The Fighters Win the Pennant!!!!!

I didn't MEAN to stay up until 5am listening to the game, but I couldn't help it. As the Nippon Ham Fighters won their game against the Softbank Hawks, they clinched the Pacific League first place slot, regardless of what the Seibu Lions do in their game with Lotte.


(Picture from fighters.co.jp)

Fighters 4, Hawks 1 (box score)

Kensuke Tanaka and Fernando Seguinol hit solo home runs in the fourth inning to go ahead 2-1, Jose Macias and Makoto Kaneko both hit doubles to knock in two more runs in the 7th. Masaru Takeda went five strong innings to start, Yu Darvish (!?!?!) pitched two innings in relief, striking out 3, awesome setup man Hisashi Takeda pitched the 8th, and Micheal Nakamura closed it out for what should be something like his 39th save of the year, thus OBLITERATING the old club saves record of 34 held by Yutaka Enatsu.

WHEE!

Technically this isn't the PL pennant, I guess, but it IS first place, and gives them a bye in the first round of the playoffs. Yeah, Lotte toppled Softbank last year and anything could still happen, but so what? FIRST PLACE! YEAAAAHH!!!!!

And here people laugh at me when I say I "lucked in" to becoming a Fighters fan several years ago. I've been wearing my Fighters hat around Seattle nonstop since I got back from Japan, yes, even to both Mariners-A's games, and dammit, I'm PROUD of it.

By the way, if anyone knows how I can somehow get access to a dependable Japanese proxy server so I can actually WATCH the playoffs (and hopefully Japan Series), it'd be greatly, greatly appreciated :)

Now uh, I need to sleep.