The So Taguchi Philadelphia Phillies of New Jersey

Shukan Baseball magazine had a big theme of "Japanese players in the MLB" this week, including back-to-back Matsui interviews (with Hideki and Kazuo). One of the other features in the magazine was a "Map of MLB Teams with Japanese Players", which is, in other words, "a map of the cities in America that will actually get mentioned regularly on the news here in Japan".

I have frequently told people here that I became really good at Japanese geography a couple of years ago during Koshien, the national baseball tournament. Having teams from every prefecture was a great excuse to actually learn where all of them were. However, I don't think it's quite as easy for Japanese people to learn American geography quite the same way. I mean, for one, not all 50 states in America have major league teams. But also, apparently Philadelphia has moved to New Jersey this year. And Kansas City moved to Kansas. And Pittsburgh moved to Erie. And so on:


All I Needed to Know about America I learned from Ichiro


At least they know where Cleveland is.

Thanks to Pau for pointing this out to me (He wrote me, "Dude, where are your Phillies?"). I don't have a scanner, though, so the best I could do was taking a photo of the magazine with my D200.