More Konami Cup Babbling

While I was looking at the aftermath of the trampling that is the Chiba Lotte Marines taking over the rest of Asia, I found a part of their website I had never actually read before (don't ask why I've never before looked at the "English" section -- guess I figured there wasn't much there). Anyway, they've been having some of their gaijin players write a Diary From Abroad, and these entries are actually pretty damn awesome. Val Pascucci, Dan Serafini, Benny Agbayani, Matt Franco, and even Seung-Yeop Lee contribute to it. Very cool and worth a read in my opinion. (I didn't know Matt Franco was Kurt Russell's nephew, after all, or that Ralph Branca is Bobby Valentine's father-in-law...)

Anyway, the Konami Cup has pretty much been fairly one-sided:

Day 1, 11/10: CPBL 6, CBA 0 / NPB 6, KBO 3

Day 2, 11/11: KBO 8, CBA 3 / NPB 12*, CBPL 1

Day 3, 11/12: NPB 3, CBA 1 / KBO 4, CPBL 3

* game called after 7 innings

After the first two games, the Marines were guaranteed to advance to the finals no matter what, and it came down to the Lions/Bulls game to see who their finals opponent is. The result? Marines replay the Lions at 7pm Japan time tonight.

Hiroyuki Kobayashi won the first game for the Marines. Shimizu pitched the second game for the Marines and won a "complete game" of 7 innings -- the game was called due to the mercy rule. Benny hit homers to both fields, the second one a 3-run homer bringing the score to that mercy 12-1. They started Kuroki in the third game -- actually, the lineup in general was a little weak but I guess Bobby figured they didn't even have to win this game. Komiyama ended up pitching the 4th through 8th innings and got the win. Tomorrow, I bet they start Watanabe for the "real" championship game...


Bobby Valentine and Jim Lefebvre sharing some "Bobby Magic"
There are some great pictures up of the games here. In particular I really like that Jim-and-Bobby picture, and also this one of Komiyama with his sunglasses, this one of Shimizu since it reminds me of Shiggy's windup, this awesome one of Air Nishioka!, and some of the team high-fives so you can really see the uniforms: China, Taipei, and Korea.

I know people are saying the Konami Cup is sort of a joke, given what an all-around strong team the Marines are, but it's still really cool that they're doing it, I think. Sort of like a prequel to the baseball world cup and all.