I'll only play for the Giants." Then in 2008 the Marines tried to draft him too, out of Honda. Bobby personally went to try to visit him and was repeatedly rebuffed -- "what part of 'only for the Giants' didn't you losers understand?"

I don't really know exactly why the Giants took him now, but good riddance. What I want to see is his first few ni-gun appearances at Kamagaya and Lotte Urawa, to see how the Fighters and Marines fans react to him :) For quite a while, if I typed 長野 (Chono) into my cellphone, it suggested I wanted to auto-complete it with 馬鹿 (idiot). This actually started because one of my other friends had dubbed him Chono-moron and sent it in enough emails my phone decided it must be his name.

Anyway, here he is in the 2008 Intercity Tournament, during a moment where I stopped booing him long enough to take a photo:

Genki Kawano (C, Ikusei #2, Kyushu Kokusai Univ HS)

Actually, I barely really saw Kawano play. The Kyushu Kokusai vs. Shonan game was the third game on August 16th, and I had been at Koshien since 7am to see Aomori Yamada, Nodai Niko, Teikyo, and Tsuruga Kehi. By the time the 3rd game started I was sunburnt and had a terrible headache, which I later figured out was the start of heatstroke. So rather than staying at Koshien all day and getting sick, I went home after the first inning of that 3rd game, and recovered from the heat.

(Which, in retrospect, though, SUCKS, because the fourth game of that day was Meiho vs. Saijo. So I missed seeing Meiho's Imamiya-kun, who I'd fallen in love with on TV, and also this uppity Akiyama kid from Saijo, apparently. Alas.)

Anyway, Kawano was the catcher and #5-spot batter for their team. So I essentially saw him play as a catcher for one inning, and then I left before his first at-bat. But I DID see him play! Really!

(He was ready to bat in the 1st inning but then didn't have to, so here he is hastily doing a Use Armor proficiency check, with a +2 on the roll for help from a party member.)

Dragons

Ryoji Nakata (OF, #1 pick, Meitoku Gijuku HS -> Asia University)

I saw Nakata for the first time in a Toyodai-Asiadai game last fall. I was there and sitting on the Toyodai 1st-base side taking photos of Hiroki Ueno.

So it was VERY hard to NOT notice that there was this GIGANTIC dude playing first base for Asia. I mean, seriously, he is HUGE. Easily twice as wide as almost any other player out there, though not actually any taller. Rumor says he was scouted as a sumo player at one point but loves baseball too much to do anything else.

Nakata scared the crap out of Tohto league pitchers when he batted .314/.405/.713 as a freshman in the fall of 2006 with 4 home runs, although that ended up being pretty much his best semester. (Funny part is, he wasn't even in the top 10 batters in the league that semester, and both Hisayoshi Chono and Kei Nomoto beat his HR total.) He had a great college career in general though, going .278/.355/.438 overall and getting 103 hits over 8 semesters, no small feat. He also walked 44 times.

Mr. Big!

He's a big bunter, but not a big bunter.

Chasing down a foul ball -- the boy CAN run, actually.

I am mostly looking forward to him getting to ichi-gun because I am sure there will be a REALLY good Ryoji bento someday. :)

Swallows

Takahiro Araki (IF, #3 pick, Teikyo #3 HS -> Kinki University)

Okay, I don't actually have any good photos of him, though I've seen him plenty in the college ball magazines this year. At first I always got him confused with Fumiya Araki, the shortstop for Meiji, who is also a solid player and who also plays both shortstop and centerfield and is known for getting on base and stealing bases once he gets there, and Fumiya is from Nichidai Sanko and Takahiro is from Teikyo Sanko... yeah, you get the idea.

I saw this Araki play once, in the Japan-US All-Collegiate tournament. In that game, he struck out three times and was hit by a pitch once, so nothing impressive, though he played shortstop and did a decent job of it.

Maike Magario (OF, Ikusei #1, Aomori Yamada HS)

I had a LOT of time to read magazines on my 12 hours of local train riding to get to Koshien a la Seishun 18, and so I was reading info for all of the teams that I was likely to see there, when I came across an intriguing name on the Aomori roster: 曲尾マイケ. At first I thought it was actually a typo and it was supposed to be マイケル, or Michael, and they just ran out of space due to most Japanese names not taking more than 5 characters. Except that's kind of silly since names CAN take 6 characters sometimes.

Anyway, as it turns out, he was born in Brazil, but moved to Japan when he was 5 years old, and started playing baseball in elementary school. Most articles refer to him and his family as being "Nikkei", or being of Japanese descent, but it's unclear what percentage Japanese exactly -- perhaps entirely Japanese-descended Brazilians, something like that. I'm sure there will be more about it surfacing in the next few weeks, especially with him joining the same team as Daniel Yuichi Matsumoto, and last year's Ikusei pick Rafael Fernandez...

The game I saw Maike in was the morning of August 16th. He was playing right field and batting sixth, and didn't really do anything extraordinary until the 9th inning of a game that had been tied 1-1 since the 3rd. With two outs in the bottom of said 9th, Maike hit a grounder deep into the hole at short for an infield single, stole second during the next batter's at-bat, and then unfortunately had to hold up on third during the next batter's single to left, so he was still on third when the next guy lined out. Nodai Niko scored a run in the 10th inning and won the game 2-1, sending Aomori Yamada home in their first match.

Dugout conference.

Will be interesting to see how he develops with the Swallows, who already have some Brazilian connections.

Tigers

Kazuhito Futagami (P, #1 pick, Kochi HS -> Hosei University)

Futagami is one of two guys in this draft who I actually have MET, even if it was essentially just to say "Dude, you rock, I've been watching you for years, can I get a photo with you?"

Seriously, if you haven't heard me talk about Futagami enough already, go back and read all of my Hosei posts. I would make a Futagami tag, except that I'm unlikely to ever see him again now that he's with the Tigers. But essentially, almost every single time I've ever seen Hosei play, Futagami was pitching. It was a bizarre coincidence, really, that I inadvertantly watched him grow from being some nobody kid from Kochi into a first-round draft pick. He's been there for all of my Tokyo Big 6 time, and next year he won't be, which is kind of weird. So even though I *still* like the oft-injured Kisho Kagami better, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Futagami.

(A few weeks ago, outside Jingu. He had just thrown a complete-game 1-0 shutout win against Waseda. I'm the dorky white girl, if you couldn't guess.)

And this is still my favorite photo I've ever taken of him -- from the fall 2008 semester.

Fumihito Haraguchi (C, #6 pick, Teikyo HS)

Much as I'm not usually the type to root for powerhouses, I'm somewhat of a Teikyo fan. The school is less than 10 minutes from my house by bike, thus making it my "local" team, but in addition, several of my absolute favorite players come from there. Hichori Morimoto, Hiroki Ueno, Atori Ohta, just to name a few. So I came back from Koshien with a Teikyo keychain and cell charm, and when quizzed at a booth there which team I was supporting, I said, "Teikyo!", of course. I've taught English to a few Teikyo students in the past, and one of my current 8th-graders told me he's aiming to go there, too.

Anyway, the overall gist is, I'd been watching Teikyo all along anyway, so of course I saw Haraguchi -- he seemed like an all-around good player, lots of poise, great catching arm and instincts, etc. In the game I attended he went 2-for-4, hit an RBI double and scored a run himself, and also totally nailed a runner at 2nd base for a strikeout double play. He caught Hirahara and then also caught Itoh, the freshman flamethrower.

Haraguchi waiting to bat.

Haraguchi with the Teikyo ace pitcher Hirahara.

Be forewarned, though, that last time Hanshin drafted a catcher that I adored watching at the Koshien tournament, he basically disappeared into a yellow-and-black hole and was never seen or heard from again (Ryohei Hashimoto, Chiben Wakayama HS, 2006). Especially now with them signing Johjima, and Kanoh coming into his own, I'm filled with a vague sense of dread for the future of poor Haraguchi-kun.

Kenichi Tagami (OF, Ikusei #2 pick, Soka HS -> Soka University)

I saw Tagami play at the semi-finals of the All-Japan college tournament this summer, where Soka faced off against Fuji. However, Tagami was completely uninteresting to me and I didn't get a single photo of him. In the game, he played right field and led off, and only got on base by way of an error and a fielder's choice.

It doesn't surprise me too much that the comment about him on one of the draft sites is, "Will make a good bench player."

Carp

Shota Dobayashi (IF, #2 pick, Chukyodai Chukyo HS)

Ah, Chukyodai Chukyo. This year's Koshien champ. The school that has won Koshien more times than any other school, and is the only team in history to win 3 consecutive summer tournaments, and I believe has produced more pro players than any other Aichi prefecture high school, although recently they haven't had many, except for one EXTREMELY important one named Atsunori Inaba.

Anyway, I was high on Dobayashi before I even arrived at Koshien, having read about him and seen him on TV and all. He seemed like one of those guys with raw talent who was just Good At Baseball, at least on the high-school level: he could pitch, he could run, he could hit, he could field, he could do it all. As everyone knows, he almost Didn't Do It All, and I remember following the Koshien final game on my cellphone while trapped on a train making its way across Shikoku, and almost seeing him give up a 6-run lead in the 9th inning. But it did all work out okay in the end for him and for the team, and he seemed destined for the pros.

In the game I saw him at, he started in right field and batted cleanup, hit a double in the first inning that drove in the first two runs of the game for Chukyo, then immediately got himself picked off second base. But he also pitched the final 4 innings of the game and limited the Kwansei team to one more run. He did walk a lot of guys (4) and didn't seem to be at his best, but still pretty decent.

Of course, I found myself somewhat enraptured with the Kwansei Gakuin pitcher-catcher-pitcher-catcher Hiroki Yamasaki at the same time. However, Dobayashi is a much bigger kid, and if he can fill out his frame and do some training to avoid injury in the future, I think he could definitely become an impact player in whatever position he eventually decides on.

Dobayashi at bat.

And here he is pitching.

Hisashi Takeuchi (P, #3 pick, Tokushima Joto HS -> Hosei University)

Takeuchi is the other of the two guys in this draft who I have met. Unlike Futagami, who was surrounded by fans, talking to Takeuchi was as simple as going up and saying hello to him (I asked him to take off his face mask so we could get a photo together, though).

It's a little weird -- two years ago, Takeuchi was being hyped as the future ace of the Hosei staff, and he played in some international tournaments, and supposedly was hitting 154 on the radar gun at Jingu when pitching in relief. Scouts probably saw his huge frame (he's actually built more like a US pitcher than a Japanese pitcher at 6' and 200ish pounds) and thought "Awesome!" but then he got injured and had some shoulder pain over the winter of 2008-2009 that kept him from pitching at all in the Spring 2009 semester, and the team won the championship without him. It was unclear if he would make it back for the fall, but he did, and he pitched well, though nothing about him screamed "DRAFT ME NOW" like it did with Futagami :)

Then again, this is why I'm not a scout. I'm sure there is a lot more to evaluating these college players than what goes on in the actual league matches.

Takeuchi warming up on the sidelines, Sept 26th. His glove says 真っ向勝負 which basically I think means something to the effect of "Bring it on". Literally, it's "challenge things head-on", I think.

Takeuchi pitching at Hosei's final game this semester.

Baystars

Takehiro Fukuda (P, #5 pick, Ohtani HS -> Kochi University -> Kyoto University -> Ritz Baseball Club -> Kagawa Olive Guyners)

Now this was probably the biggest WTF moment of the draft for me, seeing Fukuda get drafted by the Baystars.

Back in August, while on my Seishun 18 trip barnstorming across the entirety of the western half of Japan, I took in two Shikoku-Kyushu Island League games. The first one was a Kagawa-Nagasaki game in Sasebo which randomly happened to be one of the total high points of my entire trip, as I went completely out to the middle of nowhere, saw some great scenery, met some awesome people, and watched some surprisingly interesting baseball.

And well, the starter for Kagawa just happened to be this guy Takehiro Fukuda. I had never heard of him before that day, but he seemed decent enough. He gave up 2 runs in the first inning, both unearned (the leadoff batter reached base on an error) and then didn't give up anything for the rest of the 8 innings he pitched in the game, which eventually resulted in a 2-2 tie.

Unfortunately, since the Saints were the home team and I was sitting on their side and stalking their players after the game, I didn't really learn much about the Kagawa players, relatively, so I can't really tell you THAT much about this guy.

I can, however, show you photos:

Also, he has a blog, but it seems to mostly be about food he likes to eat :)

Alright, next up will be the Pacific League draftees...

2009 NPB Draft Liveblogging

2009-10-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

Here is the table of information about this year's NPB draftees.

Liveblogging commentary has been moved below. The short version: Seibu gets Kikuchi. Life goes on.

This is being done in the same format as previous years' drafts.

I'm planning to make a separate photopost of the guys I've actually seen play (about 20 or so).

Update 2pm Saturday: Finished the Central League Draftees Photopost, with photos and stories. Check it out!

Update 10am Friday: Err... reversed the names so they would be First Last rather than the other way around.
Update, 8am Friday: All in, all info. Woohoo! Thanks to Sanspo for having the rest of the obscure guys available.
Update, 10:30pm: All draftees entered, all ikusei draftees entered, but birthdates missing for 3 players still. Draftees names and information confirmed on the respective team pages.
Update, 7pm: All basic draftees entered, about 75% of information entered. Ikusei will go in after I go eat some dinner.


Name                   Pos  HS/Univ/Company         B/T   DOB          Ht/Wt  
--------------------   ---  ---------------         ---   ----------   -------
Giants
1. Hisayoshi Chono      OF  Honda                   R/R   1984.12.06   180/80
2. Masato Kiyashiki     C   Kinkidai HS             R/R   1991.06.19   180/82
3. Kyohei Tsuchimoto    P   JR Tokai                R/R   1985.10.13   175/73
4. Tomoya Ichikawa      C   Saginomiya              R/R   1985.05.09   176/76
5. Junpei Ono           P   Nihon Bunri Univ        R/R   1987.04.05   178/81

Ikusei:
1. Masumi Hoshino       P   BCL Shinano Grandserows L/L   1984.04.04   181/72
2. Genki Kawano         C   Kyushu Kokusaidai HS    R/L   1991.06.14   179/75
3. Naomasa Yokawa       IF  Konko Osaka HS          R/R   1991.07.17   180/80
4. Kyohei Ohdachi       P   Okazaki Shoka Univ      L/L   1987.08.20   178/70
5. Naoki Kanda          P   Gunma Univ              R/R   1988.01.18   180/82

Dragons
1. Toshiya Okada        P   Chiben Wakayama HS      L/L   1991.12.05   181/68
x  Yusei Kikuchi
2. Ryuya Ogawa          P   Chiba Eiwa HS           L/L   1991.09.03   182/72
3. Ryoji Nakata         IF  Asia Univ               R/L   1987.11.03   171/115
4. Yusuke Matsui        OF  Tokyo Nodai             R/R   1987.07.10   183/78
5. Yohei Ohshima        OF  Nihon Seimei            L/L   1985.11.09   176/74
6. Takao Suwabe         P   Honda                   R/R   1988.07.31   178/83
7. Masato Matsui        C   Jobu Univ               R/L   1987.11.19   177/78
8. Toshikazu Yoshida    C   Nara Sangyo Univ        R/L   1987.04.27   178/70

Ikusei:
1. Kento Yachi          P   Takaoka Law Univ        R/R   1988.01.15   180/68
2. Ryuichitaro Akada    C   Aichi Univ              R/L   1988.01.07   178/80

Swallows
1. Masato Nakazawa      P   Toyota                  L/L   1985.02.16   179/77
x  Yusei Kikuchi
2. Tetsuya Yamamoto     P   Mitsubishi Kobe         R/R   1985.09.04   178/73
3. Takahiro Araki       IF  Kinki Univ              R/R   1987.07.26   178/76
4. Ryo Hirai            P   Teikyo Dai 5 HS         R/R   1991.04.23   183/75
5. Jun Matsui           OF  Nichidai Kokusai Univ   R/L   1987.11.27   177/88

Ikusei:
1. Maike Magario        OF  Aomori Yamada HS        R/R   1991.11.18   187/82
2. Tomofumi Aso         IF  Nichidai Kokusai Univ   R/R   1987.06.28   177/83

Tigers
1. Kazuhito Futagami    P   Hosei Univ              R/R   1987.06.03   183/80
x  Kikuchi Yusei
2. Masanori Fujihara    P   Ritsumeikan Univ        L/L   1988.01.14   181/77
3. Yuhei Kai            OF  Fukuoka Univ            R/R   1988.03.15   185/84
4. Takumi Akiyama       P   Saijo HS                R/L   1991.04.26   186/92
5. Shunsuke Fujikawa    OF  Kinki Univ              R/R   1987.08.17   177/72
6. Fumihito Haraguchi   C   Teikyo HS               R/R   1992.03.03   178/74

Ikusei:
1. Shuhei Takada        P   BCL Shinano Grandserows L/L   1985.06.03   178/79
2. Kenichi Tagami       OF  Soka Univ               R/L   1987.12.12   180/76

Carp
1. Takeru Imamura       P   Seiho HS                R/R   1991.04.17   183/83
2. Shota Dobayashi      IF  Chukyodai Chukyo HS     R/R   1991.08.17   182/79
3. Hisashi Takeuchi     P   Hosei Univ              R/R   1987.11.29   184/85
4. Hayato Shoji         IF  Tokoha Tachibana HS     R/L   1991.06.21   175/70
5. Kota Itoh            P   Morioka Univ HS         L/L   1991.07.25   186/80
6. Taketo Kawaguchi     P   Oji Seimei              L/L   1985.08.15   173/78

Ikusei:
1. Mitsuhiro Nagakawa   P   Ryukoku Univ            L/L   1987.11.02   189/78
2. Kosuke Nakamura      C   Yokohama Shokadai HS    R/R   1991.04.02   180/80
   
Baystars
1. Yoshitomo Tsutsugo   IF  Yokohama HS             R/S   1991.11.26   184/88
2. Shigeru Kaga         P   Sumitomo Metals Kashima R/R   1985.04.13   181/82
3. Taketora Anzai       P   Kojo HS                 R/R   1991.10.28   190/75
4. Takayuki Makka       P   Tokaidai Boyo HS        L/L   1991.04.19   187/76
5. Takehiro Fukuda      P   SIL Kagawa Guyners      R/R   1983.04.09   181/83

Ikusei:
1. Yuki Kuniyoshi       P   Shugakukan HS           R/R   1991.09.24   194/88
2. Kota Kobayashi       P   Tamadai Hijirigaoka HS  R/R   1991.09.01   183/71

Fighters
1. Masaru Nakamura      P   Kasukabe Kyoei HS       R/R   1991.12.11   183/75
x  Yusei Kikuchi
2. Yutaka Ohtsuka       P   Soka Univ               R/R   1987.12.20   182/83
3. Masatoshi Katoh      IF  Kyushu Kokusai Univ     R/L   1987.04.28   173/76
4. John Clayton Unten   P   Urasoe Kogyo HS         R/R   1992.03.27   180/70
5. Hirotoshi Masui      P   Toshiba                 R/R   1984.06.26   181/67
6. Yuji Arahari         C   SIL Tokushima Socks     R/R   1989.04.24   177/80

Eagles
1. Kenji Tomura         P   Rikkio Univ             R/R   1987.10.20   185/78
x  Kikuchi Yusei
2. Tetsuro Nishida      IF  Kansaidai Daiichi HS    R/R   1991.09.04   180/75
3. Shota Koseki         C   Higashi Chikushi Gakuen R/R   1991.09.06   182/85
4. Kazuya Takahori      P   Mitsubishi Okazaki      R/R   1987.06.11   183/70
5. Tomohiro Tsuchiya    P   City Light Okayama      R/R   1985.08.18   178/70

Ikusei: 
1. Koji Matsui          IF  SIL Nagasaki Saints     R/R   1984.12.02   174/66

Hawks
1. Kenta Imamiya        IF  Meiho HS                R/R   1991.07.15   171/71
2. Hiroyuki Kawahara    P   Fukuokadai Ohhori HS    L/L   1991.08.23   183/75
3. Yuki Shimooki        P   Kosei Gakuin HS         R/R   1991.09.08   180/78
4. Keiji Nakahara       OF  Asia Univ               R/R   1987.07.10   183/80
5. Koji Toyofuku        IF  Tosu HS                 R/L   1991.05.17   180/76

Lions
1. Yusei Kikuchi        P   Hanamaki Higashi HS     L/L   1991.06.17   184/83
2. Satoru Misawa        IF  Daiichi Kogyo Univ      R/R   1988.03.03   181/75
3. Toshihiro Iwao       P   Beppu Univ              R/L   1987.07.20   179/68
4. Mitsugu Ishikawa     OF  Toho HS                 R/L   1991.06.16   180/76
5. Kenta Matsushita     P   Waseda Univ             R/R   1987.08.17   179/72
6. Yosuke Okamoto       P   Yamaha                  R/R   1985.09.27   177/75

Marines
1. Tadashi Ogino        OF  Toyota                  R/R   1985.10.21   172/76
2. Tomohisa Ohtani      P   Toyota                  R/R   1985.02.14   176/83
3. Shota Ohmine         IF  Yaeyama Shoko HS        R/R   1991.09.17   180/78
4. Ikuhiro Kiyota       OF  NTT Higashinihon        R/R   1986.02.11   180/85

Ikusei:
1. Koshiro Yamamuro     P   Aoyama Gakuin Univ      R/L   1987.07.14   183.82

Buffaloes
1. Shuichi Furukawa     P   Nihon Bunri Univ        L/L   1987.07.15   175/80
2. Motoki Higa          P   Hitachi                 R/R   1982.12.07   177/77
3. Nobuyoshi Yamada     P   Tsuruga Kehi HS         L/L   1991.09.19   184/78
4. Yuji Maeda           P   BCL Fukui Elephants     L/L   1986.01.10   180/67
5. Toru Anan            P   Nippon Express          L/S   1984.07.28   182/73

Note: I am not positive what the 日本大学国際関係学部 is and just have it down as "Nichidai Kokusai Univ".

Note: Sometimes it is unclear what position some of these kids have been drafted for (that is, Hiroshima's page lists Dobayashi as an infielder, so does Sportsnavi, but I saw him primarily as a pitcher/OF in Koshien... but he's here as an infielder.)

Note: Height and weight seems to vary by 1-2 from different sources like Shube, Sponichi, team websites, etc. The biggest discrepancy so far is Hisashi Takeuchi being listed as 184/83 most places, but the Carp have him as 185/95. Yikes! Having actually met the guy I admit I think he's heavier than 83 but I don't think he's 95...

Note: Tsutsugo is listed as a lefty batter most places though the Baystars site lists him as a switch-hitter. Sponichi also calls him a switch-hitter. What gives? Is this another scam out of Yokohama HS like Waizumi also calling himself a switch-hitter?

Note: Kuniyoshi Yuki is said to be one-quarter American (one of his grandfathers). Unten John Clayton has an American father and a Japanese mother. Magario Maike was born in Brazil but moved to Japan when he was very young -- I think his parents are basically Brazilian-born Japanese.

Note: Would you believe that Shube uniformly lists Kikuchi's birthday as June 19th while most other places have it as June 17th? Eek.

Note: Team names in the Shikoku-Kyushu Island League and the Hokushinetsu Baseball Challenge League have been abbreviated. Notably the Tokushima Indigo Socks, the Fukui Miracle Elephants, and the Kagawa Olive Guyners.

Note: Two little brothers were drafted by the same team as their older brother in this draft. The Marines pitcher Yuta Ohmine's little brother Shota is the obvious one, but the Carp also took Mitsuhiro Nagakawa in the ikusei draft. He's Carp closer Katsuhiro Nagakawa's little brother.

Liveblogging commentary, mostly untouched, follows...

3:55pm: And the TV broadcast is ON!

First, a big flashback to all the Kikuchi stuff, the Koshien games and his speeches to the press about whether to stay or go and so on. Lots of tears.

Then our second big featured guy is... HISAYOSHI CHONO? Ugh. Big flashback to his college and amateur career, in college and at Honda, and how he turned down the Fighters and the Marines when they drafted him. Jerk.

4:10pm: Finally, we get some actual draft picks!

Here are the picks named for the first round:

Buffaloes: Furukawa Shuuichi (LHP, Nihon Bunri Univ)
Baystars: Tsutsugo Yoshitomo (IF, Yokohama HS)
Marines: Ogino Tadashi (OF, Toyota)
Hiroshima: Imamura Takeru (P, Seiho HS)
*Seibu: Kikuchi Yusei (P, Hanamaki Higashi)
*Hanshin: Kikuchi Yusei
Hawks: Imamiya Kenta (P/IF, Meiho HS)
*Swallows: Kikuchi Yusei
*Rakuten: Kikuchi Yusei
*Chunichi: Kikuchi Yusei
*Fighters: Kikuchi Yusei
Giants: Chono Hisayoshi (OF, Honda)

Wow -- crap, that means my coveted Imamiya-kun is going to the Hawks :( :( :(
I REALLY wanted the Fighters to get him.
Good on Hiroshima for taking Imamura, though.
BAD on Yokohama for going for another slugger they don't need rather than pitching they do need.
And of course... YAY for Chono going to the Giants so I can continue to HATE HIS GUTS! Wheeeee!

4:15pm: Everyone takes the lottery envelopes... Nashida fumbles taking his despite it being the ONLY ONE LEFT... and let's see WHO IS GETTING THE BOY...

CRAP! IT'S HISANOBU WATANABE FROM THE SEIBU LIONS! KIKUCHI IS GOING TO SEIBU!

CAN ANYONE SAY MATSUZAKA PART TWO? I KNEW YOU COULD.

Okay, next the first round people pick their consolation prizes:

Hanshin: Futagami Kazuhito, P, Hosei Univ (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
Yakult: Nakazawa Masato, P, Toyota
Rakuten: Kenji Tomura, P, Rikkio Univ (aww)
Chunichi: Okada Toshiya, P, Chiben Wakayama HS (nice pick)
Fighters: Nakamura Masaru, P, Kasukabe Kyoei HS. (Ehh?)

Thoughts:
Damn -- since Futagami went to the Tigers I'll pretty much never get to see him.
Tomura, at least I can see my favorite "pile of skinny arms and legs" at Kamagaya sometimes when he comes there with Rakuten. (But Tomura-kun? A first-round pick? REALLY?)
I didn't get to see this Nakamura kid play in the Saitama taikai, though reports are calling him the "Darvish of Saitama". I guess we'll have to see.

Second round...

THE CARP TOOK SHOTA DOBAYASHI :(
So much for Chunichi taking him... not that Okada was a bad pick though.

As the rest of the picks go on, we don't actually see them on TV -- instead we're getting more of the Kikuchi show... films of him cleaning the toilets at his high school, or sitting in computer classes, or reading books... he says he can't talk to girls, no he doesn't have a girlfriend, etc. I'm sure that'll change soon enough (if it's even true to begin with).

Oh, hey, more Sasaki-kantoku on TV, that is always good! It's been a while.

The TV broadcast is off for those of us on TBS now, so I'm going to work on entering these guys (so far taking stats from Shukan Baseball magazine, btw).

The Fighters took Yutaka Ohtsuka with the second round pick, which is... interesting. He's good -- something like 41 victories over his college career! -- but I'm terrified his arm is going to fall off, as I think he also pitched a bazillion complete games.

3rd round starts...
Chunichi took Ryoji Nakata! Dang! I was really hoping for a Ryoji-Okawari bookend field in Seibu... wait, what the heck will Chunichi DO with him? It's not like they NEED another 1B, and they can't use a DH, and he can't really play anywhere else...

WOW! Lotte took Yuta Ohmine's little brother Shota! How cute!

And... and... I don't believe it. I don't BELIEVE it but Hiroshima took Hosei's Hisashi Takeuchi. Holy carp! We were all making bets about whether Takeuchi or Waizumi were going to get drafted this year... wow! (But much like Futagami I am highly unlikely to ever see Takeuchi again either.)

Nice pick by Yakult in getting Takahiro Araki, he's a solid player from what I recall.

Orix took Yamada from Tsuruga Kehi, the lefty kid whose hat flew off after every pitch. Dang...

Later round comments as I translate this stuff

That's NUTS! That random guy I saw pitch for the Kagawa Olive Guyners when I went to a random SIL game in Nagasaki... Takehiro Fukuda... got drafted! By Yokohama! Crazy!

Also, that awesome catcher from Teikyo, Haraguchi, got drafted! Unfortunately he got drafted by Hanshin :(

Can't believe Hiroshima picked up Imamura, Dobayashi, Hayato Shoji... that's a pretty big chunk of the Koshien "stars" right there.

WHAT THE HECK ARE THE FIGHTERS DOING DRAFTING ANOTHER CATCHER? ARE WE NOT ALREADY SWIMMING IN THEM?

And, hey, wait a minute... I guess this means Nobuaki Nakabayashi was NOT drafted!
Wonder where he'll end up -- maybe at one of those pockets of Keio guys like JFE Higashinihon.

I already heard that Shota Waizumi should be going to Toshiba since he wasn't drafted...

Alright, I think that's about it for me for this draft for now.

As always, what will be the most interesting part is watching this basically turn from a list of random names of guys into a group of familiar faces. I'm still amazed just to go back and look at a draft 2-3 years ago and realize how much several of those guys have already had a major impact on the game here. That's the nice thing about Japan's lack of a real developmental system, that a guy can become an impact player pretty quickly. (The bad part is that some of these other guys don't really get the proper chance to develop, though.)

Going to start working on that photo post now.

Tokyo Big 6 Photopost: Hosei vs. Meiji - Futagami's Last Stand (No, Really, I Mean It This Time)

2009-10-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

The school I work at cancelled classes from Tuesday to Friday this week because half of our students have the flu, so they figure if nobody comes to school, the uninfected students won't get infected, and besides, we can't really do a lot when our classes are all half empty anyway.

In theory, teachers are still supposed to come there, but since I was feeling sick over the weekend and I'm ahead on planning all of my lessons anyway, they told me it'd be okay to stay home and rest and recover for a few days rather than come to school and do nothing for 9 hours a day.

So I decided my rest-and-recovery routine would be best kicked off with going to Jingu for a sunny afternoon of watching some Tokyo Big 6 baseball. What could possibly be more relaxing than that?

The Hosei-Meiji rubber match had been rained out on Monday, so it was postponed to Tuesday.

I decided to sit on the 3rd-base side just because I figured anyone I wanted to photograph was going to be a right-handed pitcher or a left-handed batter. What this meant, though, was that I was on the Meiji side rather than the Hosei side... sitting in the middle of a group of college baseball fan acquaintances who are mostly around twice my age. (The other regular in the group who's closer to my age showed up in the 7th inning or so and yelled his lungs out on Meiji cheers right in my ear, which was helpful.)

Meiji predictably started Yusuke Nomura, as they would have done whether the 3rd game was Monday or Tuesday. Hosei, on the other hand, started... Kazuhito Futagami? AGAIN? On two days' rest, two days before the draft? Something seemed odd here. Part of why Futagami has been so effective, in my opinion, is that he has only been pitching once per weekend for the last few semesters, and hasn't been subjected to the typical 300-pitches-per-weekend thing.

As for me, I just chalked it up to another case of Futagami following me or vice versa. And hey, at least this meant I was going to see his last ever college game for the second time!

So, Futagami. Wonder when the next time I'll see you on a mound will be. I don't think seniors will be in the U-26 vs NPB game, so...

Kazuhito Futagami (4th-year, Kochi)

And here's Yusuke Nomura. If nothing else, I know the next time I see him on a mound should be sometime around April 11th, assuming I'm still here. Wow, that's a long time, though.

Yusuke Nomura (2nd-year, Koryo)

Anyway...

Fumiya Araki, playing centerfield, led off with a walk, and was bunted up by captain Yuta Tohyama. Junpei Komichi ALSO walked, which was kind of crazy -- Futagami usually gives up two walks per complete game, not two walks in the FIRST INNING. But anyway, Takayuki Chida came up with two on and one out, and he... struck out. Oops. But Shogo Shashiki got the job done -- kind of. And worse, I didn't really see the play. He hit an infield single to short that led to some bizarre things like a collision by second base and a rundown between 2nd and 3rd, and in the end the result was that Araki scored and Komichi was tagged out by Chida on the basepath, which ended the inning at 1-0.

Fumiya Araki (3rd-year, Nichidai San) comes up bunting.

Shogo Shashiki (3rd-year, Osaka Toin) bats in the first run of the game.

Hosei quickly made it clear they weren't going to take that lying down. Shota Waizumi led off with a single to right, and Kaoru Kita bunted him up. Hiroshi Taki singled to center, moving Waizumi to third, so with runners at the corners, Masatoshi Matsumoto hit a big fly ball to center for a sac fly, the fleet-footed Waizumi having no trouble tagging up and running in, 1-1. Kento Kameda grounded out after that to end the inning.

Shota Waizumi (4th-year, Yokohama) leads off with a single.

Waizumi slides in as Meiji catcher Ryota Yasuda (4th-year, PL Gakuen) waits for the throw.

Meiji continued their attack in the top of the 2nd inning. Hayato Tada led off with an infield hit to second (it was a nice stop by Masatoshi but no time for a throw), and then Takashi Uemoto hit a double out to left, and Tada ran, and ran, and kept running all the way home, making it there at about the same time as the ball, but he was apparently safe. 2-1. Ryota Yasuda bunted Uemoto up to third, and then Uemoto ended up scoring on a wild pitch to Yusuke Nomura. 3-1.

Nomura, for his part, managed to hit a single to left! He advanced on a wild pitch to Tohyama and went to third when Tohyama hit another similar infield single, but that's all that happened as Komichi hit a fly ball out to end the inning.

Oddly, I just looked and Nomura finished the year with a .267 batting average, which is better than many Meiji batters, including even cleanup and 5-spot batters Chida and Shashiki.

Hayato Tada (4th-year, Nichidai San) slides into home plate as Hosei captain Shuhei Ishikawa (4th-year, Oyama Nishi) gets the ball as well. But Tada was called safe.

Takashi Uemoto (1st-year, Koryo) runs to third on the bunt.

Futagami attempts a pickoff at third.

Uemoto slides into home on the wild pitch under Futagami covering the plate.

Uemoto is called safe.

Anyway, stuff simmered down for a few innings until the bottom of the 5th, when Waizumi struck again, this time with two outs. He hit a ground ball down the right-field line that took a CRAZY bounce off first base and went right over Shashiki into right field for a single. Kaoru Kita followed that up with a scorching liner down the left-field line that went through a diving Chida for a double into the left-field corner, and Waizumi showed off his speed again by scoring from first, though it was a really close call at the plate. 3-2.

Waizumi slides in yet again.

And he's safe!

But Yasuda doesn't think so. And I don't blame him.

Anyway, neither team scored any more so the game ended at 3-2. Hosei made it DRAMATIC though by loading the bases in the bottom of the 9th, but Takayuki Morita ended the game by striking out Hiroshi Taki. There was actually a reasonable amount of craziness in the 9th inning overall, with hit batters, fielder's choices, stolen bases, close calls at the bags, and a bunch of smart fielding to get runners out at third base rather than first, which kept each team from scoring a point, I think.

Also, this means Futagami lost the game, as he gave up those 3 runs. Sucks to be him -- not nearly as high a point to go out on as it would have been had Sunday REALLY been his last game!

So, since I'm running low on time, Go Go Gadget Photopost!

Fumiya Araki at bat in the 7th.

Araki steals second.

Hosei's Tomoya Mikami, 2nd-year from Ken Gifu Sho. He's 190 cm tall, and a big stringbean. He pitched 2 outs of the 8th inning.

Suguru Fujita, Hosei 4th-year out of Marugamejo Nishi. I am fairly sure he was only in this game because he's a senior and it's his last appearance. He got one out, then gave up one hit, then left. I couldn't really get a good shot of him for some reason, plus he has a bizarre lefty sidearm delivery anyway.

Kazuki Nishijima, big (186/89) left-handed 3rd-year guy from Yokohama HS. He really stepped up for Meiji in a big way this semester once Nanba started struggling.

Takayuki Morita, 2nd-year, from Ogaki Nichidai HS. Pitched the bottom of the 9th, which means he's responsible for getting into that huge jam but also getting out of it (with a little help from Shogo Shashiki).

Hisashi Takeuchi, Hosei 4th-year, from Tokushima. Takeuchi is a big kid who can throw pretty fast, and he wants to be drafted, but who knows what'll happen. Unfortunately, he also hit Takashi Uemoto with a pitch, which looked pretty bad... but then got his act together and finished out the top of the 9th.

Here's Uemoto getting helped up by the plate umpire after taking a Takeuchi fastball. I'm not even sure where it hit him exactly, but he went down quick.

This is what happens when first baseman Masatoshi Matsumoto overcharges on a bunt. WHOOOSH! He ended up sprawled on the ground, though he didn't seem unhappy about it.

This was almost a double play, but not quite. Alas. (Chida throws to Tohyama.)

Nishijima in the dugout... not sure if he is encouraging people or directing them or just heckling, but it was funny.

Final score.

Both teams bow to their respective fans.

Ryota Yasuda waves to the Meiji cheering section, as this was his final game as a senior.

The game hero types gather with the press after the game.

Team captain Tohyama gives a post-game interview.

Tatsuya Yasui, the Meiji team manager, was crying. Basically, with Meiji winning this.. if Waseda loses Soukeisen, Meiji will get the championship. It's not likely, but possible, so he was pretty happy about that.

And here are just some more photos that don't really fit into the story, but I feel like posting anyway. Big 6 is pretty much my sports photography practice ground in some ways :)

Actually, they're all of Hosei players...

Kento Kameda (3rd-year, Chiben Wakayama)

Takashi Nakao (2nd-year, Hotoku Gakuen)

Shota Waizumi at 3rd, with Hiroshi Taki in the background behind him.

Hiroshi Taki (1st-year, Sakaide). I hoped to get a good photo of him to get signed one of these days, since I think he's going to be a superstar someday.

Anyway, the draft is upon us, so I'm going to end this and maybe add to it later, we'll see.

Yoshihiro Satoh Retired Today

2009-10-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

(If you're basically thinking "Who?" or "Yoshinori?!?!" or something along those lines, just bear with me and skip this post. I'm talking about a Fighters mostly-ni-gun outfielder who I watched quite a bit last year and this year.)

I got a cellphone email an hour or two ago from one of my Fighters friends that simply read: "Yoshihiro Satoh retired today, I just heard." with a bunch of sad faces.

At first, I looked at it thinking, "Did I read that right? SATOH? Yoshihiro!? ...RETIRED?!?!!?"

I went and looked on the Fighters website, and sure enough, it's not a joke, Yoshihiro Satoh is retiring.

I don't really get why, though. He's 26 years old and just about to enter his prime. He hasn't gotten that many chances at ichi-gun, but every time he has, he's hit a home run! (Seriously. He has 4 ichi-gun hits ever and 3 of them are home runs.) He's been AWESOME on the farm team, I was really impressed with him this year, both on defense and running speed, and his bat is great too (he had an .830 OPS this year), and he's a lefty at that. I realize he must feel hopelessly blocked as an outfielder right now with Itoi, Inaba, and Hichori starting and guys like Kazuya Murata and Toshimasa Konta in the wings as well as veteran Tsuboi and sometimes Sledge as well, but... ugh, I dunno. To me it seems he quit one year too early, but for him, maybe after 8 years in the minors he felt it was time to just move on and do other things.

It says he's going to become staff with the team in some capacity, so maybe we'll see him again at Kamagaya anyway. (When Teppei Komai retired last year he became a Kamagaya bullpen catcher and we still see him all the time.)

Something odd, now that I think about it:
In 2008, I managed to get photos with 8 Fighters players at one point or another. 2 of them are no longer on the team.

This year, I managed to get photos with 17 Fighters players at one point or another, mostly ni-gun, and 5 of them are no longer on the team and 2 more are questionable.

Maybe it's me that curses these players somehow?

Here's my Fighters "2-shot" photo tally for the year, by category:

Players I got photos with that are not returning in 2010

Jason Botts - DH, already went back to the US, barely had any ichi-gun playing time
Luis Jimenez - DH/1B, cut from the team in mid-summer. Nice guy, too.
Yohei Kaneko - DH/OF, contract not being renewed next year :( I'm really going to miss him.
Kiyoshi Yamanaka - ni-gun battery coach, gone off to be Lotte's new battery coach. Yamanaka is crazy and was really popular with the postgame Kamagaya loitering crowd.
Yoshihiro Satoh - outfielder. Retired today and inspired this post.

Foreign players unknown for 2010

Terrmel Sledge - OF/DH, had an amazing year, was playoff MVP even.
Brian Sweeney - pitcher, struggled this year a bit but also ran into some really bad luck where other pitchers let his runners score or lost his games for him.

Other players I got photos with this year

Tomoya Yagi - pitcher, had a pretty awesome comeback this year!
Toshiyuki Yanuki - pitcher, rookie, currently in the Arizona Fall League
Takeshi Shimazaki - pitching coach, always scoops us on the ni-gun rotation
Suguru Matsuyama - pitcher, young, still learning
Yataro Sakamoto - pitcher, also struggled this year quite a bit
Hideki Sunaga - pitcher, had a few starts at ichi-gun this year, still not really ready
Kazuya Murata - outfielder, up-and-coming player, even if he's shorter than me
Chon-so Yoh - outfielder or infielder? Unclear, but he should at least be a supporting cast member at ichi-gun again sometime.
Ryuichi Watanabe - catcher, went to HS next to the Sapporo Dome, but boy do we have an abundance of good catchers right now
Takuya Nakashima - IF, rookie, will be interesting to see how he develops, but right now he's only 18

It's weird, I remember before I moved to Japan, when Fighters players got cut, they were mostly ni-gun guys I was barely familiar with at all, so it didn't make that big an impact to me. Last year when Komai and Oyama and Katoh and Kanazawa and all were cut, I had at least seen them play a decent bit, so they were real guys being cut, not just names and uniform numbers. But this year since I started hanging out with the postgame crowd and actually talking to players a bit, when Yohei Kaneko got cut it was more like "Hey... wait a minute... that's a guy I say hi to every time I'm at the stadium! They CAN'T cut him! Can they?"

With Satoh retiring, I mean, I always saw him at Kamagaya, though I was too shy for a while to ever go up to him. He was always really polite to fans, very courteous, ALWAYS willing to sign stuff for kids or to pose for pictures, but one of the relatively quieter members of the Kamagaya squad.

Anyway, my best Satoh memory from this year:

It was July 7th, at the Seibu Dome. A bunch of us had been at Kamagaya for the Fighters-Marines games on July 4th and 5th, and Satoh had played in those games... so when I arrived at the Seibu Dome at the top of the 2nd inning and was filling in my scorecard, like "Whoa! *WE* have a Satoh playing left field too? He's at ichi-gun? But we just SAW him a day or two ago in Kamagaya...?" Usually a Satoh in left field at the Seibu Dome wouldn't be too strange, as the Lions have Tomoaki and G.G. Satoh on their squad.

But no, this was OUR Satoh. Making his first ichi-gun appearance of 2009.

He came to the plate, and before the Seibu fans could even look at his batting average of ".---" and say "Who dat?", Yoshihiro Satoh launched a home run into the Fighters cheering section.

We went CRAZY.

He didn't get any more hits that day, nor did he rack up that many this season. But either way, that was sure one great way to make his 2009 debut.

This makes me even more curious which direction the Fighters will go in the 2009 Draft. I guess there's only two days left until we find out...

Game Report: Hosei vs. Meiji, or Trying Another Type of Ouendan, or Futagami's Last Stand

2009-10-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

I spent pretty much all day Saturday lying down in bed due to a stomach virus (I think) that hit me sometime Friday night. All I did was liveblog the Fighters game where they clinched the Pacific League playoffs; the rest of the day is completely lost to me.

When I woke up today, I didn't feel GREAT, still a little bit queasy and not in any particular mood to eat much, but at least I could move without pain, so when I got an email around 11am asking if I'd be able to make it down to Jingu today for the Hosei-Meiji college game, I figured, why the hell not. My friend Mizushima, who I met at Kamagaya early this year and who played shortstop for Hosei several years ago and who introduced me to half the team last weekend, said he'd give me an extra ticket and save me a seat in the Hosei ouendan (cheering section) if I'd come and cheer with him, so I figured, what the heck, it'd be an interesting new experience if nothing else; I'd pretty much been watching the college ouendan for years and been curious about what it's like on the inside.

I'll tell you straight out: I'm not sure it's really my thing.

You all know I'm the total Ouendan Girl who thinks that they're the greatest thing that was ever invented, but there's a very different feel to an actual school ouendan than there is to a random team ouendan. Basically, while it does take a while to be able to catch on to ALL the nuances and memorize all the songs of a pro team ouendan, you could show up for any old game, pick up a lyrics sheet, and start singing along without too much trouble. But the school ones, it REALLY feels like you ought to be an actual student or alumni of that particular school to be in their cheering section. In other words, take my usual "outsider" feeling in most Japanese situations, and multiply it by 10.

For one, half of the ouenka songs are not just cheer songs, they are the actual school fight songs. (Duh.) Now, each school is certainly different (I wouldn't feel weird singing Waseda's fight song "The Beautiful Blue Sky", for example) but Hosei's song lyrics are very very much of the "Hosei, our wonderful alma mater" over and over again variety. And there are hand motions and all this other stuff to do while singing the songs and fure-fure'ing (another bizarre Japanese thing where the English "Hooray" got turned into "Fure" many many years ago, and as such has become more of a Japanese institution than the now-outdated English word).

For two, there are a lot of rules about things you can and can't do in these ouendan. There's a very strict seating arrangement for who is where -- the cheerleaders, the ouendan guys, the brass band, the baseball team members not on the top roster, the current students, the alumni, and then random fans (I assume some MUST be there, maybe they are just very good at pretending to fit into one of the other groups). And even within the above groups there seems to be seniority involved in where people are allowed to sit. I had to wait in line inside the stadium for a while ("Because you can't enter until after the yell exchange," I was told) and then when I did get inside, I went to join my friend, who was in the alumni section, and found my way barred by 2 stern-looking women in suits, until my friend tagged them to say "She's with me, let her in," and they were like "...oh. Well, OKAY."

(I must say, having been invited there by a Hosei baseball team alumni probably made it a much better experience than it might have been otherwise, at least.)

But then there are other kinds of rules, like for when you have to stand up and sit down, for when you can and can't sing or talk, for when you can and can't enter/leave the stands, and so on. And they are super-strict about making sure everyone is behaving properly while in the cheering area, with the women in suits patrolling back and forth.

A major rule was that NOBODY -- and I repeat NOBODY -- was allowed to take photos of anything going on in the student cheering area, unless they had a Hosei armband or Tokyo Big 6 armband. I certainly saw lots of people taking photos, but they all had the armbands. Anyone else who tried found themselves being yelled at by a troop of women in suits, basically. I heard that apparently a year or two ago they had some issues with people coming in and taking photos of their cheer girls and putting them on the internet, and so now it's just NO PHOTOS NO PHOTOS no matter what.

As a result, this is the only photo I have that I took from my seat, as I got yelled at shortly afterwards and didn't try at all for the rest of the game:

Seriously, thanks to my friend, I was in the very front row of the Hosei alumni section, RIGHT in back of the marching band and all the cheerleading action. And I couldn't take a photo of ANY of it.

Reading back on what I've written so far, this sounds pretty negative. Which is really pretty unfair of me. I understand why all the rules exist for the most part. I'm sure if you go to the games all the time, or if you are a student or alumni of the university in particular, they all make perfect sense and you know exactly what to expect and they make it so everyone can enjoy the games and support the team in an organized fashion, especially given that they have to deal with shifting bands and cheerleaders and cheering sections in 20-25 minutes between games. And of course they want to make sure that nothing bad happens that might tarnish their school's name, so they have to be strict about behavior. I'm just not sure that this system particularly feels right for me.

And so, despite that I have been going to Tokyo Big 6 games since the Fall 2007 semester, and have seen this stuff from the outside many many times, I felt pretty much completely trapped from the inside.

Not to say it was all bad. There was a pretty funny point where one of the ouendan guys was coming up to make sure everybody was yelling enough and I was following along yelling "kasse, kasse, kasse, kasse Kameda, moero, Kameda!!" but my friend wasn't and summarily got scolded like "See, even SHE's doing it right! You suck! Yell more!"

Another thing is that, rather than having a cheer song for a particular player, they just have a bunch of songs that they cycle through, called a "chance medley". So each one is pretty much some variation on "get a hit, ____!" or "fire it up, ____!" or "defeat Meiji, Hosei!" or "H-O-S-E-I Let's go Hosei!" Almost all of those, I'd heard enough times to catch on fairly quickly to what I should be yelling when. Aside from the school songs, of course.

So in other words, I'm certainly going to keep going to games, and I'll certainly enjoy listening to the bands and watching the ouendan. I even own a CD or two of Tokyo Big 6 Brass Band music, because I love it so much. And it really is neat to see what they do. I just think it's neater to see it from the outside than from inside. Besides, sitting in the front row watching the game and taking photos, I can yell "ganbare!" to players and have them actually hear me, so you could even say that's a BETTER place to cheer from!

I still managed to keep a scorecard, though, despite all the craziness. I think I might have muffed a few things that were wild pitches instead of stolen bases, passed balls instead of wild pitches, but overall I got everything.

The main reason I was at the game today anyway is that I knew this was going to be my final time seeing Kazuhito Futagami pitching as a college student. This is going to sound kind of bizarre, but without realizing it, I saw Futagami pitch in every Hosei game I was at prior to this semester. I double-checked, and it really was EVERY game. Even the very first Big 6 game I ever went to, he was pitching. I was so fixated on Meiji's Kume at the time that I didn't notice the Hosei pitcher, but I just dug back in my photos and sure enough, there he was. He's been there all along as part of my Tokyo Big 6 experience, and next year he won't be, and that is kind of strange. It wasn't planned, but I actually did watch him grow from some nobody pitcher kid from Kochi into a college superstar, and assuming he gets drafted this Thursday, it's going to be either awesome to watch him go to a team I like or heartbreaking to watch him go to a team I hate.

Also, this was yet another must-win game for Hosei, so I wanted to see how things would shake down. My guess was that they would win it because Futagami is better than anything Meiji was going to throw at them -- I don't think any of Meiji's pitchers are consistent this semester except Yusuke Nomura, basically.

And well, I was entirely right. Meiji started Kazuki Nishijima, a tall lefty from Yokohama HS. Who is actually coming into his own this year as a fairly decent pitcher, but I would still bet on Futagami to win over him.

Hosei actually got off to a very quick lead. Shota Waizumi, batting first and playing third, and also a lefty batter out of Yokohama HS, led off the game with a double to center. Takashi Nakao was hit by a pitch, and then Hiroshi Taki struck out. During Masatoshi Matsumoto's at-bat, basically, Waizumi and Nakao both advanced on a double steal AND then on a wild pitch as well, to make it 1-0.

Taki led off the 6th inning with an infield single, and was bunted to second by Masatoshi. Then a pinch-hitting Yoh Sasaki singled to left, and that scored Taki to make it 2-0... as Shuhei Ishikawa grounded into a double play right after.

Meiji finally got a run on the board themselves in the bottom of the 8th, as a pinch-hitting Ryota Yasuda led off with an infield single to short, no throw on the play. Ryuichi Ochi pinch-ran, and stole second as Yuki Yamauchi struck out. Junpei Komichi pinch-hit, and during his at-bat a wild pitch advanced Ochi to third, so Komichi's single to left scored Ochi to make it a 2-1 game.

Now here's where it gets even better.

Futagami, who was in the game all along, came to the plate in the top of the 9th with two outs and one runner on, Kaoru Kita. It was starting to get kind of dark out and it seemed like Futagami was going to have to pitch the bottom of the 9th with a one-run lead... until he BLASTED a pitch out to left-center! For a second we almost thought it would be a home run, and then it bounced against the wall behind Meiji's centerfielder Araki! Kita ran and ran and scored, and Futagami ended up on second with a double! 3-1.

While Meiji ended up getting two base runners on in the 9th, singles by Tohyama and Shashiki, Futagami struck out Ikuhiro Takeda to end the game.

Not a bad way to finish off his college career.

After the game I went outside with everyone. It turns out the other guy sitting with us is someone I'd ALSO seen many times at Kamagaya but never knew his name or that he was also a Hosei alum. Go figure. He's not nearly as crazy as Mizushima though, who was still running around trying to make sure he said hi to every player and give them photographs and whatnot. I ended up chatting with the freshmen again though, Taki and Mishima. Well, or more like, I was with two other people talking to them, and mostly nodding and smiling and occasionally butting in a word or two, mostly about "You guys are going to kick ass at the rookie series next week, right?"

Most of the 4th-year players were out there again too, but they were SWAMPED by fans, especially Futagami, Ishikawa, and Masatoshi. Apparently Waizumi snuck off again. I didn't try to say anything to any of them; infact I didn't try to get photos with anyone or get anything signed this week -- really, it was COLD outside and I was mostly interested in getting home ASAP since I was still feeling sick, but I stuck around for a bit anyway. I heard that Kagami has the flu so he wasn't even at the stadium at all this weekend -- good thing I caught him last weekend!

Walked back to Gaienmae station with the other Kamagaya guy, trying to explain Daylight Savings Time in Japanese, and probably mostly failing. In bizarre coincidences, Kazuhito Futagami was standing behind us on the subway platform, still with a group of cute women surrounding him. It'll be really interesting to see where he ends up on Thursday, that's for sure.

Also, since I have no photos to show you of this game, I figured I would dig back into the vaults and show you a few from the first time I ever saw Futagami pitch, two years ago:

Remember Jingu before its makeover in early 2008? I'd almost forgotten!

That ugly old scoreboard. Futagami is #2 on the Hosei side. The only other current name over there is Waizumi. As for Meiji, everyone on their team that I recognize has already graduated -- Kume, Sasaki, etc. Actually, I suppose Komichi is the only guy who is still there. Crazy.

And that's him -- photo is from a bit further back than usual and he used to wear #13 as a sophomore.

You know, the way school baseball works is kind of neat, in that the turnover happens so soon (due to seniority, and kids coming in and going out all the time). On the one hand it is kind of exciting and you never know when one school will become very strong or very weak based on the incoming and outgoing students, but on the other hand in some ways it's really tough to keep track of everyone, even moreso with high school where it only goes for 3 years and the roster is almost always all seniors.

(Remember, Hosei spent 2007 and 2008 vying with Rikkio for the title of "Other Doormat", finishing in 4th and 5th place every semester, until suddenly BAM, they won the league championship in Spring 2009.)

Liveblogging: Pacific League Playoffs Second Stage Game Four: Fighters vs. Eagles

2009-10-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm mildly sick, which is why I am at home right now on Saturday afternoon instead of down at Jingu watching Hosei lose (argh). I had a fairly bad case of nausea over the night, and right now my stomach still hurts a ton when I move, so I'm trying to sit still and watch the game.

There's also a chatroom on japanesebaseball.com if you want to come in and chat about the playoff games, both Central and Pacific League.

                     

Takasu 2b                  Kensuke 2b
Naoto ss                   Hichori lf
Teppei cf                  Inaba rf
Takeshi SMASH dh           Shinji 1b
Seggy 1b                   Sledge dh
Nakashima lf               Koyano 3b
Miyade! rf                 Itoi cf
Kusano 3b                  Ohno c
Nakatani c                 Kaneko! ss

----------                 ----------
Fujiwara (5-4, 4.04)       Fujii (7-5, 3.53)

Almost exactly the same lineups except Miyade in place of Linden and Ohno in place of Tsuruoka.

Still waiting for the BS1 broadcast to start. I have to admit -- I might kind of screw things up today a bit just because I'm feeling kind of crappy. I'm half doing the liveblog in order to make myself pay closer attention to what is going on.

Top of the first (F 0, E 0)
Takasu fly out to second, Watanabe lineout to third. NOW we get signal... just in time to see Teppei out on a called third strike.

Bottom of the first (F 1, E 0)
Kensuke grounds out to second. Hichori gets an infield single to short (seems Seggy dropped the ball at 1st base). Inaba singles to right-center, Hichori moving to second. Shinji walks, bases loaded! Sledge hits a fly ball out to center for a sac fly as Hichori scores and Inaba goes to third. 1-0! Two out for Koyano, who lines out to second.

Top of the second (F 1, E 0)
Yamasaki hits one out to center.... caught by Itoi. Seguignol hits a hard grounder that glances off Fujii's left arm before going just right of up the middle, and Kensuke Tanaka dives for it and makes the throw to second in time. (Coaches check Fujii - guess he's okay.) Nakashima grounds back to the mound to end the inning.

Bottom of the second (F 4, E 0)
Itoi hits a single to left that falls in front of a running Nakashima. Ohno bunts, successfully, to the mound, moving Itoi up, one out. Kaneko hits a pop up that Takasu catches just in fair territory by third base. Kensuke hits a huge fly ball that arcs out to center and almost looks like a home run but bounces off the wall -- he makes it to third for a triple! Itoi scores. 2-0. Hichori OMG HICHORI HITS A HOME RUN TO LEFT-CENTER, RIGHT OVER THE WALL INTO THE FIRST FEW ROWS OF THE "HICHORI SEATS"! Kensuke scores too, so that's 4-0. Inaba grounds out to first, Seggy throwing it to a covering Fujiwara.

Top of the third (F 4, E 0)
Miyade! strikes out swinging. Kusano grounds back to the mound and Nakatani grounds out to short and that's a quick inning.

Bottom of the third (F 4, E 0)
Koji Aoyama in to pitch for Rakuten.

Shinji singles to left past two diving outfielders. Sledge also singles to left, advancing Shinji to second. Koyano fails to bunt and hits a popup pretty much straight up, caught by Nakatani, one out. Itoi walks, and that is bases loaded!! ...for Ohno, who strikes out (Shota, sweetie, you need to stop swinging at those totally low and outside pitches). Kaneko grounds to third for the force at second. So much for bases loaded with one out :(

Top of the fourth (F 4, E 3)
Takasu singles to left (first hit for Rakuten... huh). Watanabe grounds into a fielder's choice, 5-4. Teppei hits a pop fly out to center. Yamasaki singles to center too, Watanabe going to second. Seguignol singles to right past a lunging Kensuke, and Naoto Watanabe scores, Yamasaki going to second. 4-1. Then Nakashima walks, so the bases are loaded for His Tallness, Miyade, who singles to center. Yamasaki scores. Seguignol comes home but the ball is a little off-course for Ohno to make a play on it, so Seguignol also scores. 4-3. Kusano hits a pop fly to short to end the inning.

Bottom of the fourth (F 4, E 3)
Kensuke grounds out to second. Hichori singles to center. Inaba... well, Inaba gets to a full count, but at 2-2, Aoyama succeeds in picking Hichori off first base. Oops. Two out. Inaba grounds out and that's all for the inning.

Top of the fifth (F 4, E 3)
Nakatani singles to right. Takasu bunts up Nakatani. Rakuten chance music starts for Naoto Watanabe, who hits a pop fly up to Itoi in center, nobody goes anywhere. Teppei hits a pop fly... foul! Caught by Shinji! Yay.

I have to tell you that I am losing concentration for this game, but I'm going to try to make it through, hopefully to see the Fighters clinch. My brain keeps telling me, "You really want to go lie down and be more comfortable than sitting at your computer..."

And to make things worse, Hosei lost 5-1, and Kagami has the flu, so I won't see him pitch again at all this year (well, I suppose he might be in one of these other college games, maaaaybe, but unlikely).

Bottom of the fifth (F 4, E 3)
Shinji grounds out. Sledge walks. Koyano hits a fly out to Teppei. Itoi hits a fly ball caught by third base. Three down.

YMCA time.

Top of the sixth (F 4, E 3)
Shintaro Ejiri takes over on the mound for Fujii. I feel indebted to point out that they are also both Waseda graduates, since my brain is still lamenting missing Big 6 today.

Yamasaki hits a pop fly up, caught by Kaneko. Seguignol lofts one to left field, caught by Hichori. Linden pinch-hits for Nakashima and hits one to the left-field wall that Hichori has to step back on to get the rebound from the wall, for a double. Miyade is pinch-hit for by Masato Nakamura, and we get a pitching change, Ejiri to Hayashi.

Nakamura grounds out to short to end the inning.

Bottom of the sixth (F 4, E 3)
Aoyama still on the mound. Linden to left and Nakamura to right.

Ohno is BEING PINCH-HIT FOR BY SHO NAKATA who goes down on three pitches, two swinging and one looking. Doh. Kaneko fakes everyone out with a shot to left but it's caught in front of the wall. Kensuke walks. Hichori hits a pop fly to right and that's the inning.

Top of the seventh (F 4, E 3)
Hayashi still on the mound. Tsuruoka enters as catcher.

Kusano strikes out swinging.

Okay, Hayashi is out, Kanamori is in.

Kenshi pinch-hits for Nakatani and grounds out to second. Takasu grounds out too. Yay.

Bottom of the seventh (F 6, E 3)
Motohiro Shima in as catcher.

Inaba grounds out to short. Shinji singles to right. Sledge... well, first Shinji advances to second on a pitch that gets away from Shima. Anyway, Sledge singles to right, and Shinji scores! 5-3!!. Koyano singles up the middle, Sledge to second. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang chance music for Itoi...

...and Koji Aoyama is off the mound in place of Shinichiro Koyama. Seriously not a bad outing by Aoyama, who apparently is from Hakodate anyway.

Anyway, Itoi grounds to short and Koyano is out on the force at second, but Sledge goes to third, so two outs and runners at the corners. Tsuruoka grounds up the left-field line... to third... it stays fair and there is no throw, so Sledge scores. 6-3! Tsuru safe at first and Itoi goes to second. Kaneko grounds into a fielder's choice, 6-4, force on Tsuruoka, to end the inning. But that was a PRETTY BIG INNING!

Also, in the meantime, Tokyo University, who was in a 1-0 game for 9 innings, tied it at 1-1 in the bottom of the 9th and goes into extra innings against Rikkio! I'd love to see Todai actually win a game this year, but it doesn't seem likely. And Rikkio's Tomura is on the draft hopefuls list. But still.

Top of the eighth (F 6, E 4)
Watanabe singles to right. Teppei hits a pop fly out to center. Yamasaki walks, and here's a mound conference. Seguignol singles to right, scoring Watanabe, moving Takeshi to second. 6-4. Linden strikes out! Nakamura strikes out too! Hooray. Kanamori gets out alive.

Bottom of the eighth (F 9, E 4)
Kensuke hits a fly ball out to left. Hichori singles to right. Inaba...

...has to wait a minute, pitching change to Kanehisa Arime.

Anyway, Inaba walks. So that's two on, one out.

And here's another pitching change! Arime changes to Kawagishi.

Shinji grounds out to short. Two outs. But Hichorinaba advance to 2nd and 3rd. Also, Jingisukan chance music. Sledge...

..will also have to wait for a pitching change as we have just switched from Kawagishi to HISASHI IWAKUMA. Yes, Kuma has entered the building! We can also see Darvish hanging out in the Fighters dugout. Oh, and Shima changes to Fujii at catcher, too.

Anyway, Sledge

SLEDGE HITS A 3-RUN HOMERUN WAY THE HECK ALL THE WAY OUT TO THE RAKUTEN CHEERING SECTION. OH MY.

Okay, so Sledge, Hichori, and Inaba all score -- we now have a 9-4 ball game.

I'll admit it, I didn't even see how Koyano got out to end the inning after that. That was cool.

Top of the ninth (F 9, E 4)
Hisashi Takeda has entered the building. Also Naoto Inada takes over at first base.

Kusano singles to right, Fujii hits a pop fly out, and Takasu grounds to second... oh. Kusano is tagged out on his way past by Kensuke, so two outs, but Takasu is safe at first.

And a whole bunch of fans thought it was a double play and threw streamers onto the field, so now they have to take a minute to clean those up before play can continue. Heh.

Anyway, Naoto Watanabe is up... and he grounds out to short and that is ACTUALLY the game, and the Fighters are GOING TO THE JAPAN SERIES AGAIN.

Hichori is game hero and Sledge is CS MVP. Wow!

TV shots and silly camera tricks:

Hichorivision homerun highfive.

Sho Nakata split.

Now if only there was ANY chance in hell that I could actually get a ticket to a Japan Series game :( Seriously, if there is anyone out there who can help me out...

Liveblogging: Pacific League Playoffs Second Stage Game Three: Fighters vs. Eagles

2009-10-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. I liveblogged game 1 that the Fighters won on Sledge's sayonara grand slam, and then the Fighters won last night too while I was at the Tokyo Dome watching the Dragons lose, so if the Fighters win tonight, they are GOING TO THE JAPAN SERIES! Woo. The game starts at 6:15pm and the BS1 broadcast is supposed to start at 6:10pm.

There's also a chatroom on japanesebaseball.com if you want to come in and chat about the playoff games, both Central and Pacific League.

                     

Takasu 2b                  Kensuke 2b
Naoto ss                   Hichori lf
Teppei cf                  Inaba rf
Takeshi SMASH dh           Shinji 1b
Seggy 1b                   Sledge dh
Nakashima rf               Koyano 3b
Linden lf                  Itoi cf
Kusano 3b                  Tsuruoka c
Nakatani c                 Kaneko! ss

----------                 ----------
Ma-kun (15-6, 2.33)        Yagi (9-3, 2.88)

Amazingly, for the second consecutive day, my favorite Dragons player (Masahiko "Dragonbutt" Morino) has hit a 2-run homer in the first inning! 2-0 Dragons. It's also the 3rd consecutive day for the Dragons scoring in the first inning... let's hope they can pull it through.

Ma-kun is in the dugout looking... concerned, I guess. I mean, here he is, the pride of Hokkaido high school baseball, with the weight of the Sendai franchise on his shoulders. And his 21st birthday is next week.

Top of the first (F 0, E 0)
Takasu leads off with a single to right. Naoto Watanabe comes up bunting and and goes down bunting, pitcher to first. One out, runner at second. Teppei strikes out swinging, two down. Takeshi Yamasaki, who I swear took lessons from the Hiromitsu Ochiai School of Facial Expressions, eventually strikes out swinging to end the inning.

Ma-kun takes the mound. It seems he was 3-0 against the Fighters this year but not in the Sapporo Dome.

Bottom of the first (F 0, E 0)
Kensuke Tanaka grounds out to first. Hichori gets called out on strikes. Inaba grounds out to third.

Top of the second (F 0, E 0)
Seguignol comes up and hits a high pop fly that Shinji Takahashi catches in foul territory. Nakashima hits a pop fly out to center. Linden, whose black eye is looking a lot better now, gets rung up on a called third strike.

Bottom of the second (F 1, E 0)
Shinji Takahashi HITS A HOME RUN INTO THE FIRST ROW OF THE RAKUTEN CHEERING SECTION! 1-0. Sledge grounds to Seggy, who dives/sprawls to get the ball and throws it to Ma-kun covering first. One down. Koyano grounds out to third and then Itoi hits a low fly out to center.

I feel bad for Ma-kun, but... also, the cameramen decided they should show Shinji sitting in the dugout putting eye drops in after his homerun. How weird.

Top of the third (F 1, E 0)
Kusano hits a flow fly out to center. Nakatani hits a fly ball out to right. Takasu hits a flyball caught by Kaneko. Three down.

Bottom of the third (F 1, E 0)
Tsuruoka chops one to third, easy grounder, one down. Kaneko singles to center. Kensuke singles to right, and Kaneko moves to third. Hichori fouls a bunch off before striking out. Inaba grounds out to first to end the inning with runners still standing at the corners.

Top of the fourth (F 1, E 3)
Naoto Watanabe hits a homerun almost identical to Shinji's except it lands in the front row of the Fighters' cheering section instead of the Eagles. 1-1 Teppei singles to right. Takeshi Yamasaki gets out to a full count before hitting a pop fly to right where three fielders converge on it before Inaba makes the catch. Seguignol singles to right, Teppei making it all the way to third, so runners at the corners with one out. (And then is chatting with Shinji at 1st base.) Nakashima eventually singles to left, scoring Teppei. 2-1. Seggy advances to second. Linden grounds to short and Kaneko throws to second and...

..oh, this is messy. So, I think that Nakashima was safe at second but the umpire called him out. The replay makes it look like Nakashima was quite safe too. Nomura comes out to argue, rightly so, but to no avail. Then he takes like 5 minutes walking back to the dugout. So, hmm. Two outs and runners at the corners for Kusano.

Kusano hits a low fly ball to left and Hichori chases it down but it bounces right in front of him as he dives for it. Kusano safe at first, Linden to third, Seggy scores. 3-1. Nakatani hits one to left and this time Hichori's diving somersaulting catch is successful, three out.

Bottom of the fourth (F 1, E 3)
Shinji Takahashi grounds out to short. Sledge strikes out. Koyano catches a curve to single out to right. Itoi grounds out to second.

Top of the fifth (F 1, E 3)
Takasu grounds out to second. Watanabe hits a pop fly out to right. Teppei hits a liner out to Kaneko. Whee.

Bottom of the fifth (F 1, E 3)
Tsuruoka grounds out to short. Kaneko pops one up behing the plate. Kensuke hits a pop fly to shallow left, kind of a low bloop, and Naoto Watanabe ends up running out for it and making a bucket catch before falling down, but keeping the ball.

Top of the sixth (F 1, E 3)
Looks like it's just 5 innings for Yagi. Shintaro Ejiri (yay) heads out to the mound to take over pitching duties.

Yamasaki hits a high fly ball to left and just kind of watches it go until Hichori catches it in foul territory. Seguignol grounds out to first. Nakashima gets up to a full count before Ejiri throws slightly low and slightly outside ball 4 for the first walk of the game. Linden lines out to third.

BS1 News saves me from having to hear La La La Fighters, hooray.

Bottom of the sixth (F 1, E 3)
Hichori grounds out to short. Inaba grounds out down the line, Seguignol getting the ball and throwing it to Ma-kun covering first. Shinji grounds out to short, a nice play by Watanabe actually.

Ma-kun is up to 81 pitches, by the way, and high-fived everyone on his way off the field.

Top of the seventh (F 1, E 3)
Fighters change pitchers to Kazumasa Kikuchi.

Kusano is called out on strikes. Nakatani grounds out to first. Takasu grounds out to third. Quick inning.

In the Tokyo Dome, it appears Gomiuri has tied things up at 2-2.

Bottom of the seventh (F 1, E 3)
Defensive replacement: Makoto Kosaka comes in to play second base instead of Takasu. But Ma-kun is still on the mound.

Sledge hits a fly ball up caught in foul territory by Kusano. Koyano grounds out to second. Itoi struck out swinging, catcher to first.

Top of the eighth (F 1, E 3)
Fighters change pitchers to Yataro Sakamoto.

Naoto Watanabe singles to center. Teppei hits a high pop fly that Koyano catches just foul of third. Yamasaki grounds into a double play, 6-4-3!

Bottom of the eighth (F 2, E 3)
Ma-kun is still out there pitching, but Naoto Inada pinch-hits for Tsuruoka.

Inada fouls off a whole bunch of pitches before singling to center! Kaneko singles to left, Naoto advancing to second. A mound conference and a Jingisukan chance theme later, Kensuke comes up bunting, and basically sends the ball exactly down the inside of the first-base line, and stops running as Seguignol comes over to tag him out, the other runners advancing safely.

Defensive change: Ryo Hijirisawa replaces Nakashima in right field. But Ma-kun is still pitching. Also, the Dragons are now up 4-2!

Hichori ends up hitting a fly ball to center, and Naoto Inada tags up and scores. 3-2! Inaba comes up to bat and after the Inaba Jump, everyone starts singing the Kanto chance theme (aka Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). After quite a long at-bat, Inaba ends up walking. Runners at the corners, 2 out, Fighters down by one... Shinji strikes out reaching for an outside pitch. Doh.

Top of the ninth (F 2, E 3)
Switcheroo time. Shota Ohno comes in as catcher, batting fourth. Naoto Inada stays where he is in the lineup, playing first. And Masanori Hayashi takes over pitching duties.

Seguignol hits a fly out to center. Hijirisawa grounds out to second. Linden hits a pop fly out to Itoi as well.

(Ma-kun has been throwing on the sidelines with Miyade -- I guess he will be out there to finish the game... yikes)

Bottom of the ninth (F 2, E 3)
Sledge strikes out. Koyano grounds out to the mound. And... Itoi hits a pop fly out to left and that is the game.

Eagles win 3-2.

There IS another game tomorrow. Now I have to feel silly for not making plans to go to Sapporo this weekend. Also have to figure out how I'm going to balance college ball and Fighters ball this weekend after all...

Ma-kun is the game hero, which shouldn't surprise anyone. He threw 126 pitches.

Hmm... I'm not sure whether or not I'll be home for tomorrow afternoon's game or not yet.

Liveblogging: Pacific League Playoffs Second Stage Game One: Fighters vs. Eagles

2009-10-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

Alright, I'm home tonight watching the playoffs on TV, so might as well liveblog the Fighters. The game starts at 6:15pm and the BS1 broadcast is supposed to start at 6:10pm.

There's also a chatroom on japanesebaseball.com if you want to come in and chat about the playoff games, both Central and Pacific League. I'm watching PL tonight, going to the Tokyo Dome tomorrow night, then watching PL for the rest.

(Sorry I didn't write much about the First Stage of the playoffs, but now that there are other blogs covering this stuff I don't feel as pressured to, plus the Fighters weren't involved and I was too busy with college ball. I did watch the Rakuten-Hawks game on Friday night which quickly turned into a landslide as Iwakuma threw a complete game win, and I saw the Chunichi-Yakult games on Sunday and Monday -- all I can say there is that Yakult was playing with a weakened team and yet managed to keep the games VERY close and make it a really interesting series, and I feel kind of bad that it was the first stage instead of the second so it was so short.)

                     

Takasu 2b                  Kensuke 2b
Naoto ss                   Hichori lf
Teppei cf                  Inaba rf
Takeshi SMASH dh           Shinji 1b
Seggy 1b                   Sledge dh
Nakashima rf               Koyano 3b
Kusano 3b                  Itoi cf
Linden lf                  Tsuruoka c
Nakatani c                 Kaneko! ss

----------                 ----------
Nagai (13-7, 3.42)         Masaru Takeda (10-9, 3.55)

The Dragons are already up 5-0 on the Giants as I get the 6:10pm broadcast for the Fighters. (NOMOTO!!!) Hooray! Now I just have to try to finish my katsu dinner (with Hokkaido croquette, of course) before the game starts...

Ooh, Harumi Takahashi threw out the first pitch at the Fighters game. She's the Hokkaido governor, I think she's done stuff like that a few times.

Top of the first (F 0, E 0)
Takasu grounds out to third. Naoto Watanabe hits a pop fly foul to right which Inaba catches. Teppei grounds out to short. That was a 4-minute inning!

Bottom of the first (F 1, E 0)
Kensuke Tanaka leads off with a double that goes over Teppei in center! Hooray! Hichori bunts and Kensuke goes to third. One out. Inaba has a super-long at-bat and walks, so runners at the corners, one out. Shinji Takahashi launches one to left field -- it's caught, Kensuke tags up and runs, and he's in! 1-0! Two out, runner at first. Sledge gets up to a full count and singles to right-center! Inaba goes to third, so runners at the corners and two out. Conference at the mound... and Sledge talking to Seguignol at first base. Koyano.... gets called out on strikes! Doh. But hey, the Fighters are up 1-0!

Top of the second (F 1, E 1)
Takeshi SMASH... hits a single to left. Seguignol hits a fly out to right just in front of the wall. Nakashima also singles to left, Yamasaki moving to second. Kusano... heh, during Kusano's at-bat they try to pick off Yamasaki at 2nd and he barely slides back in time. Kusano singles to left too and Yamasaki scores. Yikes! 1-1. Nakashima was out trying to make it to 3rd, though, so two outs and a runner at first. Linden hits a pop fly out to left to end the inning.

Bottom of the second (F 1, E 1)
Itoi grounds out to second. Tsuruoka strikes out swinging (you know, Nagai has a nice curveball). Kaneko grounds back to the mound. Quick inning.

Top of the third (F 1, E 1)
Nakatani pop out. Takasu pop out. Naoto Watanabe... singles to center. But then Teppei hits a pop fly to Kensuke and that's the inning.

Man, there are many empty seats at the Sapporo Dome. I guess it IS a weekday.

Bottom of the third (F 1, E 1)
Kensuke got on base while I was putting laundry in the machine between innings (it appears he singled to center). Hichori bunts him up again. Inaba jump time! Inaba grounds out to second, Kensuke going to third. Shinji takes some big cuts and eventually strikes out, leaving Kensuke out there.

Top of the fourth (F 1, E 3)
Takeshi smashes one into Hichori's glove in left. Seguignol gets hit with a pitch, on his left hip. Nakashima hits a huge one out to right-center for a double, Seggy making it to 3rd before the coach waves at him to stop, so, runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out. Kusano does it again with a sac fly to center, and Seguignol scores. 2-1. Linden... singles to right, and Nakashima scores. 3-1. Nakatani strikes out and finally that inning is over.

Bottom of the fourth (F 1, E 3)
Sledge grounds out, Koyano grounds out, Itoi grounds out (at least Itoi's was up the middle and a difficult play, but still out).

In the meantime it is 6-1 at the Tokyo Dome and former Fighter Micheal Nakamura has made it in and out of the game (ejected for kikenkyu after hitting Blanco in the helmet).

Top of the fifth (F 1, E 3)
Takasu hits a pop fly out to left. Naoto Watanabe grounds to the mound and Masaru actually runs the ball to first to get him out. Two down but Teppei singles to center. Yamasaki hits a pop fly out to center. Quick.

Bottom of the fifth (F 1, E 3)
Tsuruoka leads off with a single to center. But Kaneko grounds into a double play, oops. Kensuke hits a pop out to center... another quick inning.

Top of the sixth (F 1, E 3)
Seggy grounds out to short, Nakashima grounds out to second. Kusano grounds out to 1st unassisted, and it's time for La La La Fighters (I think I'll go downstairs and check on laundry instead).

Bottom of the sixth (F 1, E 3)
Hichori grounds to the mound. Inaba doubles to the wall! Shinji walks, and...

...and the Fighters fans are doing the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang "Kanto-Only" chance theme. Now THAT is pretty nuts.

Sledge strikes out on one of those pretty Nagai curveballs, so, two runners, two out. Koyano grounds out to short, and that is the inning.

Top of the seventh (F 1, E 6)
Linden leads off with a fly out to right. Nakatani hits a single to center, and then Takasu doubles to right and Nakatani goes to third (again coach Nishi waving him to stop). Makoto Kosaka (!!!) comes in to run for Takasu, and that's also it for Masaru Takeda on the mound.

Shintaro Ejiri takes over the pitching duties for the Fighters, with runners at 2nd and 3rd...

Naoto Watanabe grounds out to third and nobody goes anywhere. They... intentionally walk Teppei, loading the bases, for Takeshi Yamasaki. Gutsy move that. Takeshi SMASHes one to left... going... going... Hichori is running back for it, and it HITS THE WALL JUST OVER HICHORI who falls over after jumping. Itoi recovers the ball and throws it in but by the time the dust clears, Yamasaki is standing at 2nd base and everyone else has scored. 6-1. Seguignol grounds out to second.

This is not looking good.

Bottom of the seventh (F 1, E 6)
Kosaka takes over at 2nd, and Ryuji Miyade comes in to play 1st.

Yoshio Itoi is called out on strikes. Next is pinch-hitter Tsuboi... who grounds out to second before anyone can even finish his fanfare. And Kaneko grounds out to the mound.

Top of the eighth (F 1, E 6)
Yataro Sakamoto is on the mound for the Fighters and Shota Ohno is behind the plate.

Kenshi Kawaguchi pinch-hits for Nakashima, apparently. After fouling off a bazillion pitches, he hits a fly ball out to Hichori. One down. Kusano hits what would be a nice hit to right, except Kensuke Tanaka happens to make himself end up where the ball comes down. Two down. Linden goes down swinging on two balls to the inside corner.

Bottom of the eighth (F 4, E 6)
Nagai still on the mound. Ryo Hijirisawa comes in to play right field.

Kensuke goes down on a called third strike. Hichori singles off of Nagai's right foot, the ball rebounding off into centerfield (almost like a hackeysack kick). Inaba hits a ball way out over the aforementioned Hijirisawa for a double, Hichori going to third but being stopped by coach Makishi. Shinji hits a standard single to center, scoring Hichori (Inaba stays at third). 6-2.

That'll take Nagai out at last, in place of Hiromichi Fujiwara.

And this time the Fighters fans are singing the SAPPORO chance music, aka Genghis Khan, as Sledge comes to bat.

Sledge singles to right! Inaba scores! Shinji goes to second. 6-3!

And that's it for Fujiwara as Shinichiro Koyama comes to the mound. The first pitch to Koyano is a foul, and the second pitch goes about a foot to the left of the outstretched arm of catcher Nakatani (er, his right). Runners advance. Next pitch almost gets away too, but is in the dirt. Next pitch is just outside on the outside knees corner. And then... alas, two pitches later, Koyano strikes out swinging. Oops.

ANOTHER PITCHING CHANGE? YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME.
Yeah, okay, now lefty Kanehisa Arime comes in to pitch to lefty Yoshio Itoi, apparently, and BS1 goes to a news break to talk about an earthquake that happened a bit ago in the Ogasawara Islands. I will not make a joke about how earlier in the Giants-Dragons game, Ogasawara was pitching to Ogasawara...

Anyway, the Fighters counter with Tomohiro Nioka! Wheee.
First pitch to Nioka is INSIDE but gets away from catcher Nakatani, and Shinji scores, Sledge going to third. 6-4. The ouendan switch to the Kanto chance theme music. Nioka walks.

GRUMPY KANTOKU ALERT is still out there -- you aren't going to believe it, but they just switched pitchers from Arime to Tsuyoshi Kawagishi. Kazuya Murata pinch-runs for Nioka, and then Naoto Inada pinch-hits for Ohno anyway.

After all of that, Naoto hits a pop fly out to left field and the inning ends. Sheesh.

Top of the ninth (F 4, E 8)
Yataro Sakamoto is still pitching for the Fighters, but Satoshi Nakajima comes in to catch. Pinch-runner Murata enters the game as the left-fielder and Hichori goes to center.

Nakatani starts things off with a single to right -- why it is only a single is beyond me as it bounced over Inaba against the wall, but hey.

Now the Fighters begin the ridiculous pitching change roulette, and Masanori Hayashi comes into the game.

After all that, though, Makoto Kosaka sac bunts, catcher to first. Nakatani advances to second. Naoto Watanabe hits a pop fly out foul that Shinji Takahashi gets. And then Teppei Tsuchiya... hits a home run to right. Which lands to utter silence, which is really bizarre, but does, infact, score two more runs for the Eagles, making it 8-4. Yamasaki gets called out on strikes and that ends the inning.

Bottom of the ninth (F 9, E 8)
Kazuo Fukumori in for Rakuten. Neat.

Makoto Kaneko leads off the Fighters' attack by hitting a pop fly to shallow center, and three fielders run in for it... oddly it's caught by Makoto Kosaka. Kensuke Tanaka hits a line-drive single to right. Hichori follows it up with his own single to center past a lunging Kosaka, and Kensuke goes to second. Inaba Jump time... and Inaba hits one to center. Kensuke scores, Hichori goes to second. Whoosh! 8-5...

Kita no Kuni Kara chance theme starts for Shinji Takahashi's at-bat. Which is LONG. Very long at-bat... and he ultimately walks. So that's bases loaded for Terrmel Sledge, and Kazuo Fukumori does not seem to be having a good time of things right now.

("Fukumori -- get yer act together or we're sending you back to Texas!")

TERRMEL SLEDGE HITS A GRAND SLAM INTO THE LEFT-FIELD STANDS!
GAME OVER!
FIGHTERS WIN IT 9-8!

Holy crap, that's about as dramatic as it gets, huh?

Game hero is Sledge, of course...

"I was just thinking I wanted to hit the ball hard, and when it left the bat, I thought, hey, it has a chance of going, and it did!"

"I was like, 'please, please go over the wall!'..."

"I'm just trying to focus, I'm not trying to do too much, I just want to win for this team, that's it"

"It's a good way to start the playoffs, we're gonna try to go all the way, that's our plan, to go all the way for the city of Sapporo and for everyone."

"Thank you for the support, see you tomorrow!"

(took a photo of my TV screen after his hero interview)

Wow, this is pretty unexpected. A few weeks ago when tickets went on sale I had some friends who had extra tickets to Saturday and Sunday's games, but I said I couldn't afford to fly up to Sapporo for games that wouldn't happen, because if the Fighters win their first 3, the weekend games don't need to be played. If the Fighters DO manage to sweep this, it will be pretty amazing. And then I can justify not going up there :)

Tomorrow is Iwakuma vs. Itokazu, but I'll be at the Tokyo Dome.

On that note I want to put up one other photo I took of my TV screen:

This is cool both because it shows Chunichi slaughtering the Giants, but also, the "train ticket" is probably one of the most awesome signs I've ever seen! It's basically an "express ticket" from the playoffs to the Japan Series, with the price being "Priceless" and the date stamp being Oct 21st and the departure time being the Sapporo Dome. Heh.

Anyway, I will be doing this again on Friday night, so tune in then too!

Tokyo Big Six, Week 6, Sunday -- Futagami's Shutout, Nomura's Triumphant Return, and Photostalking Hosei

2009-10-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

Onward to Sunday, where the postgame was actually more crazy than the games themselves. (Continued, kind of, from Saturday's post. As I mentioned, I got to meet a bunch of the Hosei players after Sunday's games.)

Being as I am relatively broke right now, I decided to sit in the outfield for Sunday's games, since women (and children) can sit there for free. What sucks is, Sunday turned out to be a bright and sunny day that would have been ideal for taking photos, as opposed to Saturday's cold cloudy weather. Alas. So instead, I found myself sitting under an umbrella to avoid sunburn as I watched the games.

Game 1 - Keio 1, Meiji 3

For whatever reason, Nobuaki Nakabayashi was the starting pitcher for Keio AGAIN, despite having started and thrown 6 innings the day before. This time, Yusuke Nomura was apparently well enough to pitch, so he got the start for Meiji. Nomura got the dreaded flu a few weeks ago and sat out the Todai series last week and the first game of the Keio series this week.

And yet again Meiji took an early lead when their first batter Fumiya Araki (playing CF this time) walked, was bunted up, advanced on a Kento Yajima groundout and scored when Takayuki Chida singled to left. 1-0. In the bottom of the 5th inning, Shogo Shashiki hit a solo home run that just cleared the centerfield wall, making it 2-0. Keio captain Urushibata answered that in the top of the 6th with a solo home run of his own over the left-field wall, 2-1.

Nakabayashi came out of the game after 5 innings. His replacement Takumi Matsuo struck out Araki to start off the bottom of the 6th, but then walked Yamaguchi, and Yajima singled to center, advancing Yamaguchi to third. Sidearmer Yuki Murayama replaced Matsuo on the mound then, but Meiji cleanup batter Chida hit a sac fly to left, scoring Yamaguchi. 3-1.

Nomura only lasted 7 innings, and Keio really should have been more effective against his replacement Kazuki Nishijima, except they saw fit to do things like strike out bunting instead. Takayuki Morita also pitched a scoreless inning for Meiji, and Junpei "JP" Komuro finished out the last inning for Keio. It wasn't a particularly exciting game aside from the home runs, and it was over in about two hours total.

I watched Tatsuya Ohishi shag flies for a few minutes warming up with the Waseda outfielders (yeah, he's weird like that) and then I moved over to the Hosei side of the outfield because I saw that Kisho Kagami was throwing in the bullpen, and I wanted to watch him. Plus, I was technically cheering for Hosei in this game anyway, and the Waseda side was getting relatively full.

Game 2 - Waseda 0, Hosei 1

The starters for this game were Yuya Fukui for Waseda, and Kazuhito Futagami for Hosei. Hosei was in a must-win position still -- for any chance at all at the championship this semester, they HAD to defeat Waseda in the series, and they were coming off a 3-3 12-inning tie on Saturday. On the other hand, Fukui was responsible for Waseda's only lost game this semester, and Futagami is Hosei's ace, so it seemed hopeful.

The game remained scoreless for six innings in what turned out to be more of a pitcher's duel than expected. In those first six innings, Fukui allowed all of two base runners on two hits.

Meanwhile Futagami found himself in a few pinches. Waseda managed to load the bases in the 4th inning after an Udaka single, Yamada walk, and Hiroki Kojima sliding headfirst into 1st base at the same time Yoh Sasaki arrived there with a grounder he didn't quite field cleanly. But Futagami managed to strike out Hironobu Hara to end that threat.

In the 5th inning he got pretty lucky -- he hit Takashi Gotoh in the side to start the inning, and Gotoh advanced on a bunt and a Hiroki Matsunaga single. What happened next can only be described, as they say in the vernacular, as an "epic pile of fail" for Waseda. With one out, Koji Udaka tried to squeeze bunt for Gotoh to score the run, but first baseman Sasaki charged the bunt, tagged Udaka out on his way past, and then threw the ball home and Gotoh got stuck in a rundown, eventually getting tagged out as well for an inning-ending double play.

Hosei finally broke through in the 7th inning. Hiroshi Taki singled to center. He was then left standing on first for a while as Masatoshi Matsumoto hit a pop fly out and Sasaki struck out, but then Taki stole second base during Shuhei Ishikawa's at-bat, and Ishikawa walked anyway. With two on and two out, Yudai Kajiya managed to get ahold of a pitch for a single to left, and Taki scored! 1-0.

Fukui was out after that inning and the last 6 Hosei batters were retired by Kensuke Ohno (4) and Kenta Matsushita (2).

In the meantime, Futagami was still pitching into the 9th, despite starting the inning at 117 pitches. Kojima led off with an iffy infield single to third. Pinch-hitter Taketo Shinsako utterly failed at bunting him over, but then Kojima stole second on the second pitch to pinch-hitter Ayuki Matsumoto, who eventually grounded out, advancing Kojima to third. Ayuki, by the way, is the younger brother of former Waseda and current Yokohama Baystars outfielder Keijiro.

The last batter of the game turned out to be a pinch-hitter as well... none other than Tatsuya Ohishi. (You know, the team's closer.) I guess the plan was for Ohishi to activate his super-human powers and drive in the tying run and then pitch Waseda to another tie or win, but instead he ended up grounding out to second to end the game. Futagami threw 130 pitches for the complete-game shutout and win.

My friend Ogura came to find me in the 8th inning as she got bored and cold sitting in the Hosei infield (she's in her 50's and a Meiji fan anyway) and ran out of camera battery as well. We left the stadium together, and happened to end up at the front gate of Jingu around the same time the Hosei players started coming out. As it turns out, only Meiji and Waseda have charter buses to bring the players back home; the other universities, the players take the train or subway to get back, just like normal human beings. And only Waseda seems to have the crazy player-shield thing going on.

Crazy Postgame Photostalking

I ran into another acquaintance of mine as we were walking towards the front gate, Mizushima-san. I forget if I've mentioned him here before, but he's a guy I see sometimes at Kamagaya in the standard stalking area. We got to talking way back at the start of this year and it came out that I'm a college ball fan and he's a Hosei alum, so every time we see each other at Kamagaya, we'd usually babble a bit about random Hosei baseball players, although I don't think there are any on the Fighters right now except Inaba.

What I don't think he ever made clear to me in all of that time is that he's not just a Hosei alum who goes to all the games, he's actually a HOSEI BASEBALL TEAM ALUM. As such, he knows ALL of the guys on the team, and funnier, they all call him "sempai". I'm not sure exactly how old he is -- I think around my age, maybe a bit older.

He introduced me to almost all the regulars on the team, as the players were coming out to go home, dressed in their suit-like school uniforms. Other fans were hanging out also trying to get autographs or photos or to just chat with the players a little bit; I get the feeling that a decent part of the crowd were also just Hosei students or alumni hanging out there. But either way, it was a little embarrassing in a way, as I was figuring out who the players were, Mizushima was pointing out guys like "hey, there's so-and-so. Do you want a photo with him? Want me to introduce you?" And then he'd just say hi to the players and say "this is one of my Fighters fan friends, I'm trying to turn her into a Hosei fan too!" I felt like a huge dork in some cases but sometimes it was funny.

Actually, though, before Mizushima went crazy introducing me to people, I went off and tagged Kisho Kagami on my own -- I was like "I HAVE to get a photo with him and I'm not missing this chance", since Kagami is my favorite Hosei pitcher. Kagami turns out to be a real sweetheart, he was actually on his way out but he didn't mind getting a photo with me, and a photo with Ogura too. I told him I was a huge fan of his and asked if he'd be pitching tomorrow (meaning Monday at that point), and he said he wasn't sure one way or another because he didn't know if his arm was up to it and it was a very important game. I told him I hoped he felt better soon and I wanted to come watch him pitch next week, and he thanked me and smiled.

So, here is me with Kagami.

And I also took a photo of just him:

Here's a photo I took of him at the game on Sept 26th, just to show what he looks like when in uniform and that I didn't just get a photo with a cute college boy and claim he's my favorite pitcher:

Such a nice guy and such a great pitcher. I still remember when he struck out 26 Waseda batters in one weekend last fall. Of course, why the hell anyone in their right mind made him pitch 22 innings in one weekend and throw 215 pitches in one 14-inning day is beyond me (I'm not making that up), and I bet that weekend was a large reason why he's had shoulder trouble since. Sigh.

Here's me with some of the other players...

Kazuhito Futagami, Hosei's ace pitcher who WILL get drafted this fall. Unfortunately whoever took the photo was kind of shaky and so it's a little blurry, but whatever.

Here I am with Hisashi Takeuchi, who has also submitted his letter of intent to be considered in this fall's draft. Takeuchi is capable of throwing 154 km/h, supposedly, but I've never seen him actually do it. He is a big strong kid though and I've heard scouts are pretty high on him, so who knows. I also got Takeuchi's autograph, so if he does get drafted, that'll be nice to have someday, I'm sure.

(Here's what Takeuchi looks like in uniform -- from Saturday's game.)

Outfielder Shingo Kamegai. He is apparently going to go "work" for Toyota next year, by which I mean play baseball for them. He's the one I was told is a lot like Inaba was when Inaba played for Hosei. Kamegai is also from Chukyodai Chukyo HS and from Aichi, and sadly currently has an injured leg. I was trying to think of something to say to him so I was basically like "Is your leg okay?" and he's like "It's pretty iffy... not really." I told him I saw him run out that grounder on Saturday and get carried off the field and I was worried about him. He seemed surprised but pleased by that.

After that we get into people I would have never bugged on my own but who Mizushima kind of convinced me to get photos with...

Catcher Takuya Hiromoto and outfielder Ryo Imai, both 3rd-years. Also seemed kind of WTF about being asked to take a photo with a gaijin, though I told Imai I saw his victory home run last semester and it was cool and I hoped to see him play more. Mizushima was like "Very international, huh? This girl is a crazy baseball nut."

(Hiromoto and Imai in uniform. I took these photos during Saturday's game too.)

I would have never had the guts to bug these guys on my own but... Kazuki Mishima and Hiroshi Taki. They are both freshmen and AWESOME. Mishima throws 150-154 and Taki is a pretty darn good shortstop. But I had no idea what the hell to say to them besides "you guys rule". Actually, I somewhat embarrassed myself because Mishima is from the same high school as Fighters rookie Takuya Nakashima, but I had no idea what high school that WAS at the time. I knew that Taki is from Sakaide, but nobody asked me that.

(Mishima and Taki during Saturday's game.)

Shuhei Ishikawa, the Hosei captain, and catcher-sometimes-1B.

(After he switched from 1B to catcher on Saturday.)

Ogura wanted a photo with Ishikawa, so we bugged him. Actually, she REALLY wanted a photo with Kentaro Abe, the little dude who coaches 3rd base, but we didn't manage to bug him. Abe's this ridiculously genki guy with glasses who really gets into the game and shouts a ton, and anyone who's watched a Hosei game usually recognizes him, though this year he started wearing contacts so it became harder to recognize him. (I think he's like 5'3" or so, though.)

I also said some "otsukaresama"s to a few of the other players that were hanging out. I actually think I recognize more Hosei players by face than any other Big 6 team right now, which is kind of crazy.

Anyway. I was invited to come sit in the Hosei ouendan for the Meiji-Hosei games next weekend and I'm seriously considering it. I think the "COOL NEW OUENDAN STYLE TO TRY OUT" factor will outweigh the "EVERYONE'S GOING TO BE STARING AT THE WHITE GIRL" factor in the end.

Onwards...

Monday's results

I didn't go to the games on Monday due to actually being at work, but essentially:

Keio lost 8-4 to lose the series to Meiji. You're not going to believe this, but Nobuaki Nakabayashi started this game TOO. Yes, he was PERSONALLY 1-2 in the 3 Keio games this weekend, pitching a total of 13 innings over 3 days and throwing 89, 64, and 51 pitches in those three games. Takayuki Chida and Kento Yajima both hit home runs in the first 2 innings for Meiji, and the team took a quick 7-0 lead. I truly have no idea why Nakabayashi was starting this game. I wonder if it'll affect his draftability at all.

Hosei beat Waseda 2-0! And even crazier, my boy Kagami pitched a complete game shutout to beat Handkerchief Boy! It sounds like he ran into one bases-loaded jam in the 2nd inning but then got a double play to get out of it, and most of the rest of the game was relatively smooth sailing. He only struck out one batter, but also only allowed 5 runners the entire game, 3 of which were in the same inning. That's pretty good!

Oh, Kagami-kun, I hope I can see you pitch next week, and next year, and into the future. But I also hope your arm doesn't fall off.

Anyway, because Hosei won today, they still have a chance at the championship. At this point, Hosei, Waseda, and Meiji all have 3 Series Points; Meiji's W/L record is 6-4 and the other two are 6-3-1. Hosei needs to beat Meiji next weekend and to have Waseda either outright lose Soukeisen, or for Hosei to win 2 games and lose 0 while Waseda wins 2 and loses 1. Something like that. At the very least, it's good for there to be an actual interesting run for the championship going on at this point still; if Waseda had won this series then they would basically be almost guaranteed the championship.

In the meantime, I also watched bits and pieces of the 1st Stage of the playoffs here -- Rakuten's game on Friday, Chunichi's games on Sunday and Monday. Very interesting, and I'll be watching the Fighters this week, except for Thursday when I go to the Tokyo Dome to see the Giants-Dragons game. Whee playoffs!

Tokyo Big Six, Week 6, Saturday -- Long Ties and Cold Rain

2009-10-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

I went down to Jingu Stadium early on to get a front-row seat. Showed up at 10:20, as usual the Waseda side was mobbed with Yuki Saitoh fans but the Hosei side wasn't too bad. I ended up sitting next to a 70-year-old old Hosei alum who told me stories about watching Hosei's team in the mid-1970's when they had Suguru Egawa and when current manager Kanemitsu was the captain and 2nd baseman and the team won 4 straight championships. I asked him about what Inaba was like in his Hosei years, and he said "Look at Shingo Kamegai... Kamegai is very much like Inaba was, even down to them both being from Chukyo." I like Kamegai, so that was a good way to put it :)

(Sadly, though, Kamegai re-injured his leg running out a grounder in the 7th inning. It was, however, the infield single that put through the game-tying run for Hosei.)

There was a old guy sitting to my left who not only put his bag on a seat for no reason other than so nobody would sit there, but he SLEPT through the entire first game and then woke up for part of the 2nd game only to take some cellphone pictures. How annoying. Front row seats are premium. I guess on the other hand I didn't have to deal with people sitting on both sides of me as a result, but still.

Game 1 - Waseda 3, Hosei 3 (12 innings)

Since Kisho Kagami was having arm trouble, the Hosei starter was sophomore Tomoya Mikami, who is from Ken Gifu Sho HS and is very (190cm) tall. Waseda's starter was the usual Yuki "Handkerchief Prince" Saitoh. Hosei went into this series basically needing to beat Waseda to have any chance at all of another championship this semester.

Tomoya Mikami.

Waseda put up the first few runs -- bizarrely enough, they all came thanks to Saitoh's batting! In the 3rd inning, he led off with a single, moved up on a Kojima grounder, and scored on a Matsunaga double. In the 5th inning, he hit a 2-out single, moved to 3rd on a Kojima single, and then Matsunaga hit a single that scored both of them, making it 3-0 and taking Mikami out of the game in favor of Hisashi Takeuchi, who is hoping to get drafted next week. Takeuchi managed to keep Waseda under control for the next few innings.

Saitoh at bat.

In the meantime, in the 7th inning, catcher Hiromoto led off with an infield single to third, and a pinch-hitting Yoh Sasaki doubled to right, scoring Hiromoto, 3-1. Hiroshi Taki continued the attack with a single to right, scoring Sasaki, 3-2, and that's when Mr. Handkerchief came out of the game in favor of Tatsuya Ohishi (who you might recall is my favorite Big 6 pitcher).

Hosei managed to score Taki by small-ball - Shota Waizumi bunted him up, and while Ryo Imai struck out, Masatoshi Matsumoto singled, moving Taki to third. Shingo Kamegai, who was out for a few weeks with a leg injury, then hit a grounder through the shortstop for a single to left... but as he ran it out to first he started limping and had to be carried off the field. On the other hand, it scored Taki, making it 3-3. Kaoru Kita pinch-ran for Kamegai and the inning ended with Kento Kameda striking out on a 150 km/h pitch.

(Kamegai being carried off.)

Then both teams got into a deadlock for the next 6 innings. Hosei freshman Kazuki Mishima came in to pitch. I'd heard about him quite a bit, but this was my first time seeing him pitch from close up (I think I saw him pitch in the spring too, but from afar). Anyway, Mishima is about my height and weight, looks like a totally unassuming little kid, and THROWS EVERYTHING AT AROUND 93-95mph. No, really. His control is pretty terrible, but I think he keeps the batters pretty well off-balance just because they might be worried about getting decapitated by his next pitch. So in three innings he walked four guys, struck out four guys, and had everyone coming down to take photos of him by the fence as he did warm-up throws.

I don't know exactly where the speed comes from, but he did end up in a kind of tangled follow-through most of the time.

Here's the scoreboard showing one of his pitches as 154km/h (95.7 mph).

After Mishima, Hosei followed with senior Kohei Nishi, who I've mentioned a few times as being a bizarre sidearmer. Nishi didn't have a particularly good track record before this year, but in 2009 hasn't given up a run at all, and in this case he also pitched two innings and struck out four.

And finally, I should talk about Tatsuya Ohishi, of course. I was torn because I like him very much, but I also kind of wanted Hosei to win the game. So as Hosei kept essentially messing up and/or not capitalizing on things, it got kind of frustrating. Like when Ishikawa hit what could have been a triple if he was actually running, but instead he stopped at first and then ran to second, then was bunted to 3rd and left there. Or in the 10th, Tetsuro Matsumoto accidentally grounded out to first. It was ridiculous, he checked a swing, the ball hit the bat and rolled down the first-base line and he wasn't even aware he should start running for a few seconds. Then in the bottom of the 12th, Hosei led off with a kid named Nakao getting an infield single to second (just a messy grab and no throw), and then Masatoshi Matsumoto was supposed to bunt Nakao up, but he basically bunted RIGHT TO OHISHI, who isn't an idiot and made the play at second to get the force on Nakao, and then thanks to Masatoshi not running, it was a double play at first base as well. Sheesh. Kaoru Kita ran out a deep grounder to short, but with two outs and only one runner it wasn't hard for Ohishi to strike out a pinch-hitting Suguru Fujita to end the game.

(For the record, Fujita is a PITCHER, so what the heck he was doing pinch-hitting is beyond me. I know there are some great-hitting pitchers in Big 6 -- Ohishi himself is one of them -- but this was kind of crazy.)

Speaking of Ohishi at the plate, he was fairly effective as usual, making a successful bunt once and then getting an infield single another time. After this game he was 5-for-7 on the season (he's now 5-for-9 after the entire weekend though).

So I thought it'd be funny this time to include photos of him as a base-runner instead of as a pitcher:

Yeah.

And here is what the final score looked like in extra innings:

I have one more photo I took during this game that won't fit in anywhere else but I wanted to post so I can mention him:

This is Shota Sugiyama, the catcher for Waseda. I didn't realize this, but he's only a freshman and has pretty much stepped in to essentially be the next Hosoyamada -- he's been behind the plate for pretty much all of their games this season.

Unlike Rikkio's Yusuke Yamada, who played at Koshien and hammered a huge home run among other things, and is the other Tokyo Big 6 freshman catcher to make significant appearances this year, Sugiyama never went to Koshien, having played for Toso Kogyo HS in Chiba. He is, however, listed as being "one of the best HS catchers in Kanto" in reports last year... no idea why he didn't try to get drafted. Maybe he WANTED to go to Waseda and catch for Yuki Saitoh :)

Anyway, this game was LONG at 3 and a half hours. What sucked is that the second game of the day didn't start until 3pm (they're scheduled for 1:30pm), and the day was already cloudy and it started to get dark around then, so my devious plot to photostalk Nobuaki Nakabayashi for one last time was thwarted. Doh!

Game 2 - Meiji 3, Keio 8

I can sum up this game in one sentence: Meiji is SCREWED without Yusuke Nomura.

Nomura came down with the flu a week or two ago and was out for the Meiji-Todai games, which is no big deal as Todai would possibly be outpitched if one of my junior high school students took the mound against them. (I'm not entirely joking. I have an 8th-grader who can throw a forkball and tells me his plan is to go to Teikyo HS on baseball recomendations.) However, Nomura sat out the first game of the Meiji-Keio series as well, and their pitchers basically gave up the ship, walking in runs and hitting batters and whatnot.

I stayed on the 1st-base side to stalk this guy:

Oddly, Nakabayashi might be the only guy in the entire Big 6 league truly worth sitting on the 1st-base side for this year -- most of the exciting hitters are lefty hitters and most of the exciting pitchers are righty pitchers, which I guess isn't too surprising.

But anyway, this game was dark and cold and even rainy, as it started raining in the 8th inning around 5:25pm. They had to turn the stadium lights on in the 5th inning around 4:10pm, and I was more than ready to go home by the time the game ended at 5:42pm, seriously.

Meiji got off to a quick lead in the first inning. Masashi Yamaguchi, all 5'2" of him, hit a single and stole second during Fumiya Araki's at bat. Araki walked, and an out later Takayuki Chida hit a double to right which scored both of the above runners, 2-0. Meiji added a run in the top of the 2nd when catcher Ryota Yasuda singled, Shogo Shashiki followed that with another hit, and pitcher Gota Nanba bunted them both up to 2nd and 3rd. A wild pitch during captain Yuta Tohyama's at-bat scored Yasuda to make it 3-0.

But that is all Meiji would get for the entire game.

Nanba started running into trouble in the bottom of the 2nd as Kazuya Onodera hit a double, a fly ball to left that JUST landed fair. Tatsushi Yumoto hit a grounder to third that got bobbled between Chida and Shashiki, so Yumoto was safe at first and Onodera made it to third. Ryosuke Yamamoto followed that up with a legitimate single up the middle past a diving Tohyama to score Onodera, 3-1. Catcher Masahiro Nagasaki followed that with a double to right that tied the game as the other two runners scored, 3-3.

Then first baseman Kazuya Onodera smacked a home run to lead off the bottom of the 4th inning and put the team ahead 4-3.

Kazuya Onodera high-fives back at the dugout.

Nanba came out of the game after the 4th inning, and lefty Ryosuke Okoshi replaced him... only to be COMPLETELY ineffective against the Keio batters. He hit Tetsuya Urushibata in the hip with a pitch, and then walked Hitoshi Fuchikami. Naoki Yamaguchi hit a weird infield single after that to load the bases, a bunt going up the left-field line that the catcher grabbed but missed and so all runners were safe, I'm not sure why it wasn't called an error. Okoshi walked Hayata Itoh with the bases loaded to bring in another run, 5-3. That took Okoshi out of the game and put in lefty Kazuki Nishijima, who promptly walked Kazuya Onodera for ANOTHER run. 6-3. Yumoto hit a pop fly out for the first out of the inning, and then a pinch-hitting Takao singled to left, bringing in Yamaguchi and Itoh to make it 8-3.

Itoh high-fiving people back at the dugout.

Anyway, no more scoring went on after that, and Nakabayashi came out after 6 innings, so for me the rest of the game was just waiting out the rain and the cold. I did, however, get to see two of my favorite Keio sidearmers who are both seniors and this may be the last time I ever see them play:

Yuki Murayama, who is fairly close but not quite a submarine pitcher.

Junpei Komuro.

Look, it is DARK AND WET OUT. Very unfun.

The game heroes were Nakabayashi and Onodera, but I bolted from the park pretty quickly. Ended up riding the train home with two of the Meiji fans that I'd met before.

I also went to Jingu on Sunday, where I ended up meeting most of the Hosei University lineup after the game through a bizarre set of circumstances. More on that in the next post...

Yukio's Coming Back! (And other Fighters stuff)

2009-10-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday they had a press conference to introduce the Fighters' newest ni-gun batting coach -- except he's not new to the Fighters at all, it's our very own Yukio Tanaka!

(image from Sankei Sports)

This is so cool. I hope that having the REAL Mr. Fighters, the true owner of uniform number 6, hanging around Kamagaya as a batting coach next year will drive some sense into Sho Nakata's brain about how to actually be a professional baseball player.

Also, it'll be awesome to maybe finally get to meet Yukio in person, as he was a big part of why I became a Fighters fan in the first place. I talked to the Kamagaya coaches a bit this year, so it seems likely that there'd be a chance next year too!

In other Fighters news...
Jason Botts and Ryan Wing are officially off the team. Wing is no surprise given that he got injured before the season and didn't actually DO anything for us. Botts, well, he spent most of the year at ni-gun, and I had a feeling he wasn't likely to come back next year, but you never know. I tried to chat with him a few times at Kamagaya but he generally wasn't that talkative, so I don't really know how he felt about the entire experience here.

Terrmel Sledge and Brian Sweeney are still good to go for the postseason, though what'll happen with them next year is still unknown.

(Sweeney, infact, got the win in the Fighters' game against the Carp yesterday in the Phoenix League.)

Rather than last year where the Fighters had an intrasquad game in Kamagaya to practice for the postseason, this time they're using time in the Phoenix League to keep their players in practice for postseason games. I got the following schedule of who is appearing from Ojisan:

10/12 - 18: Sakamoto
10/12 - 21: Tadano, Sweeney
10/14 - 16: Hichori, Iiyama, Naoto, Tsuboi, Nioka
10/14 - 18: Darvish, Fujii, Hayashi, Itokazu, Miyanishi, Ejiri, Yagi, Masaru, Kikuchi, Kanamori, Ohno, Tsuruoka, Murata, Konta
10/16 - 18: Kensuke, Kaneko, Sledge, Itoi, Koyano, Inaba
10/17 - 18: Hisashi, Tateyama

Dang, now I wish I could go to Miyazaki :)

The games schedule is on the Fighters site in Japanese here. It goes until the 22nd, so it seems likely that the normal ni-gun players will stil get in a decent amount of playing time after the Fighters' training camp there ends. (I am, however, a bit concerned that Ryota Imanari still hasn't made an appearance in a game -- wondering if he's still injured or what. I know he went there with the team, though.)

And in other fall camp news, Toshiyuki Yanuki is going to the Arizona Fall League along with 3 Giants players and with Hiroshi Katayama from the Eagles. Yanuki is blogging his experiences in the Arizona Fall League, although so far it appears the blog will only be viewable on the Fighters' mobile site. It seems that from looking at the Arizona Fall League official mlb.com site, he already made an appearance in a game yesterday, pitching two innings and letting both of his inherited runners score but not giving up any runs credited to him. In further amusement, the starting and losing pitcher of the game was Ryohei Tanaka, who I last saw at Lotte Urawa with the Marines farm team in 2008, but who spent 2009 in the minors with the Baltimore Orioles.

(Shameless self-plug: one of my Hiroshi Katayama photos is being used in an mlb.com article about the Japanese guys in the Arizona League - check it out! I also have a photo credit in the Onion A.V. Club last week as well, for the Mike Blowers call.)

Maybe Yanuki will pick up some English while he's hanging out in the US for two months and I can chat with him next year in Kamagaya! That would be fun.

I forget, did I ever actually mention here that Tomoyuki Oda and Takeshi Itoh retired? I saw both of them at Kamagaya a lot, at ichi-gun once or twice. Oda had a really fun ouenka, one of the last remaining ones with hand motions ("Right, left, center e"), but it was looking less and less likely that he was ever going to make any impact with the team again.

I'm going to be trying to keep tabs on what Yohei Kaneko (who won't have his contract with the Fighters renewed next year) does -- for now he's said he'll go to the fall tryouts for other teams, so we'll see what happens. I'm still pretty bummed about it. Would be nice if someone with an Eastern League ni-gun team picks him up, anyway, so we can see him again in Kamagaya.

Game 110: Swallows vs. Gomiuri: Shiroishi's Last Stand

2009-10-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

In theory, this should have been Game 111 for me instead of 110, but I've been feeling really tired lately and stayed up too late on Sunday night, so I woke up late on Monday and didn't get down to Jingu in time for the rubber match between Waseda and Rikkio.

I missed a GREAT game, as it turns out. Waseda won 6-4, which isn't particularly anything I care about, but Tatsuya Ohishi had one of his best games ever.

I'm a huge Ohishi fan, incase you haven't heard me babble about him enough already the last year or two. He's a 3rd-year pitcher for Waseda University who can throw 154km/h and is made of awesome. Not only is he an amazing pitcher, but he's also apparently an amazing shortstop as well. He just kicks ass. I saw him pitch on Saturday, which was his birthday, where he put in 3 innings of pretty good relief pitching after Yuki Saitoh's start. 4 strikeouts in 3 scoreless innings and he was hitting 146-148 on the Jingu radar guns, though to be fair the scoreless innings were partially due to Rikkio running themselves out of the 7th inning, maybe a bit of good luck for his birthday.

For Monday's game, apparently Yuki Saitoh only lasted 4 innings. Ohishi came in and, I am not making this up, pitched 5 scoreless innings, giving up 2 hits, 1 walk, and striking out 11. I read a blog entry about it and he was even apparently topping out at 152-153 on his fastball. Holy crap. And to add to that, he was also 2-for-2 at the plate, which now has him batting .667 for the Fall 2009 season (4-for-6).

I arrived at Jingu in the bottom of the 9th, and watched the game from outside one of the infield gates, where I could see the game on the TV screen just inside. There were two on and one out... and then Ohishi struck out the last two guys to end the game and win it for Waseda.

So, since it'd be a bit before anyone would be allowed into the stadium for the Swallows game anyway, I decided to wait for the Waseda players to come out to get on their bus. I did the waiting-for-players thing for Meiji's team on Saturday and it was fairly low-key, with the players just coming out to chat before getting on their bus, but apparently that isn't how it works for Waseda, at least not when there is a pro game that day and they don't want anyone getting near Yuki Saitoh. It took about 30 minutes for them to come out, and when they did, all of the baseball club members not on the active roster essentially stormed the bus door and formed a corridor so nobody could see the players coming out. It looked something like this:

I spotted Ohishi when he came out anyway -- he has really distinctive eyebrows and was also grinning like an idiot. He went into the bus and sat down behind Saitoh (who I didn't see go in -- possibly because I wasn't looking for him and because he's shorter and was probably being shielded a bit closer). Saitoh sat there looking kind of tired and grumpy, whereas Ohishi opened up the window and looked out at the crowd. I was sadly totally in the wrong spot, or I would have waved and yelled something at him.

("Two aces!")

Seriously, I don't really care that much about Waseda's team, but I love this kid. It makes it all the more frustrating that you can't get anywhere near him thanks to the ridiculous Saitoh hype and the ridiculous Waseda hype.

Anyway, after that I went towards the gates to the outfield bleachers, though on the way I saw two Swallows players out there signing stuff. One was Shohei Tateyama (I got a photo with him but it's pretty bad so I'm not posting it here. It's a shame, because he is AWESOME) and the other was Masato Hanada, who was having his retirement ceremony after the game. Tateyama was friendly enough to people but Hanada was looking very... I dunno, grumpy or sad or some combination thereof.

I went into the stadium and found my way to the top of Section D, where I was going to sit with the Tsubamegun guys. They weren't there yet, but fortunately Christopher had warned the guys in charge of saving seats that I'd be coming there early, so it worked out okay. Christopher was actually too busy being a famous movie actor to come to the game, so it was just David and Garrett, along with TPR man Ken, and some of his friends, and Mike who I met at a game a few weeks ago. We also randomly met Mac, a Swallows fan who comments here and there sometimes. I also spent a bunch of time talking to the Japanese fans in that group, who are pretty interesting.

Also, we received baseball cards of Hanada and Shiroishi when we entered the park. A lot of people in the stands had signs for those players. (Far more Shiroishi than Hanada, though that isn't really surprising.)

Something that really annoyed me was before the game, they put us on the big screen (they LOVE putting groups of white people on the big screen, but Dave had once assured me that the Tsubamegun guys were immune to that). I was, at the time, writing my scorecard, and one of the guys in our group points out that we're up there, and I'm like "oh FUCK" and hide behind my Keizo Kawashima towel until they basically take us off the screen. In retrospect what I should have done is stood up and turned around, being as I was wearing this, but I didn't think of that soon enough.

What bugs me about it is that I never seem to get on the screen when holding up signs in Japanese. (Not at Jingu, but ANYWHERE.) Sometimes I swear the camera people must be instructed to only put white people on the screen looking like confused foreigners.

Oh yeah, a bunch of my Fighters friends were at this game, either because they double as Swallows fans, or because they like Yuji Onizaki (he had a lot of admirers at Kamagaya), or just because it was the last baseball game of the year. One guy I know was sitting down at the opposite end of the row I was in; we were both pretty surprised to see each other.

Tetsuya Utsumi started for the Giants, and Yoshinori Satoh started for the Swallows. I feel like recently, every time I go to Jingu, Yoshinori is starting for the Swallows. It might just be a byproduct of watching so much college ball.

Masato Hanada's daughter Miri threw out the ceremonial first pitch. She was wonderfully adorable but needs to bug her dad to play catch more often.

Something about this game is that for a change, while I did spend all of the Swallows at-bats standing up and cheering, I spent most of the Yomiuri at-bats not really paying attention to the game, and just soaking up the atmosphere at Jingu, or having bizarre conversations with the people around me, or trying to read the Swallows ouenka, or whatever. So in all honesty a lot of the game kind of went by in a blur for me.

The Swallows took an early lead in the first inning when Yoshiyuki Noguchi walked, advanced to third on a single to right by Munehiro Shida, and scored on a groundout by Jamie D'Antona (I'm not even sure people were aware a run scored until the umbrellas started coming out), 1-0.

The Giants' Shinnosuke Abe hit a huge homerun to right in the 2nd inning, tying things up at 1-1. In the top of the 3rd, they loaded the bases on three consecutive singles by Utsumi, Sakamoto, and Matsumoto, and then D'Antona and Yoshinori booted a play together, a grounder to first that had a bad throw and a bad catch, so two Giants runs came in while they were recovering from the error. 3-1. Yoshinori was so pissed off that he promptly struck out the next three batters he faced to end the inning.

Aaron Guiel hit a homerun that landed just over the wall in straightaway center to make it 3-2. For his efforts, he was rewarded by being benched, and Yuichi Matsumoto replaced him in right when we wanted to yell "GUIEL! GUIEL!".

As the game progressed, we wondered when the Retirement Boys were going to get into the game. The first one was answered when Masato Hanada came out to pitch the top of the 7th inning. We all yelled a ton of "GANBARE GANBARE HANADA!!!" and held up signs and whatnot. He threw two pitches, Ryota Wakiya grounded out, and then Hanada was taken out of the game for Hiromitsu Takagi, to great applause.

The Swallows' 7th inning came and went with umbrellas and "Kutabare Yomiuri", but no further advancement of the game.

The Giants' Daisuke Ochi took the mound in the bottom of the 8th, and after Shida struck out to lead off the inning, that's when our second Retirement Boy of the Day came out, as Noriyuki Shiroishi pinch-hit for Kazuhiro Hatakeyama, also to great applause and yelling and singing from the outfield stands. Even better, in his first and last at-bat of 2009, Shiroishi took the second pitch he saw, and lined it into left-center for a double! That was pretty exciting. D'Antona walked and was replaced at first by pinch-runner Kazuki Fukuchi (aka Your CL Stolen Base Leader 2009), as Yuichi hit a pop fly out to right. Two down. Atsushi Kinugawa continued the "Who dat?" trend of Yakult hitters and pinch-hit for Takagi, and got his first and last ichi-gun hit of the year as well, a single to right that scored Shiroishi for the tying run! 3-3. Then Ryo "No really, who dat?" Yoshimoto came up to bat and whoosh, hit a double to left, scoring Fukuchi AND Kinugawa, for the go-ahead 5-3 score. Ochi surrendered the mound to Kaneto for the last out.

Hye-Cheon Lee took the mound for the top of the 9th. Shiroishi went into the field as the second baseman, joined by Shinya Miyamoto at shortstop for one last time together in the field, I guess. However, only Miyamoto got a play in the 9th as the Giants went down 1-2-3 to end the game.

Then they had a Final Game Ceremony and the Retirement Ceremonies.

Actually, before the official ceremonies started, former Swallow Alex Ramirez gave a bouquet of flowers to Shiroishi. I'm not sure who gave one to Hanada if at all...

Then Takada started talking, and Dave and Garrett and Ken started booing.

I really don't remember much of what Takada said (and I couldn't hear half of it anyway).

Then, the retirement ceremony!

More flowers. First each player received flowers from their family (in Shiroishi's case, he only recently married a TV announcer like 2-3 years ago, but Hanada has two young kids). Then they received flowers from teammates -- Shiroishi got his from Shinya Miyamoto as an infielder of roughly the same vintage, and Hanada got his from Tateyama as a pitcher of roughly the same vintage.

Hanada made his speech first. He couldn't stop crying through it all. (They also showed his wife and kids on the screen and his wife was bawling like a baby too.) He mostly just kept reiterating that he felt really lucky to have spent 10 years as a baseball player wearing a Yakult uniform and he wanted to thank all the teammates and players for all their support over the years.

They also showed a video introducing him before his speech, and I swear the most interesting moment was a clip of when someone hit a ball back to the mound and it got tangled up in his uniform.

Then there was Shiroishi, who wasn't crying, I don't think. His speech was mostly saying that he thought he'd never get to play at Jingu again, having been injured and so on, but he was happy for the team finally making the playoffs. And then he thanked a bazillion people, teammates, fans, even the Giants members, for helping him have such a great baseball life.

What's interesting about Shiroishi is that he was a high school baseball star, went to Aoyama Gakuin University (would have been there the same time as Iguchi, Tsuboi, etc), but dropped out of college. He was essentially a "freeter", working part-time in a gas station trying to figure out what the hell to do with his life, when he went to a Fighters tryout in 1994. They liked what they saw and drafted him. (Seriously, there are so many stories of the Fighters taking players in bizarre circumstances that it shouldn't really surprise anyone.) A few years later he was traded to Yakult for, of all people, Toshiyuki Freaking Noguchi.

By the way, I know that the Tsubamegun guys consider Shiroishi to be a fairly useless player, or at least it stymied them how much the team was paying him to do nothing in their eyes, but I think in this speech I at least understand why he was so popular (besides being the player rep after Furuta) -- he's a really good-looking charismatic guy. If fans, especially female fans, saw him making what they thought was his best effort to play hard, I can totally see why they'd fall so hard for him. I'm not a Yakult fan, but I've definitely gotten a sense for what kinds of players people here really latch onto for what seems like no apparent reason, and Shiroishi strikes me as being one of them.

Anyway, after the speeches, they took Hanada out to the pitcher's mound and threw him in the air, and then took Shiroishi out to second base and threw him in the air.

And that was about it... the team also came out to the outfield to wave goodbye. People threw some streamers out onto the field and held up signs and whatnot, but we left at that point so I don't know what happened afterwards.

I guess this really was my last regular season pro yakyu game of 2009. How surreal. I was in Chiba on Opening Day, and I finished out with this one.

I'll be rooting against the Giants at the Tokyo Dome next Thursday, but other than that I have no clue whether I'll manage to get into any other postseason games this year; I'll have to hope for a miracle if/when the Fighters make it to the Japan Series. I'll try to liveblog some of the playoff games as I watch them on BS1.

But in the meantime, there's still three weeks of Tokyo Big 6 left, and also things like fanfests and the "U-26 NPB" vs. College Ball game, and various stuff on the horizon like that, plus maybe I can finally catch up on cropping out some photo sets (like, holy crap, I still never got around to putting up my Koshien shots of Yusei Kikuchi and Shota Dobayashi, or my Shikoku trip featuring Hideki Irabu) and other things I had no time to do this year.

Game 109: Dragons @ Swallows - Crying Foul

2009-10-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start off by saying that Sunday night's game result actually had very little meaning to me either way. I went to this game not really caring who won, as the postseason slots have already been determined (otherwise, I probably would have cheered for Yakult, just in the interest of them ousting Hanshin from 3rd place and upsetting the status quo, but they already took care of that on Friday).

The real reason I was there was for a final chance to see Kazuyoshi Tatsunami have an at-bat in person, as this was likely to be the last game I'll ever attend where he is an active player. (He's retiring effectively at the end of this season, though he'll most likely remain as a batting coach for the Dragons.) I am highly unlikely to be able to get tickets to a Dragons-Giants postseason game should it occur, and all things considered, should the Dragons make it to the Japan Series, which I also find it unlikely I'll be able to get tickets for, I'm not sure Ochiai will be letting Tatsunami pinch-hit anyway.

I even made a sign for the occasion:

And I wasn't the only one...

I think most of the people in the leftfield stands were either wearing Tatsunami #3 shirts/jerseys, or carrying Tatsunami signs, or both.

And to make it even more festive in Jingu, there was a guest appearance by everyone's favorite big blue punching bag, Doala!

Wheee!

Something crazy about this game, actually, was that the outfield stands were completely packed an hour before game time. I showed up around 4:15pm for the 6pm start, and had to wait in line for a while to get in, and staked out a seat early on. The infield stands were fairly empty even into the game itself, but the outfield was completely full, on both sides.

Something even crazier was that we ACTUALLY HAD A CHUNICHI OUENDAN. With trumpets and an official song leader! I can't remember the last time I was at a Dragons game in the Kanto area where we had a cohesive ouendan. It might seriously have been two years ago at this point.

Chunichi put up a fairly standard lineup for this game, though with Hidenori and Nomoto starting in the outfield, and Wei-Yin Chen as the starting pitcher. Yakult, on the other hand, put up a crazy lineup of mostly ni-gun guys, I guess due to injuries and wanting to get some playing time for these guys just in case, and resting the regulars. So the Yakult lineup was:

Fukuchi, RF
Noguchi, LF
Hatakeyama, 3B
D'Antona, 1B
Shida, CF
Kawamoto, C
Yoshimoto, 2B
Onizaki, SS
Yamamoto, P

The people around me were joking "Dare aitsu?" ("Who the hell is that?") starting from Noguchi onwards, pretty much. I at least had seen or heard of almost everybody in the lineup until they got to Ryo Yoshimoto, batting 7th, and then even I was like "Who the fuck is THAT?" I mean, even guys like Shida and Onizaki, I've seen so much at ni-gun that I'm used to them, but Yoshimoto? WTF? Same for pitcher Hitoshi Yamamoto, making his first ichi-gun appearance EVER. It seems Yamamoto, from Sakata Minami HS, was taken in the same high school draft as Yoshinori, but nobody noticed.

So, despite this bizarre cast, the first several innings of the game passed by relatively uneventfully. Chen struck out 6 Swallows batters in a row at one point, but nobody really even noticed that. Kazuki Yoshimi took over on the mound for 3 innings and mostly held things together; he was helped by the fact that the Dragons had gone up 3-0 in the top of the 6th on a Morino RBI single (!!) and a Tony Blanco 2-run homer, so when the Swallows put one on in the bottom of the 6th via a Yuji Onizaki RBI single, it was only 3-1 and not that disastrous.

Where things got screwed up was in the 7th inning.

And I don't just mean when there was a Dragons left-handed pinch-hitter taking practice swings and we could see that his uniform number had a 3 on it (HA HA! IT'S TAKEHIRO DONOUE! FAKED YOU OUT!), but rather the BOTTOM of the 7th, which started jovially enough as the Chunichi fans also sang along "Kutabare Yomiuri!" to the strains of Tokyo Ondo.

Daisuke Yamai replaced Yoshimi on the mound for the 7th, and immediately gave up a single to Kazuki Fukuchi. Fukuchi stole second successfully and then advanced to third on a wild pitch, all before Yoshiyuki Noguchi got on base via a walk. Kazuhiro Hatakeyama then launched a fly ball to right, and Fukuchi had no trouble tagging up to score on it, making it 3-2.

Then Jamie D'Antona came up to bat.

Then this happened:

D'Antona hit a big big big fly ball to the left-field stands, which may or may not have actually been on the proper side of the foul pole to be called a home run, but the umpires decided it was.

From our vantage point in left field, it certainly looked like a foul ball. And the replay shown on the Jingu screen ALSO looked like a foul ball. And then Kazuhiro Wada, the left-fielder, started waving his arms like "WTF, dude, that was a FOUL BALL." And then Ochiai came out to argue, and the entire team came off the field, and there was even a bit of an actual fight with the umpires:

Ochiai spent 17 minutes arguing the home run call. We timed it.

In the meantime, the Chunichi fans in left field spent that time doing a variety of things. First was some booing, yells of Japanese equivalents of things like "Are you SERIOUS?" and "You've GOT to be kidding!" and then were coordinated group-wide shouts of "FOUL! FOUL!" and then "VI-DE-O! VI-DE-O!" Then a couple rounds of cheers for Ochiai -- we actually do have a cheer song for him just like the players -- and some "Ganbare Ochiai!" and "Moero Ochiai!" calls.

I should point out that the funny part about this is that none of those calls or songs were actually led by the "official" ouendan. Fortunately, after two years of the current drama, Kanto-area Chunichi fans no longer NEED an official ouendan to get the entire crowd yelling something, so were perfectly capable of singing it all on our own.

Finally, the umpires came out and said that no, really, Ochiai argued valiantly, but it was a home run dammit and they were standing by their decision. 4-3 and the game continued.

But I think the entire incident kind of took the wind out of the Chunichi sails and the rest of the batters were all retired fairly quickly.

The last batter of the game was, of course, Tatsunami. We'd all been holding up Tatsunami signs for the entire 9th inning. And rather than just singing his ouenka we did a Tatsunami medley, with three separate songs that have been used for him over the years. Sadly, his final at-bat of the year had him hitting a pop fly up to the infield, caught in shallow right field by the second baseman to end the game.

The game was over, and the Chunichi fans were pissed, but then on the big screen we saw the following...

Saying basically, "Good job over the last 22 years, Tatsunami!"

And then Shinya Miyamoto came out and gave Tatsunami a huge bouquet of flowers...

And we all cheered and yelled and held up our signs and yelled a lot of "TATSUNAMI! TATSUNAMI! TATSUNAMI!"

He walked out to the field, put the flowers down on the bullpen bench, and then came out to the outfield and bowed to us.

One guy behind me yelled, "立浪、大好き！" (Tatsunami, I love you!)
Another guy yelled, "俺も！" (Me too!)
And then there were several more people basically echoing those two sentiments, either "Tatsunami, I love you!" or "Me too!"

Tatsunami waved to the outfield, then went to the infield, bowed and waved to them too, and exited the stadium, with all of us still holding up our signs and waving and shouting and clapping for him.

Then the Yakult post-game show started. Their game hero was, of course, Jamie D'Antona, and the minute he appeared on the screen, everyone started booing. Loudly. So loudly, infact, that I didn't even get to hear Jamie's usual "Yeah, I just wanted to win the game / I just wanted to help the team" speech. All I could hear was "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."

Whatever.

I went to see if there was any more Tatsunami memorial merchandise at the goods stand, but everything was sold out. Doh. I'd kind of waffled on it before the game since I'm not sure I NEED any more stuff. I guess it's probably for the best.

And on my way out, I walked past this set of gatchapon capsule machines:

Yes, you can get Giants and Tigers and Carp capsule goodies at Jingu during Yakult games. Seriously, WTF? Why the hell does Yakult seem dead-set on promoting every other team besides themselves? It makes absolutely no sense. Yes, it's typical for every team to sell some goods from the away team, but full capsule machines as well as having that official Tigers Shop half a block away from Jingu? Sheesh.

After I exited the stadium I went and bought a ticket for Monday night's Giants-Swallows game, so I'll be back at Jingu for a third straight day, sitting in right field and yelling about how much I hate the Giants. Hooray.

College Baseball Exhibit at the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame

2009-10-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a typhoon storming through Tokyo, school was cancelled on Thursday. But by the afternoon it had cleared up, so I decided to go down to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame to see their College Baseball exhibit, which runs until this coming Monday the 12th. It's likely that this coming weekend I'll be too busy actually watching college baseball to go to the HOF, so I suppose the typhoon's timing was good in that aspect.

The Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, by the way, is in the Tokyo Dome, and costs 500 yen to enter. They have an English translation of the standard exhibits, but nothing on the special and/or new stuff. It's not a particularly big place, nothing on the order of Cooperstown at least. You could easily see all of it in an hour or two, depending on how much you stop to look at things. If you can read Japanese and know a lot about Japanese baseball history you may find yourself stuck there for a long time, especially since there is also a library you can go into, but if you can't, it may not be all THAT exciting. (I dunno, I've been there a bunch of times at this point, so it's hard for me to judge.)

Ever since my first Tokyo Big 6 games two years ago, I've been completely enamored with college baseball here. It's basically like Koshien in that you get to see a fairly pure form of baseball being played with lots of wide-eyed young guys with dreams of becoming pros someday, but thanks to the players being a few years older, bigger, and stronger, the level of play is a bit better than Koshien. The marching bands are also better, of course.

So the first thing I did when I got there was head to the college baseball exhibit to look around, and here are some shots from that. It's really mostly just uniforms and photos from the big college baseball tournaments this summer, and a few other random bits and pieces from past tournaments.

The exhibit room.

Trophies from the All-Japan college tournament and from the US-Japan tournament.

In case it wasn't clear, the two uniforms in the trophy case are from Kazuhito Futagami, Hosei ace #18, who also wore #18 in the Japan-US tournament.

Uniforms from all of the teams that entered the All-Japan college tournament.

The exhibit had photos of all the teams that entered the All-Japan tournament, along with some information about each college league they represented. (There are many many college teams and many many college leagues here. One of the leagues in Kyushu had something like 30 teams in it.) And yes, I was there for two games of it.

Poster from this summer's Japan-USA collegiate tournament. (I was there too, of course.) They got the entire USA team to sign it, which is kind of cool.

Ribbons from past winners of the all-Japan tournament.

Display case with some magazines and info about the other college leagues outside of Tokyo.

One of the really neat things was that they had their magazines from the last 25 years of Meiji Jingu college ball out in their library, with photos for all the players in the Tohto and Big 6 leagues, so that rocked because I got to see the photos/entries for lots of current players when they were still in college! Some were really crazy, like Tsuboi and Inaba as teenagers in the early 90's, stuff like that.

Anyway, I also wandered around the rest of the museum a bit. I think this was my 6th or 7th time there since the first time I went in 2003, so a lot of the standard exhibits are boring to me at this point, but they do always change up the other scenery a bit, so it's still kind of interesting if you're only there once or twice a year tops...

The room outside the special exhibits room now has a Virtual Strikeout thing where you can try to virtually hit pitches thrown by a bunch of pitchers, like a batting cage. They also have some equipment you can look at (but sadly not touch like they used to).

For A Noboru Aota Fan, I went and snapped a photo of Aota's plaque in the Wall of Fame hallway. Aota was one of the four guys to be inducted into the fall this summer.

The WBC 2009 team uniforms, along with some various player equipment, mostly shoes and stuff, though Johjima's full catcher gear was there too.

Iwakuma and Matsuzaka's big shoes to fill.

Photos from Team Japan at various parts of the WBC.

(As an aside, the video room behind this, which generally shows old Japan Series footage, was showing the 2006 Japan Series when I wandered by, with the focus on OMGSHINJO and the Fighters victory. I enjoyed watching it again, of course...)

Every year they have, near the front, a "locker room" with 12 lockers representing the 12 teams, each with a uniform and various stuff from current players.

Some of the CL lockers.

I thought it'd be funny to pose between Darvish and Iwakuma's uniforms.

Here's one item that won't be there next year...

...and sadly, neither will this one.

On my way in and my way out I stopped to check out the 2009 WBC display, since it's what you see as soon as you go down the stairs to enter the museum. I happened to be there on a day where the 2009 trophy was on display -- the 2006 one is always there, apparently.

In other words, it was a nice way to spend an hour or two on an inadvertant afternoon off. The University Baseball exhibit is only there until this Monday, October 12, though, and after that there'll be something "celebrating the two-league format", so I assume it'll have something to do with the Japan Series and whatnot too. We'll see. I'm not sure I'll stop back for that one though.

Game 106: Bobby Valentine's Final Home Game in Chiba, vs. Rakuten

2009-10-08T20:35:00.000-07:00

If I had to sum up Bobby's last game in Chiba in one word, it would be: Wet.

With a typhoon on course to head through Tokyo on Thursday, it started raining here on Monday night and never quite stopped until the typhoon passed. This means that the entire game was played in the rain, and the entire postgame was also in the rain. The stadium was packed anyway, with almost 30,000 people sitting through the rainfest.

The good part about the pouring rain was that nobody had to be ashamed of crying during Bobby's speech. You couldn't TELL who was crying, Bobby included, because EVERYONE was soaking wet.

If it hadn't been raining, the evening would have been pretty much an absolute perfect evening for everyone (except the Eagles, of course). I mean, you can't WRITE better stories than this. The Marines starter was Yoshihisa Naruse (jokingly dubbed the "co-star" of The Zen of Bobby V movie), against Hisashi Iwakuma, one of the best pitchers in Japan. The Marines went down 2-0 in the 2nd, but then Saburo hit a home run to half the gap, and they tied it up in the 3rd on a Koichi Hori single. Shunsuke and Ogino pitched in relief, Imae and Satozaki hit the RBIs necessary to put the Marines up 5-2 in the 8th inning... basically, it was like all of Bobby's Boys were determined to bring the game home for him no matter what.

Even better, Brian Sikorski came out to pitch the 9th -- and with two outs, Bobby went to the mound and made his last call to the Chiba Marine bullpen ever -- for Satoru Komiyama, who was having his retirement ceremony after the game. The stadium went absolutely crazy. And in true Komiyama style, he threw one pitch to get the final out of the game, as pinch-hitter Seguignol hit a fly ball to right.

This was not only Komiyama's first save in 4 years, but it also made him the oldest guy in NPB history to record a save.

So, a few minutes later they started Komiyama's retirement ceremony. Komiyama made a really nice speech about how all he'd ever really wanted to do was to play baseball, and how lucky he was he'd been able to do it for so long, and how much he appreciated his time with the Marines. He also said he hoped he'd be wearing a Lotte uniform again sometime in the future. Komiyama, for those that don't know, went to Waseda University by actually studying for 2 years and passing the real entrance exam there, and then becoming the ace of their staff, rather than being one of those guys who gets in on baseball credentials. I believe he even earned a certficiation license to teach math! He's a pretty smart guy and very well-spoken.

You can see Komiyama's ceremony here on Youtube. One of the best parts was when his three kids came out to give him flowers, and he redirected them to give the flowers to Bobby instead.

After Komi-chan's ceremony ended, there was a bit of a pause, and then all the lights in the stadium went off briefly as they announced Bobby's entrance.

Bobby gave a speech in Japanese, with his interpreter Shun Nakasone translating into English. I'm not going to transcribe it; you can either see to the speech here or see Gen's translation of it here. The speech was fairly simple and thanked the management, the players, the fans, and had a short poem about how he felt the sights and sounds of Chiba would be forever in his heart.

What I think was so great about the speech, and perhaps accounts for all the people sniffling around me, was, infact, that Bobby did it in Japanese. I was reminded of something singer Angela Aki said once, that Japanese is a more emotional language than English, by far, and you can say so much more in so few words, just letting your heart hold the pencil. For his one last time to connect with the fans, Bobby did it perfectly. And to make sure he connected with all the people there, he still had it translated into English.

I remember thinking that perhaps it was the kind of thing where you'd have to have actually met Bobby to get why he did it, except the thing is, almost everyone in the stadium that night probably HAS met Bobby at some point or another. That's WHY he meant so much to the fans.

Something that's pretty fundamental in Japanese culture is the concept of "doryoku", which means "making a great effort". A lot of Japanese people seem to love to see other people doing their best and making the best effort they can. If you do something half-assed, you can't expect other people to repay you with their full effort, and the same goes the other way. And I think what people saw in Bobby over the last few years was just the total effort he made to fit into Japan and to make the team as good as he could, and make the fan experience as good as possible. They saw him out there at BP, or signing stuff in the stands, or adding all the cool new features to the stadium, or opening his window and letting the fans come talk to him, or even doing ballroom dancing routines before a game a few years ago. I know that just keeping a smile up on my face for a few hours a day in front of students is draining enough -- how crazy is it that Bobby's been doing that in front of hundreds of thousands of fans, day in and day out, for the last 6 years?

That is effort, and that is why an entire stadium full of cold, wet, tired baseball fans stayed for a full hour after the game was over, to listen to Bobby and watch him walk around the stadium and to wave goodbye for one last time, laughing and clapping and shouting and crying. 最後まで、よく頑張った, they were probably thinking -- "he did his best until the very end".

I know that I certainly owe a lot to Bobby, and I'm just a random blogger who happened to be lucky enough to get to talk to him a bunch of times over the last two years.

Anyway, I went to Chiba after work on Tuesday, and because of the rain I didn't have my big camera or my scorecard, and actually didn't even get to my seat until literally three seconds before Saburo launched his home run that made it 2-1 in the bottom of the 2nd inning. But I did snap a few photos with my itty-bitty camera, and while you can undoubtedly find better ones elsewhere, here's how things looked from my viewpoint...

There were NO BOBBY BURGERS. I was not happy about that.

This is one of the information boards outlining the day's event schedule.

In the Marines store, they were selling the "Thanks, Bobby" farewell merchandise. Most of it was already sold out by the time I got there, except the t-shirts.

Somehow, in the midst of the pouring rain, they still had fireworks in the 5th inning.

Final score as Komiyama records the last out.

Scoreboard explains that it made Komi the Oldest Saver Ever.

What the Komiyama speech looked like from my vantage point.

Komiyama making his speech as shown on the big board.

The totally darkened stadium for Bobby's speech.

Bobby, on the big board.

It was so ridiculously rainy that this is about the visibility I had for seeing the right-field stands. (This is when Bobby and crew were making the rounds of the stadium, post-speech.)

I should mention, by the way, that Bobby's crew included Bobby, coach Frank Ramppen, stathead Paul Pupo, players Benny Agbayani, Chase Lambin, and Gary Burnham, interpreter Shun Nakasone, and Satoru Komiyama as well. The right-field stands guys even had a "Ramppen #83" banner for him, and they gave a yell for "NAKASONE! NAKASONE!". In addition to the Komiyama 14's, a third group of people also had a "Komiyama 17" banner, paying homage to when Komiyama was on the Mets.

When he got back to the dugout the entire team ran forward in a big crowd and threw Bobby in the air. They also threw Benny in the air, and Komiyama as well.

For the record, another great thing about this game was, when Rakuten lost, that clinched 1st place for the Fighters, who were playing in extra innings at that point (they did eventually win). So I was overjoyed for more than one reason -- and I could even justify to my Fighters friends why I was in Chiba instead of at home watching the Fighters-Seibu clinching game. ("I was cheering for Lotte to beat Rakuten, so we'd get the championship that way!")

Oh, one more funny anecdote:
Chase Lambin and Gary Burnham were at the game, but in street clothes since they're not on the active roster. I think they were even sitting one section over from me, but I was too wet and cold and tired to leave my seat at all during the game; the only time I even stood up was when Imae hit the go-ahead RBI. So I didn't actually go try to say hi to them, because I am lame. Oops.

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Shoitsu Ohmatsu was leading off, but for some inexplicable reason the ouendan were playing "Here We Go Chase Lambin", and then "Let's Go Gary Burnham". Everyone was like "WTF?", until on the big board, they actually showed that Chase and Gary were out there with the fans in the right-field stands. That is pretty awesome and I think it's great that they went out and did that.

I'm still a little stunned that the Bobby era is over again in Chiba. I kept thinking during the game how it was going to be my last one seeing it like this, with those people, with that ouendan, with everything as it is. No matter what, things next year will be different. Fortunately, though, most of the Lotte players that I totally adore are in ni-gun, so I'll be able to still go see them at Lotte Urawa and at Kamagaya, even if I don't end up at Chiba Marine outside of Fighters games anymore.

On that note, I'm going to leave you with what was one of my favorite moments this summer:

(It's actually from a few weeks ago -- I didn't actually see Bobby on Tuesday. At the time, I wasn't supposed to tell anyone I'd been in Bobby's office watching him sign a bazillion thank you cards that he was going to give to the fans, so I also didn't post this photo then. And in case you were at the game over the weekend where he gave out thank-you cards to the fans, with a signature on it? That signature was real. It probably took him a month to sign them all. Next time someone says Bobby didn't really care about the fans and was just putting on a show, I'm going to punch them.)

Seriously, how lucky am I? I think that's the best thing about Bobby -- he always made me laugh, except for this last time, when he made me cry.