Thursday, October 30, 2008

2008 NPB Golden Gloves

(Scroll down to see the 2008 Draft post, I'm still adding to it)

The lists are out. The CL infield is all Dragons, which should mostly not come as a surprise to anyone who has watched Arakibata The Two-headed DP Machine, and the PL is dominated by Fighters again, which also goes without saying.

Announced here (in Japanese):
     Central League                         Pacific League
(1) Masanori Ishikawa (YS) P (2) Yu Darvish (NHF)
(2) Shinnosuke Abe (YG) C (1) Toru Hosokawa (SL)
(1) Takahiro Arai (HT) 1B (1) Alex Cabrera (OB)
(1) Kenta Kurihara (HC) 1B
(5) Masahiro Araki (CD) 2B (3) Kensuke Tanaka (NHF)
(7)* Norihiro Nakamura (CD) 3B (4) Toshiaki Imae (CLM)
(5) Hirokazu Ibata (CD) SS (1) Hiroyuki Nakajima (SL)
(3) Norichika Aoki (YS) OF (3) Hichori Morimoto (NHF)
(6) Norihiro Akahoshi (HT) OF (3) Atsunori Inaba (NHF)
(1) Takahiro Suzuki (YG) OF (1) Tomotaka Sakaguchi (OB)

The number in parentheses is how many golden gloves they've won.

(*This was Norihiro's second GG in the Central League after getting 5 of them in the Pacific League. Also, seriously, Arai and Kurihara tied for CL 1B with 50 votes each so they both got the award... I wonder how often that's happened?)

My only question this year is, Alex Cabrera? WHAT? I will note that he only beat Kazuya Fukuura by two votes, but honestly I'm not sure Fukuura deserves it either. I don't really know WHO deserves it come to think of it, though. Bleh.

This is also going to pain me to say it, but I'm glad someone finally noticed that Takahiro Suzuki is pretty kickass at defense. I know I hate him on principle for being a Giants player, but he's really good in the field.

Ono! Here we go! (aka NPB Draft non-live-exactly-blogging, with photos!)

Today is the big draft -- none of this splitting into high school and others anymore, it's all done in one big day again.

But get this, I went to Jingu this afternoon to watch the Tohto league final week, with Asia University playing Toyo University -- they are the two best teams this year, many great players have come out of both colleges.

So I had been taking photos all day of Toyo starter Hiroki Ueno anyway, and he threw a complete game win as Toyo won the game 2-1. I was also taking plenty of Toyo catcher Shota Ono... and as the game went into the 8th inning, I got email on my cellphone saying "Fighters take Ono, first round!" and I'm just like "Whoa! He's RIGHT THERE!!"


Toyodai catcher Shota Ono, first-round draft pick by the Fighters! YEAH!


Toyodai starter Hiroki Ueno, third-round draft pick by Chiba Lotte!


More photos after the draft table. I'm getting the live draft from sportsnavi and information from Shukan Baseball and such.


Name Pos HS/Univ/Company B/T DOB Ht/Wt
-------------------- --- --------------- --- ---------- --------
Central League

Giants
1 Taishi Ota IF Tokaidai Sagami HS R/R 06/09/1990 188/90
2 Takefumi Miyamoto P Kurashiki HS L/L 08/11/1990 185/72
3 Keisuke Saitoh P Chiba Keizaidai Fuzoku HS R/R 09/24/1990 185/84
4 Itaru Hashimoto IF Sendai Ikuei HS L/R 04/28/1990 172/70
5 Shoki Kasahara P Fukuoka Shogyo Kito HS R/R 01/09/1991 190/85
6 Hiroki Nakazawa IF Kokusai Budo Univ R/R 01/22/1987 182/79

IS Akinori Sugiyama P Kyoto Ayabe HS
IS Ryuichi Bitoh P Gifu Johoku HS
IS Kazunao Yamamoto IF Osaka Economics Univ
IS Atsushi Fukumoto IF NOMO Baseball Club

Tigers
1 Ikketsu Sho P Nara Sangyo Univ R/R 01/02/1986 181/86
x Hiromichi Fujiwara
x Keijiro Matsumoto

2 Kohei Shibata OF Kokusai Budo Univ L/L 07/17/1986 175/72
3 Hiroki Uemoto IF Waseda Univ R/R 07/04/1986 173/70
4 Ken Nishimura P Kyushu Sangyo Univ R/R 12/04/1986 182/80

(Sho's real name in Chinese is Yi-Jie Hsiao)

IS Takuya Nohara OF BCL Toyama Thunderbirds
IS Koji Yoshioka P Tokiwa Univ
IS Kosei Fujii IF Kakokita HS

Dragons
1 Kei Nomoto OF Nippon Express L/L 07/07/1984 180/76
2 Junki Itoh P Gifu Johoku HS L/R 01/07/1991 186/73
3 Kyohei Iwasaki IF Tokai Univ L/R 04/04/1986 178/73
4 Shohei Takashima P Teikyo HS R/R 08/04/1990 175/81
5 Shinji Iwata P Meiji Univ L/R 01/27/1987 181/80
6 Ryosuke Oguma P Ohmi HS R/R 08/11/1990 180/80
7 Shingo Itoh OF Chukyodai Chukyo HS L/R 05/27/1990 184/82

IS Satoshi Katoh OF Osaka Sangyo Univ
IS Takaya Kobayashi OF Tokyo Yayoi Club

Carp
1 Takahiro Iwamoto OF Asia Univ L/L 04/18/1986 182/82
2 Ren Nakata P Koryo HS R/R 07/21/1990 188/80
3 Takeshi Komatsu P Hosei Univ R/R 09/26/1986 179/75
4 Son-Hyon Shin IF Kyoto Kokusai HS R/R 10/19/1990 183/80

IS Shota Matsuda P Kanazawa Gakuin Higashi HS

Swallows
1 Katsuki Akagawa P Miyazaki Shogyo HS L/L 07/31/1990 184/87
2 Ryosuke Yagi P Kyoei HS L/L 09/29/1990 179/71
3 Yuhei Nakamura C Fukui Shogyo HS R/R 06/17/1990 178/70
4 Ryo Hidaka P Nippon Bunridai HS L/L 07/19/1990 181/73
5 Genki Nitta C Panasonic R/R 08/22/1982 172/80

IS Miranda Fernandez P Hakuoh Univ (real name: Rafael Fernandez)
IS Koji Tsukamoto P SIL Kagawa Olive Guyners

Baystars
1 Keijiro Matsumoto OF Waseda Univ L/L 06/24/1986 180/78
2 Hitoshi Fujie P Toho Gas R/R 01/27/1986 177/68
3 Noriharu Yamazaki IF Yokohama Shogyo Univ R/R 12/13/1986 177/76
4 Takeshi Hosoyamada C Waseda Univ R/R 04/29/1986 178/75
5 Yota Kosugi P JR Higashinihon R/R 12/08/1985 185/78

Pacific League

Lions
1 Yuta Nakazaki P Nichinan Gakuen HS L/L 03/11/1991 179/79
2 Ryoma Nogami P Nissan R/R 06/15/1987 177/68
3 Hideto Asamura IF Osaka Toin HS R/R 11/12/1990 181/78
4 Ryo Sakata OF Hakodate Univ L/R 10/02/1986 178/86
5 Tatsuya Takeno C Fukuoka Univ R/R 05/14/1986 180/82
6 Kazuki Miyata P Koga Kenko Iryo SG L/L 11/16/1988 182/75

Buffaloes
1 Takuya Kai P Tokaidai 3 HS R/R 12/18/1990 181/78
2 Masaki Ihara P Kansai Kokusai Univ L/L 11/04/1986 185/75
3 Yuki Nishi P Komono HS R/R 11/10/1990 180/80
4 Tsuyoshi Takashima IF Aoyama Gakuin Univ R/R 05/29/1986 176/78
5 Masato Nishikawa P SIL Ehime Pirates R/R 06/17/1982 184/90

Fighters
1 Shota Ohno C Toyo Univ R/R 01/13/1987 177/77
2 Ryo Sakakibara P Kansai Kokusai Univ R/R 08/04/1985 175/68
3 Toshiyuki Yanuki P Mitsubishi Fuso Kawasaki R/R 12/15/1983 190/85
4 Kenji Tsuchiya P Yokohama HS L/L 10/04/1990 179/73
5 Takuya Nakashima IF Fukuoka Kogyo HS L/R 01/11/1991 175/67
6 Kenshi Sugiya IF Teikyo HS S/R 02/04/1991 173/75
7 Keisuke Tanimoto P VitalNet R/R 01/28/1985 166/65

Marines
1 Yuta Kimura P Tokyo Gas L/L 05/21/1985 190/86
2 Hisayoshi Chono OF Honda R/R 12/06/1984 178/80
3 Hiroki Ueno P Toyo Univ R/R 10/13/1986 181/78
4 Toshiki Tsuboi P Tsukuba Univ L/L 07/07/1986 184/68
5 Tetsuya Yamamoto P Kobe Kokusai HS R/R 06/06/1990 180/80
6 Ryoji Katsuki P Kumamoto Golden Larks R/R 01/22/1984 180/79

IS Yukihiro Kimoto P Hidaka Nakatsu HS L/R 07/31/1990 181/66
IS Akira Suzue P BCL Shinano Grandserows R/R 12/25/1986 180/93
IS Kota Sumi IF Tokaidai Sagami HS L/R 01/13/1991 168/74
IS Yuto Ikuyama IF SIL Kagawa Olive Guyners L/R 05/10/1985 183/78
IS Yuji Nishino P Shin Minato HS R/R 03/06/1991 180/72
IS Yoshifumi Okada OF All Ashikaga Club L/L 07/06/1984 170/70
IS Masashi Yoshida IF Ota Kogyo HS S/R 04/08/1990 180/77
IS Takahiro Tanaka P Yokaichi Minami HS R/R 09/07/1990 183/83

Eagles
1 Hiromichi Fujiwara P NTT Nishinihon L/L 01/15/1985 177/77
x Kei Nomoto
2 Taishi Nakagawa IF Sakuragaoka HS R/R 06/08/1990 185/89
3 Ryohei Isaka P Sumitomo Metals Kashima R/R 10/19/1984 186/75
4 Yusuke Inoue P Aoyama Gakuin Univ R/R 09/05/1986 181/83
5 Yusuke Kusuki OF Panasonic R/R 01/27/1984 177/80
6 Wataru Karashima P Iizuka HS L/L 10/18/1990 174/72

IS Jobu Morita IF SIL Kagawa Olive Guyners

Hawks
1 Shingo Tatsumi P Kinki Univ L/R 01/10/1987 182/67
x Taishi Ota
2 Soichiro Tateoka OF Chinsei HS R/R 05/18/1990 181/78
3 Reo Chikada P Hotoku Gakuen HS L/L 04/30/1990 177/82
4 Sho Arima P Nichinan Gakuen HS L/L 06/05/1990 174/75
5 Tadashi Settsu P JR Higashinihon Tohoku R/R 06/01/1982 182/83
6 Mu-yon Kim P SIL Fukuoka Red Warblers R/R 11/22/1985 180/78
7 Shunya Suzuki P Yamagata Chuo HS R/R 01/08/1991 182/75

IS Koji Uchida P Osaka Sangyo Univ R/R
IS Akira Niho P Kyushu Kokusai Univ R/R
IS Yohei Yanagawa P Fukui Miracle Elephants R/R
IS Kentaro Inomoto C Chinzei HS R/R
IS Hayato Doue C SIL Kagawa Olive Guyners R/R


(I know the team is really "Ehime Mandarin Pirates" but condensed it for the chart.)

(some extra info from Patrick)

Okay, now I have the main guys entered entirely, all of the Ikusei (instructional, taxi squad, whatever you wanna call them) guys entered at least in name, position, and where they came from, but I only have the vitals for the ones where it was easy (like Chiba Lotte making a page about their draft picks -- thanks guys!)

I got a lot of this information from Nikkan Sports and Sankei Sports but the main list with the ikusei draft is best on Sportsnavi, linked above.

Thoughts so far: WOW, Iwata went low. So did Hosoyamada, and I am surprised that teams like Chunichi and Hanshin weren't going more for catchers. And Hisayoshi Chono can BITE ME, I swear if I see him next year on Lotte it's gonna be really hard for me to actually cheer for him. I kind of hoped the Giants would get him so I could hate him there, but instead they did the right thing and took that gigantic HS kid Taishi Ota who's gonna pound a billion home runs or whatever. Oh yeah, it sucks that Ota went to the Giants, anyway.

Oh yeah, and the Fighters got Tsuchiya! From Yokohama HS! I don't remember him being anything special but DAMN does he have a rubber left arm, so that's always good.

There's a lot of guys out of the Shikoku Island league drafted, though mostly in the ikusei part. Still, that is either good or bad news for the league, depending on how you look at it.

Also there were several names that were very obviously Chinese or Korean to me but I wasn't sure. And a Fernandez guy in the ikusei draft that I'm guessing is maybe part Japanese, but don't really know.

Anyway, more pictures from today:



Shota Ono with his mask on.


Ono at bat.


Ono hits a double to lead off the 5th inning!!


Takahiro Iwamoto, from Asia-dai, taken in the first round by Hiroshima.


Iwamoto slides into home plate to score Asia's only run of today's game. Note Toyo catcher Ono is waiting for the ball.


And another one of Hiroki Ueno for the heck of it. He was in a really good mood today, for obvious reasons.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Game Report: Todai vs. Hosei - Revenge of the Nerds

You know all of that stuff about "make legend" and whatnot that the Yomiuri Giants are dishing out? Well, I watched a miracle of a different sort take place on Monday at a Tokyo Big 6 League game, when the Tokyo University team beat Hosei University.

This might not seem like a big deal to you, but given that the last time Todai actually won 2 games in a season was 5 years ago... yeah. Todai is known for its difficult entrance exams and geeky students, and for producing the country's future leaders, not for putting out high-quality sports teams. They have been the doormat of the Tokyo Big 6 league pretty much since its inception, with a stellar record of 241-1430-52. Hosei leads the league with 42 championships, Waseda follows with 40, Meiji 32, Keio 31, Rikkio 12, and Tokyo... well... let's just say their best season ever was when they were in FOURTH place in 1946.

If there's a Japanese equivalent of the nerd cheer "That's all right, that's okay, THEY'RE gonna work for US someday" that my college marching band used to yell, I'm sure Todai yells it.

Anyway, I actually went to this game to watch Tokyo win, which might seem like an odd thing given what I've just explained, but what I didn't mention is that this year they actually have a pitcher who doesn't totally completely suck. His name is Yuuichi Suzuki, he's a tall left-handed kid from Aichi prefecture, and somehow he's been putting up ERAs around 5, which is damn good for Todai (last year's ace, Takuya Shigenobu, generally posted ERAs in the 8's). This year it's even lower -- he has two wins and a tie, although he's also been throwing about 180 pitches per game. (You want unreal? Look at pitcher stats for the league; Suzuki's at the bottom with his 3.78 ERA. But that's not the big deal -- look at the IP, batters faced, etc! Geez -- every other team has other pitchers except Todai.)

Of course, like the idiot I am, I accidentally ended up sitting on the Hosei side. I arrived early, towards the end of the Meiji-Rikkio game -- got to see Yusuke Nomura pitch an inning, apparently he's set some kind of record by pitching 34 innings with no earned runs or something. You might remember Nomura from the Koshien 2007 finals -- he pitched Koryo all the way there until his arm gave out with two innings left and he gave up that fateful grand slam to Soejima of the Saga Kita Miracle Squad.

I realized two things as the games changed:

1) I was on the Hosei side
2) I was on the third base side, which usually makes for less exciting photography. Oops.

But since I managed to get a seat in the VERY FRONT ROW, right next to the camera well, with nothing but a fence between me and the field, I figured I wasn't about to move. Plus Hosei pitcher Kazuhito Futagami started warming up and it was much more interesting to take photos of him than to think about my seating location.

Being as I'm writing most of this post offline, I'm going to just throw pictures at the end of it. First, here's my scorecard:


Hosei Univ 5 - 4 Tokyo Univ
Monday, October 27, 2008

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Hosei 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 4 9 0
Tokyo 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 1X 5 10 1

Attendance: 1500


Hosei AB R H RB K BB SH SB E 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Kamegai, rf 3 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 S7 .. F7 BB .. E4 .. BB ..
Itoh, 2b 4 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 b1 .. G4 F8 .. F9 .. S9 ..
Kajiya, lf 3 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 BB .. F9 .. KS .. F8 .. ..
Kita, cf 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Ohyagi, ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. F7 ..
Komatsu, p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Sasaki, 1b 5 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 S7 .. .. S7 G5 .. D7 .. F9
Matsumoto, cf-lf-cf 3 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 KS .. .. b1 F4 .. BB .. G5
Ishikawa, c 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 F9 .. .. F8 .. H7 G6 .. L1
Waizumi, 3b 3 2 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 .. G2 .. S8 .. F7 .. HP ..
Nanba, ss 3 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 .. G3 .. T8 .. G4 .. b1 ..
Futagami, p 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 .. G6 .. BB .. S8 .. .. ..
Kagami, p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Tateishi, ph 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. KS ..
Iwashima, lf 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..


Tokyo AB R H RB K BB SH SB E 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Furugaki, cf 4 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 KS .. .. S9 G1 .. KS .. ..
Horiguchi, cf 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Iwasaki, 3b 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 G6 .. .. b1 .. G3 .. KS ..
Takahashi, 2b 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 KS .. .. F9 .. F9 .. KS ..
Utsumi, rf 3 1 1 1 2 0 0 1 0 .. KS .. S9 .. KS .. .. ..
Kihara, rf 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. F8 ..
Maeshiro, lf 4 2 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 .. KS .. D7 .. .. D8 .. S7
Suzuki, p 4 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. KS .. G3 .. .. S1 .. G4
Kasai, 1b 3 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. G3 .. F4 .. S9 .. ..
Nishiyama, pr 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Ijiri, 1b 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. IW
Ohtsubo, c 4 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 .. .. KS .. S9 .. G6 .. S7
Hamada, ss 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. KS .. KB .. G5 .. ..
Ageba, ph 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. I4


Hosei IP BF NP H HR K BBH RA ER
Futagami 6 25 92 7 0 9 0 4 4
Kagami 1 3 14 0 0 1 0 0 0
Komatsu (loss) 1.1 8 35 3 0 2 1 1 1

Tokyo IP BF NP H HR K BBH RA ER
Suzuki (win) 9 42 167 9 1 3 6 4 4


This game started exactly how you would expect any game against Todai to start -- the other team immediately managed to load the bases in the first inning, though somehow Suzuki-kun got out of the jam (despite throwing a pickoff throw to second at one point and having the second baseman totally not notice and the ball went into centerfield). And of course the Todai batters spent the first three innings pretty much striking out. (Come on, 7 strikeouts in the first 9 batters? Sheesh! You ever wonder where guys like Yuki Saito get their college strikeout records from? Meet Todai.) The only interesting thing to happen in the first 3 innings was actually when 1B Kasai grounded out to first, but his bat went flying over the dugout and nearly splintered a cameraman.

Things picked up in the fourth inning. A lady a few seats down from me was yelling all of the players' names and yelling "NICE!!! NICE!!!" after pretty much everything, starting in that inning. Hosei's firstbaseman Sasaki led off with a single and moved to second on a bunt, and tagged up to move to third on catcher Ishikawa's pop fly to center. (I suppose they weren't expecting a particularly strong throw in.) Chatterbox thirdbaseman Shota Waizumi singled to center after that, scoring Sasaki. 1-0. Waizumi stole second during shortstop Nanba's at-bat, but it was irrelevant as Nanba hit a monster fly ball out to center, and Furugaki stumbled around trying to get it and the play was a stand-up triple by the time the dust settled, Waizumi easily scoring. 2-0. Suzuki-kun walked the next two batters, pitcher Futagami and centerfielder Kamegai, but then got an easy popout from secondbaseman Itoh to end the inning. Whew. It was one batter short of a rally.

I guess maybe Futagami let up on the Todai batters a bit at that point because Furugaki immediately made up for his outfield slowness by hitting a single through the Hosei second baseman. Freshman thirdbaseman Shuhei Iwasaki, who turned 19 on Tuesday, bunted Furugaki up to second, and then secondbaseman Takahashi hit a big pop fly out. But cleanup batter Shota Utsumi, all 5'10" and 150 pounds of him, hit a blooper to right field that actually fell for a single. Furugaki had advanced on a wild pitch, so he scored on the single! 2-1. During Takeru Maeshiro's at-bat, Utsumi stole second, and I really have no clue how it was successful given that it was the worst jump and slowest running I've ever seen, but whatever. Maeshiro, who would eventually be 3-for-4 on the day, doubled to left, scoring Utsumi, and Todai had TIED THE GAME! 2-2. Suzuki grounded out to end the inning and get his butt back on the mound.

This amazing state of Todai not losing lasted for all of 2 innings before Hosei catcher Shuhei Ishikawa got a good pitch and launched it over the left-field wall for a solo home run. 3-2.

Around 4pm, which was about the bottom of the 6th inning, it started to get dark outside, but they didn't actally turn the lights on until around 4:30pm, halfway through the bottom of the 7th. I wonder if that was responsible for Todai actually starting to pick up, or not... Maeshiro led off the bottom of the 7th with a double to the centerfield wall, and then Suzuki-kun meant to bunt him up but actually was safe on a bad throw to first. Kasai singled to right, scoring Maeshiro (3-3!) and moving Suzuki to third, and the Hosei manager took Futagami out of the game, replacing him with sophomore Kisho Kagami. Kagami got Ohtsubo to ground to short, with a pinch-running Nishiyama out at second on the play, but Suzuki scored. 4-3 and Tokyo actually had the lead again. Whoa.

Oh yeah, Suzuki managed to pick runner Sasaki off second in the top of the 7th. That was pretty funny, though I vaguely ascribe it to the dark lights plus Todai's second baseman not napping for once.

Anyway, before I make him sound superhuman again, he started off the top of the 8th by plunking chatterbox Shota Waizumi in the arm. Waizumi had spent the entire pitching change in the bottom of the 7th talking to Suzuki and coach Kuroiwa, but I have no idea if he said anything that would inspire being hit, it looked like an accident. Nanba bunted Waizumi up to second, and eventually he scored on a two-out single to right by secondbaseman Nobuhiro Itoh. It was actually a fairly good throw in, but I think the Todai catcher was afraid of the runner. No, just kidding, it was a close play at the plate, but Hosei tied the game, 4-4.

Hosei ace pitcher Takeshi Komatsu came in to pitch the 8th and 9th. The 8th he did very quickly and effectively -- two strikeouts and a pop out before anyone had even noticed the inning starting. But the 9th... that was another story.

Suzuki-kun was somehow STILL OUT THERE PITCHING and had managed to get through Hosei quickly in the top of the 9th as well, so the bottom of the 9th started with Maeshiro at the plate and Suzuki in the on-deck circle. Maeshiro got yet another hit, singling to left, to start the fun. Suzuki came up bunting but went down grounding out to second -- it was still effective and moved Maeshiro to second. After that, first baseman Tetsuya Ijiri came up, and... and I'm not sure why, but they intentionally walked him. (I can't honestly imagine any reason to walk any Todai batter, but that's just me. You know their best batters are usually batting around .200 or so. Iwasaki is batting .220 this year, amazingly.) Catcher Ohtsubo came up after that, with runners at first and second, and he hit a big blooper to left field, and Hosei left fielder Iwashima chased it down, ran, ran, dived.. and it FELL! I guess the Todai runners weren't ready for that, which is why they stopped at third.

Ryo Ageha, who batted under .100 last season, pinch-hit for Hamada after that. And Ageha stayed there and... and fouled off the ball. A LOT. Eventually he finally didn't foul off a ball, he hit a weak grounder, and (I think) the secondbaseman ran in, got the ball, and threw it home, but Maeshiro managed to slide in safe before the throw got there and OH MY GOD TODAI ACTUALLY WON THE GAME! 5-4.

Man, what a surprise.

Suzuki, Maeshiro, and Ageha were the game heroes.

What was really funny is, as the Todai players were jumping up and down hugging each other and going nuts on the field, I saw a flash of light, and I'm like "Is that lightning? Hmm..." I left after a little while, and not 5 minutes later, the skies opened up. And I'm not just talking a little bit of rain, I'm talking HAIL, RAIN, THUNDER, LIGHTNING, ETC. It's as if some major balance in the universe had just been thrown out of whack and the weather had to make up for it.

Anyway, here are some photos from the day:


Meiji pitcher Yusuke Nomura, formerly of Koryo HS. Won the league ERA title this year with a humongous 0.00 ERA.


After losing the game, the Rikkio captain addresses the fans and apologizes. This was their last game of the year.


Kazuhito Futagami, the Hosei starting pitcher, warming up.


Futagami on the mound.


Yuuichi Suzuki, Todai ace, pitching.


Suzuki-kun at bat.


Todai mound conference. I kind of imagine it being like "So uh... Suzuki-kun... you know... we've got a lot of brains on this team but not many arms... just yours... so please use them... brains too, okay?"


Suzuki sliding into third base in the 7th inning.


Chatterbox Waizumi talking to Suzuki at 3rd base.


Skinniest cleanup batter ever, Shota Utsumi. Batted in the first Todai run.


Super-young third baseman Iwasaki tries to bunt and mostly succeeds.


This was such a funny picture of centerfielder Furugaki running that I just had to post it. This was off that wild pitch in the 4th inning.


Surprisingly, this is the only picture I took of Maeshiro all day. Weird.


The infamous Todai marching band. They don't do a field show, but instead they get up and run across the (tons of) empty seats in the stands as part of their performance. It's kind of like marching but a lot cooler in some ways.


Hosei outfielder Iwashima.


Hosei's Takeshi Komatsu.


Komatsu again.


OH MY GOD TODAI WINS!!!!


Final scoreboard.



By the way, if you actually read all of this and are wondering, the reason why I wrote up this game and uploaded it with higher priority than the Dragons and Fighters playoff games I attended... well, between being busy moving and doing paperwork and preparing to go back to the US, plus not having internet at home, my priorities have gotten out of whack. And I have pictures of Todai, but not so much with the others. Plus, there are already articles about those games in English, but I have this vague feeling very few native English speakers go cheer for Todai's baseball team, let alone blog about it :)

Friday, October 24, 2008

Shortest update ever

(probly delete this entry in a few days when I have a chance to sit down at a place with internet again and replace it)

I went to the Fighters-Lions playoff game Sunday. The Fighters won, amazingly, going way ahead on a Sledge home run and having the pitchers mostly hold down the fort. Tadano had us biting our fingernails and oddly so did Micheal but everything worked out in the end. I cheered my lungs out by the ouendan (also got indirectly yelled at by the ouendan, but I'll talk about that more later) and saw a lot of old and new friends before and after the game, and got to bug Sweeney as usual, it was probly one of the more fun pre-games ever.

I finished my job on Tuesday, so I was able to go to the playoff game on Wednesday. Hideaki Wakui started for the Lions and had a PERFECT GAME going for 6.2 innings; we nearly all cried when Inaba, who was DHing, got a single in the 7th inning. Seriously. The Lions won 9-0 and it was just a slaughter. I had a great time hanging out with people, but it was really sad at the end when the team lost, a lot of my friends were crying. The Lions are going to the Japan Series, which I guess is okay with me because Saitama is easier to get to than Sapporo, and it keeps up Simon's hope of a Lions-Lions-Lions-Lions Asia Series, but I was really kind of hoping to go back to Hokkaido sometime. I guess there's always next year.

I have a set date to go back to the US of November 18th. I'm coming back to Japan on February 3rd.

I'm also going to the Dragons-Giants playoff game tonight (Oct 24), with Pau-the-Tigers-fan-who-will-be-forced-to-cheer-for-the-Dragons. Should be fun.

More later -- gonna try to catch some Tokyo Big 6 games this weekend too, I hope.

EDIT> Fighters news:
Hajime Miki retired, is becoming a ni-gun infield coach

Teppei Komai also retired, is becoming a bullpen catcher

Wow. Komai I understand -- he was gonna be released anyway -- but Miki is two weeks older than me, he's too young to retire dammit :)

And all the foreign players went home but I guess that's to be expected. I wonder who will be back next year :(

Monday, October 20, 2008

Choking Tiger, Hittin' Dragon

I am so totally going to get punched in the face for making this one, but I couldn't help it when I saw this photo on Sanspo...



I realize they're not exactly in the right positions for the joke. Whatever. The Dragons managed to actually beat the Tigers in the 3-game Central League first stage playoffs. The game was tied at 0-0 for what seemed like freaking forever until Kyuji accidentally gave Tyrone an offer he couldn't refuse, and BAM, 2-0. Crazy.

Also, the Rays and Phillies are playing in the World Series! Awesome! I am, of course, rooting for the Phillies. And in a weird twist of fate, at the new place I just moved into, I don't have internet, and I don't have very good reception for terrestrial TV stations, but I *do* have BS1 and BS2, which means I should actually be able to watch the World Series, assuming I wake up early enough, but I won't be able to blog it.

(Yeah, so I moved from the south butt-end of Saitama to the north butt-end of Tokyo; I'll be living there for the next month or so before I head back to America for 2-3 months for family reasons, and then I hope to return to Japan early next year for baseball season.)

It also means that my blog-updating is going to be even more sporadic over the next few weeks. Sorry. You should go read other blogs like the Tsubamegun, they've been on a mad updating rampage recently despite the Swallows crashing into a glass window this year.

I went to the Seibu Dome on Sunday and watched the Fighters win a game there for my first time EVER. Seriously. In 3 years of watching Fighters-Lions matches, I never managed to see the Fighters win. And boy, was this the right time for it. I do have an entry in the works about that game, hopefully I'll be able to finish it sometime, when I'm not going nuts finishing up my job or cleaning my old apartment or unpacking in my new place or trying to actually GO to more postseason games, like this coming Wednesday night at Seibu, when the Fighters will win the championship!

At the same time, on Wednesday night, the Dragons and Giants will start the Central League Second Stage. I wonder whether all those Tigers fans who bought up tickets will still go to the games, or whether there's suddenly going to be a whole bunch of tickets available at the resellers...

Friday, October 17, 2008

Playoff Game Report: Fighters vs. Buffaloes @ Osaka Dome -- Shaggy and Tsooby Save the Day

On October 12, in a turn of events that almost nobody expected, Shugo Fujii prevented a Buffaloes stampede, Tomochika Tsuboi went 4-for-4, and Jason Botts iced the showdown with a 2-run shot into the right-field stands, as the Fighters advanced to the Pacific League playoffs Second Stage.

And I was there. And it was awesome.

My day started in Saitama prefecture at around 7am, and I guess I reached the Osaka Dome around 12:45pm. I found Matt The Baystars Fan outside the stadium and hung out for a bit, but seeing as he was wearing a Rhodes #8 towel and planning to root for the Buffaloes, I figured it was best for me to go join with the proper forces as quickly as possible, and I went into the stadium.

Thanks to a certain Larry Rocca, I actually had a seat in the very front row of the bleachers, right behind Hichori Morimoto, or where Hichori would be later; when I arrived, the pitchers were out there shagging BP flies. That was pretty sweet. I put my bags down, then went a few sections over so I could yell down to the field.

"HEY! BRIAN SWEENEY! WHAT'S UP!"

He turned and looked up and waved. "Oh hey! You made it!"

"Yeah! How's it going?"

"Not bad, not bad... you coming tomorrow too?"

"Whaddaya mean TOMORROW? Aren't you guys going to win TODAY?"

He laughed. "Well... yeah..."

"But I have a ticket for tomorrow, yeah, if for some reason you DON'T win today. Are you pitching if there's a game?"

"Nah, I think it's gonna be Ryan."

"Awww, okay. I'll come see you pitch at Seibu next week then."

"Yeah... see you! Thanks for coming! Enjoy the game!" He waved again and walked off towards a few other players.

Two members of the Fighters ouendan came up to me after that and were like "Hey, that was really cool, what were you saying? Can you help us yell at Ryan Glynn in English? English is really tough but we wish we could talk to the foreign players." I taught them to say "good luck" and some other stuff. It turned out they had come down from Sapporo, and were only 17 years old. Crazy. You'd never see that in the States, I don't think.

I looked around to see if I could find any of my friends from Kanto, but the only people I recognized were Osaka-based fans that I'd met on prior trips. Eventually I did see a lady wearing a "Tomochika #7" jersey that I was pretty sure I'd seen at the Kamagaya kouhakusen, so I basically went up and asked if she'd been at Kamagaya, and sure enough, she was, and we got to talking, and she explained that she'd been a Tsuboi fan for 10 years or so, back from the days of the Hanshin Tigers Tsuboi-Shinjo-Hiyama "Pretty Boy Outfield", and she kind of followed him to the Fighters. When the outfielders started warming up, I yelled with her, "TSUBOI-SAAAAAAN!" and he actually looked up and waved at us. She nearly fainted.

I also confirmed from her that the Fighters basically DID just take Tsuboi's fanfare from the Tigers ouendan. She told me that she actually cried the first time she went to a Fighters game after Tsuboi was traded, and heard the fanfare again. Her dedication almost makes me feel guilty that I didn't follow Ogasawara to the Giants... wait, no it doesn't. Kutabare Yomiuri.

She really hoped Tsuboi would be in the lineup. I said I doubted it would happen, but if he was, surely he would do really well for her sake. As I went back towards my seat, she told me to please cheer for Tsuboi, and I promised I would.

Imagine my surprise when about ten minutes later, we were all cheering the starting lineups, and not only was Itoi leading off, Inaba wasn't playing (apparently he had a light back injury?), but batting 7th and playing left field was the aforementioned Tsuboi!

Fighters                Buffaloes
-------- ---------
Itoi RF Ikki 2B
Hichori CF Shimoyama RF
Kensuke 2B Cabrera 1B
Sledge 1B Tuffy SMASH! DH
Shinji C Hamanaaaaaaaka LF
Koyano 3B Hidaka C
Tsuboi-chan LF Kitagawa 3B
Jason Botts DH Mitsutaka Gotoh SS
Kaneko! SS Sakaguchi CF

Fujii (3-8, 3.25) Komatsu (15-3, 2.51)


One really bizarre thing to note. Here's what my view looked like as the game started. Take a look at the 3rd base infield. The outfield was packed as expected, but...







The Osaka Dome seats around 37,000 people.

The game attendance for this game was 26,703.

Seriously, as the game started, I was in disbelief over the sheer amount of empty space there was. I realize the Orix Buffaloes are not that popular compared to their crosstown ferocious feline friends, and the Fighters have most of their fanbase concentrated in Sapporo and Tokyo, but.. these are the PLAYOFFS! Are there not more people in Osaka who'd want to come see such a game? They could sell out Kiyohara's final game, but could NOT sell out the actual season final game? What the heck is up with that?

To put it in another perspective... 31,139 people went to Skymark Stadium that evening to see a meaningless game between the Tigers and Dragons.

I just don't get it. Should they have perhaps charged a little less for tickets, like Seibu decided to do? I mean, the OUTFIELD seating was all completely full...

As the game started, the Fighters went down quickly in the first inning, but Kensuke Tanaka fouled a ball into the stands on the third-base side, and I really have to wonder what the TV announcers were saying as the ball bounced into a COMPLETELY EMPTY section of seats, and several young boys chased it down the aisle.

And Fujii pitched a 1-2-3 inning.

The second inning started off much like the first, two fairly quick outs (the first on a web gem play by Mitsutaka Gotoh, who snagged the ball and threw to first base from a spin), and then Eiichi Koyano got the first hit of the game, a line drive to center for a single. BAM! Then that Tsuboi-chan hit a fly ball to center, which dropped for a double, him sliding into second base headfirst as Koyano reached third. Big Jason Botts got up to a full count before walking, which loaded the bases.

Makoto "Clutchest 9-spot Batter EVER" Kaneko came up to bat with two outs and the bases loaded, and I was thinking that it was the perfect Kaneko time to have some completely unexpected heroics, and sure enough, he hit this towering pop fly into the infield. What happened next was both unexpected and heroic, as Orix 2B Ikki Shimamura ran in and dived for the ball and missed. Koyano and Tsuboi scored as Ikki was lying sprawled on the ground and Kaneko reached first base. 2-0.

And Fujii pitched a 1-2-3 inning.

In the top of the third, Kensuke Tanaka singled, and stole second base on a swinging third strike by Terrmel Sledge, but that was it.

And Fujii pitched a 1-2-3 inning.

I started talking to some of the people around me; turns out the women sitting next to me had come down from Nagoya, and the guy sitting behind me was from Sendai. This may explain why the stadium was so empty. After Tsuboi-chan managed another hit in the top of the 4th, this one a deep infield single to secondbaseman Ikki which had him beat the throw by a hair, and a single by Jason Botts as well, Makoto Kaneko came up to the plate with two guys on and one out. I vaguely wondered why we weren't doing chance music in such a situation, and His Clutchiness chose that moment to ground into a double play to end the inning.

And Fujii walked the leadoff batter Ikki Shimamura.

Hichori made a freaking amazing play after that -- Shinji Shimoyama hit a monster pop fly to right field and somehow Hichori managed to get there for it, making a backhand catch as he almost ran into the INAX sign. And then Kensuke Tanaka decided to repay Gotoh's earlier kindness by making his own FANTASTIC snag of the ball deep in the infield, throwing in a spin to catch Alex Cabrera at first, as Ikki went to second. Two outs, and still a no-hitter.

Tuffy Rhodes came to the plate and Shaggy Shugo lost his no-hitter and shutout all in one swing, as Rhodes hit a legitimate single up the middle and Ikki scored. 2-1. Hamanaaaaaaaaaka struck out after that to end the inning.


Cheering for Kensuke Tanaka.


The game actually seemed to be passing amazingly fast; before I even knew it we were singing the Fighters sanka to start off the 5th inning, and after Itoi hit a popout, Hichori walked, and Kensuke Tanaka singled to center, moving the fleet-footed Hichori to third. Sledge came to bat and the ouendan were making very strange hand movements, which I learned a moment later were because they wanted to start the Genghis Khan chance music.

Which is mostly a Sapporo-only theme, and usually I imitate the fans in front of me to follow along to it...

...except being in the very front row, that raised a slight problem...

...until I realized the Nagoya women next to me didn't know it either, so all three of us were looking stupid together. If there's one thing I've learned from Japan, it's that you can never quite look stupid as long as you're not ALONE in looking stupid.

Anyway, Sledge walked, loading the bases, and then Shinji Takahashi came up, and the Genghis Khan music continued. Shinji hit a pop fly to left field, and as Hamanaka and Gotoh both approached it, and we were all cheering, I yelled "落とせ~~!" ("Drop it!")

And uh, Gotoh dropped it. The ball took a comical bounce over both of them. Hichori took advantage of the moment to run home and score, 3-1. Everyone else advanced. The fans banzaied and high-fived. The Buffaloes looked confused. The Fighters ouendan thankfully changed to the Kanto-area Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang chance theme as Eiichi Koyano came to bat.

I was grateful to be doing a song I actually knew, which of course meant Koyano grounded into a double play. Whatever.

And Fujii pitched a 1-2-3 inning.

I still couldn't find my new Tsuboi-fan friend in the stands when I looked up, but sure enough, Tsuboi led off the 6th inning with yet another single to second; this time Shimamura got the ball on an awkward grounder shot, couldn't quite pick it up, and simply didn't throw to first. 3-for-3. Then Jason Botts grounded up the first-base line... he ran towards the base... the ball rolled past first.. was it foul? No! Oops. So the Buffaloes scurried to recover the ball while Tsuboi got to third. Kaneko's Wand of Clutchiness indeed seemed to have lost its power as he grounded back to the mound; Orix pitcher Komatsu, to his credit, judged the situation quickly and started running towards third base, where he and Hidaka and Kitagawa trapped Tsuboi in a rundown. The Fighters lost momentum with that play and the inning ended shortly after that.

And Fujii pitched another inning. Sakaguchi grounded out to short, but then Ikki Shimamura singled to center. Shimoyama singled to right, the ball bouncing in shallow right field. Rightfielder Yoshio Itoi, who hadn't done much of anything all game in the field OR at the plate, chose that very moment to charge the ball and make an Ichiro-style laserbeam throw from rightfield to third base, where an EXTREMELY surprised Ikki found Eiichi Koyano already waiting for him there with the ball. That spurred the entire Fighters outfield section to stand up and yell "いいぞ、いいぞ、糸井!" (essentially "Great play, Itoi!") You take our momentum, we take yours. Alex Cabrera hit a pop fly out after that and we got our Lucky 7 song started.

The Fighters flagbearer near me kept aiming his flagpole at another trumpet player's head as it came by and I kept ducking too because I'm too tall anyway.

In a strange fit of verisimilitude, the Fighters managed to be lucky enough to bring their score to 7 during the Lucky 7 inning, and they went through 3 pitchers to do it. LHP Tsuyoshi Kikuchihara had the honor of giving up a double to Kensuke Tanaka before Terrmel Sledge lined out right into shortstop Gotoh's glove. RHP Mamoru Kishida (!!!!) then struck out Shinji Takahashi before giving up a single to Eiichi Koyano that scored Kensuke (4-1). They apparently didn't consider the lefty-batting Tsuboi as a threat despite him already being 3-for-3 and hotter than a takoyaki grill, and Tsuboi responded by hitting the ball way out to left field; most of us were already standing up to cheer and we leaned over the wall to see what would happen, as it fell between the outfielders for another double! Tsuboi was 4-for-4! Koyano scored (5-1), Kudoh came in to pinch-run for Tsuboi, and Hidetaka Kawagoe, the former Orix ace, replaced Kishida on the mound.

I hoped we'd do the Ponyo theme for Jason Botts (complete with "big big home run" at the end). The ouendan started up the From the North Country chance music. Botts must have been thinking what I was thinking, because he chose that moment to, infact, hit a big big home run, just this line drive that was still rising into the air when it narrowly missed decapitating a few surprised balloon-holding Orix fans in the right-field stands. 7-1. Tomoyuki Oda pinch-hit for Kaneko and hit a popout before most of us had even stopped the banzai from the homerun.

Yeah, those poor Orix fans had to wait a REALLY long time for THEIR Lucky 7.

They had this ridiculous-looking gigantic inflatable Neppie mascot thingy on the field. I failed to take a reasonable photo of it, so Jeff sent me some from his broadcast screenshots:


(game screenshot)


I... really... don't... know.

And Shugo Fujii walked Tuffy Rhodes to start off the 7th and was finally taken out of the game, to thunderous applause from the Fighters faithful. Shaggy did us proud. Tateyama came out to the mound, but in the meantime Hichori gathered the outfielders (Itoi and Kudoh) together and reprised the Glovehead act, much to everyone's amusement:



"That's Hichori for you," I heard someone say behind me, "Always thinking of fan service."

Tateyama got himself into a jam and back out of a jam in the 7th, and then back into another jam, during which the Orix Buffaloes managed to score their second run of the game; Sakaguchi led off the bottom of the 8th with a single, moved up on Ikki's single, advanced to third on a pinch-hitting Muramatsu groundout and then scored when Alex Cabrera hit a towering sac fly to right field. 7-2.

I of course did not know it at the time, but Kazuhiro Kiyohara was apparently sitting in his private box at the stadium watching the game and feeling kind of grumpy about the sequence of events:



(screenshot from Jeff)


Makoto Yoshino and Daisuke Katoh held the Fighters down in the 8th and 9th innings, and the score remained 7-2 as the Orix Buffaloes came down to their last 3 outs of the 2008 season.

Just to make sure nothing went wrong, Fighters closer Micheal Nakamura came out to finish out the game.

And of course, that is exactly when things started going wrong. High-socks Hiroyuki Oze pinch-hit for Hamanaka and walked on four straight pitches. He stole second; there was no throw. It didn't matter because Takeshi Hidaka ALSO walked, this time on five pitches.

I had been thinking all game about how crazy it'd be if the Fighters really did win, how I'd have a day to spend in Osaka on Monday, how I'd need to find a way to return Monday's ticket (still haven't), and so on. But suddenly, I had this nagging thought...

"...what if they choke?"

Fortunately, Hirotoshi Kitagawa chose that moment to take the first pitch he saw and hit a big fly ball... which died in right field. One down.

Mitsutaka Gotoh was the next batter. First pitch... ball one. Second pitch... ball two. "What the heck??" I heard someone yell. "Get it together, Micheal!" yelled another.

Gotoh fouled off the next pitch, and the next pitch was a strike, and the next was a ball, and the entire left-field stands collectively bit their nails off as Gotoh swung and missed the 3-2 pitch. Two down.

Fortunately, whatever had gotten into Micheal stopped with the next batter, Sakaguchi, who took a few strikes, fouled one off, and ultimately grounded to short, where Yuji Iiyama ran the ball to second base for the forceout, and THAT WAS THE GAME! The FIGHTERS WIN IT 7-2 AND ADVANCE TO SECOND STAGE!!!!!

Whew.

All of us in front ran up to the railing and leaned over during the interviews. First manager Masataka Nashida gave an interview, and he said he was glad Fujii came through for the team, and of course he was impressed by how well Tsuboi did, and he thanked everyone for coming from all over Japan to watch the team win, and of course, to come watch Second Stage as well!


(Manager Nashida -- screenshot from Jeff)


The game hero was Shugo Fujii. I thought it should have been Fujii AND Tsuboi, but whatever, WE all knew how awesome Tsuboi was, that's what counts. Anyway, Shaggy thanked the fans for coming, and thanked Shinji Takahashi for calling a good game, and of course thanked the team for getting a great lead out for him so he could relax more while pitching.

I know I certainly didn't expect this outcome, but I am happy and proud for him too.


(Hero Fujii -- screenshot from Jeff)


After that, the Fighters actually all came out to the stands. They waved to the fans and we cheered like crazy for them and waved back. I thought it was a nice gesture.


(Fighters address the fans -- screenshot from Jeff)


Then after that it was just a big old party in left field.

Actually, first, we heard some drums from the Orix side, and their ouendan all, in unison, yelled towards us, "絶対勝つぞファイターズ!", which means, basically, "the Fighters will definitely win!"

We weren't really ready for this so most of us just turned to the other stands and bowed and waved, with no coherent call back. (Back in September we did a more organized call and answer between the two teams' ouendans, but I guess this was different.)

A minute later, from the Orix side, we heard: "西武倒せファイターズ!" which means "Beat Seibu, Fighters!"

This time we banged our cheer sticks and applauded waved and yelled various things back, all to the effect of "thank you" and "good luck next year". It was nice. I'm really glad and honored to be part of such a fanbase.

The poor Osaka Dome people put up a sign on the big boards...


Basically "Thanks for supporting us this past year".


And then we all sang and sang and sang until everyone's voices ran out and we got kicked out of the Osaka Dome, essentially. We did the lineups and the songs for each player; then the ouendan leaders called out each players' accomplishments and we sang songs for them ("Tsuboi was 4-for-4, can you believe it? Let's sing his song," and so on).

Around that time, two guys from the Hokkaido Broadcasting Company cornered me with a videocamera, in a kind of "whoa! a gaijin, let's interview her!" sort of way.

Sadly, I am not very good at being interviewed. They asked me if I could understand Japanese and I said yes, and they asked where I live, and I said, in my usual deadpan, "Saitama." After a brief shock/amusement moment they corrected to "Err, what country are you from?" and I said I'm from America, and they asked how long I'd been a Fighters fan, and I told them for the last 6 years or so, and they were surprised and asked me why. I think I botched the Japanese but I basically explained that from the very first time I saw the Fighters at the Tokyo Dome, during Hillman's first year as manager, the fans were always so amazingly nice to me, and were so enthusiastic for the team, that I wanted to be part of such a great group, and I fell in love with the team along the way.

I was wearing my Hichori shirt and towel but a Kensuke wristband around the towel so they asked if I was a Kensuke fan, and I said "I like everyone, but I like Hichori best," and then they asked me to please say an ouen message for the Fighters into the camera, so I yelled ”頑張ってファイターズ!絶対勝つぞ!” and the guys were like "Errr... can you say an ENGLISH message for us?"

Well, quite frankly, I realized this is a major cultural gap thing -- anything that would be typical to yell in English, like "Yeah Fighters! Good job guys!!! Wooooo!! Kick ass! Take names! Go get the Lions!" or whatever... wouldn't really be appropriate. On the other hand, translating a typically Japanese message into English ALSO wouldn't make any sense.

I thought for a minute and yelled, "Let's go Fighters! I'll see you in Saitama next week! Congratulations!!"

The reporters looked at each other like "What did she say about Saitama?"

Then after conferring between each other, and most likely deciding I was the stupidest gaijin on the face of the planet, they thanked me for my time and moved on to less retarded people to interview.

So that was pretty strange. From what I can tell, I didn't make it onto the broadcast, though you never know.

After that... some more singing. Some more talking. I ran into some other Osaka Fighters fans that I knew from past games and said hi, and I caught up with the Sapporo ouendan kids for a bit and said I'd see them at Seibu, and I found the Tsuboi fan from before the game and we gushed about how awesome he was for a while and exchanged email addresses; I'll also see her at Seibu. In general there was just a lot of "wow! amazing! see you next week!" going around with everyone. I'm really not sure anyone expected things to go like this.

I got a call from Matt the Baystars Fan; he and John the Tigers Fan were both hanging out near the homeplate entrance. They'd been cheering for the Buffaloes and had exited the dome quite a while earlier, but we were waiting for me, so I went out to find them, which wasn't hard.

The nice thing about being with other English-speaking friends is that I can ask them to take really crazy pictures of me and explain exactly what I have in mind, so I made Matt and John help me with a concept or two I had by the Buffaloes player wall on the way to the train station...



Kiyohara, Kiyohara, wherefore art thou Kiyohara? Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?


When the going gets Tuffy...


All of the reasonable izakaya near the Taisho station were really full or really not all that appetizing-looking, so we adjourned to the Dotonbori area of Osaka, which I had been told was a major party center, and indeed, it was. It's rather far away from Koshien, and even not that close to the Osaka Dome, but it IS the place where the Hanshin Tigers fans legendarily jumped into the river when the Tigers won the pennant. Of course, if you try that now, this is what you will encounter...




Yes -- the river is now protected by big barriers and even nets, just in case someone gets the stupid idea to jump.


As for the rest of the area, we got okonomiyaki and hung out around the area. Matt succeeded in getting a little Tigers mascot doll from a UFO catcher when I failed, and John showed us this famous Glico ad that people always take photos in front of, and we acted like tourists for a bit, which is always nice for a change.



Matt proudly displays his To-Lucky that he managed to win in one try. Grr.


John and I mimic the Glico guy.


John had to go home after that, but Matt and I wandered around a little more so we could commisserate about the sad state of the Yokohama Baystars.

While standing by the Dotonbori river barriers, two Korean guys came up to us, one with a big video camera. Apparently they were filming for some Korean TV show. They asked us what we thought of Osaka and of the neighborhood. I was too preoccupied looking up the results of the Baystars game to see if Murata had hit another home run (he did! 46!) and so Matt ended up talking into the camera for a few minutes about how the Dotonbori area is historic to baseball fans, because it's where the Hanshin fans jumped into the river after winning the Japan Series, and they stole a Colonel Sanders and threw it in because nobody looked like Randy Bass, and ever since then Hanshin hasn't won another pennant, and so on.

The Korean guys thanked him for his speech and then walked away.

Matt thought for a minute and was like, "I hope I didn't just diss Hanshin Tigers fans to the entire nation of Korea."

I replied, "Well, it was in English anyway, so they might subtitle it as you either talking about the Great Honor of River Diving or the Rude Hanshin Thieves no matter what you said."

"Good point."

Anyway, it has taken me almost an entire week to write this TL:DR entry, because I am busy with things like finishing up my job, and moving to a new house, and all kinds of things, plus going back to the Seibu Dome this Sunday as well. I did have another Osaka adventure on Monday with Nadya, wandering to the Hanshin Tigers minor-league park, and maybe I'll turn that into more of a photopost soon. It was a lot of fun. Osaka can be pretty neat.

And most of all -- GO FIGHTERS!

(EDIT: And I also mean "GO PHILLIES!" I was able to watch the last 3 innings of the NLCS with my dad over Skype. That was pretty cool. Now if only I could figure out a way to watch the World Series from Japan.)

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Off to Osaka

Decided it wasn't worth dragging the laptop with me for a one-day trip. I'm off to Osaka to watch the Fighters-Buffaloes in the Pacific League playoffs (aka Climax Series; whatever).

I'll be back Monday night; best-case scenario I only have one game report to share with you because the Fighters win today; second-best is that I have two game reports to share and the Fighters win tomorrow; worst-case is I have two game reports to share and I am extremely grumpy that I'll be seeing the Buffaloes vs. the Lions at Seibu next week.

Hopefully that will not happen. Maybe Shugo "Shaggy" Fujii will even win today!

In the meantime, here's hoping tomorrow's showdown between Kimiyasu Kudoh Jamie Moyer and Hiroki Kuroda goes well.

And in case you had any doubts about my feelings on the postseason...



Good thing I'm not a Hiroshima Carp fan; my Phanatic would definitely rue the day I dragged him across the Pacific Ocean.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Game Report: Fighters vs. Fighters @ Kamagaya - ~Tsuruoka Shinya Home Run~

This is kind of like a Friday Foto, I guess...

This past week or so has been a blur. On Sunday I originally had plans to go to the Giants-Dragons game at the Tokyo Dome, but those fell through. I could have gone to Yokohama for the Carp-Baystars game, but skipped that because the Carp fell out of contention and it was unlikely I'd get to see Yuki Saitoh pitching, PLUS I am EXTREMELY ANGRY at the Yokohama front office for getting rid of Takuro Ishii (I'd rant more about it here, but I'm not sure I have all the details straight), so I see no reason to give them any money to watch their games any more this year. I'll miss Sign Guy, and getting to see Uchikawa and Murata win batting titles, but that's about it.

But, I had seen news on the Fighters website that they were going to have a kouhakusen (red-white split squad) practice game at Kamagaya on Sunday! Now THAT sounded like fun!

So I emailed some Fighters friends, it sounded like a lot of people were going to go, so I would go too. Good thing, too -- tickets went on sale at 10am and the stadium opened at 11am, for a 1pm game, and I arrived around 10:40 to find that my friends had bought me a ticket AND saved me a spot at the front of the line. Knowing the Kamagaya "boss" is definitely a bonus :)

We ran into the stadium and staked out a front row section over the third-base dugout, got out our cameras, and went totally snap-happy, because oh, what a wonderful sight beheld us on the field! ALL the Fighters were out there! Top players, minor-league players, old guys, young guys, foreign guys, you name it! I know some people question my dedication to the team because I also sometimes cheer for other teams, but if you could have seen my face light up when I saw the Fighters working out... I just kept babbling the Japanese version of "OMFG THIS IS SO COOL!" over and over again.

I went up to the bullpen just to see if anyone was out there, and oh man, I saw DARVISH! And Hisashi Takeda! But the minute I saw Darvish I ran back down, grabbed my friend Hiromi, who is the world's biggest Darvish fan, and said "BULLPEN! DARVISH! NOW!! COME ON COME ON COME ON!" So we both ran up there, giggling like schoolgirls, and went to watch him throw, and take photos, and all. To see the bullpen you have to look through two fences, but that's okay:



Another friend of mine found me, and a bit after that Hiromi said "hey, I just saw Sweeney-pitcher go by, you should go talk to him," so I ran down to the dugout and yelled "HEY! BRIAN SWEENEY! WHAT'S UP??"

Sweeney, who is both the nicest guy on the planet AND apparently not entirely sick of me stalking him yet, looked up and was like "oh hi! how are you?" and I said "great! congratulations! are you psyched for the playoffs?" and he said "hell yeah!" We chatted for a few minutes... about the playoffs (I said I'd do my best to go to Osaka to watch the team), about practicing (apparently he and the other foreigners were headed back to Sapporo that evening, and there would be another Kouhakusen in Sapporo on Wednesday), about Kamagaya (he spent a few weeks there during the 2007 season when he got sent down, so it was interesting to be back, but DAMN is it a pain to get there from Tokyo, which I fully agreed), and about sleeping late (neither of us are morning people, so we were lamenting having to get up super-early to get to Kamagaya). I asked him if he'd pitch today as usual, and he said no, just bullpen throwing -- he was actually going to go do some fielding practice, too. Which he ran off to do at that point. It was awesome and I took some photos of him.

As usual, a bunch of people were like "Wait, are you friends with him?" and I'm like "not exactly, but he knows who I am since I'm probably the only totally crazy AMERICAN Fighters fan who follows the team around the country, so he is nice enough to talk to me." They were like "Yeah! He always seems like such a nice guy! What were you talking about, anyway?" and I said "Err... actually... nothing in particular." Which was (mostly) true. "I told him good luck and all that stuff."


Brian Sweeney takes fielding practice.


So I hope the Brian Sweeney fans out there will be happy to get an update!

After that I mostly just ran around and took pictures. I went back and forth between the first base side and third base side a few times; my friends were all sitting on the third base side, but the first base side was a lot better for taking pictures. All of the pitchers were out there by the first-base bullpen during BP, and then during fielding practice they had different groups at different positions, so Botts and Sledge were at first with Sho Nakata, which was pretty funny. Kaneko and Kensuke and Hajime Miki and Takaguchi and some others were taking practice throwing to first base from second, and so on.

Fighters:



Golden Boy Sho Nakata tries to multitask.


Micheal Nakamura hanging out with Brian Sweeney by the bullpen.


Ryan Glynn.


Masaru Takeda explains it all.


Yoshinori Tateyama, sittin' pretty.


Sledge tries to teach Sho Nakata about fielding. I'd love to hear THAT conversation...


Jason Botts taking grounders at first base.


Makoto Kaneko at second base.


And Kensuke Tanaka.


Shugo Fujii. I really want to nickname him "Shaggy", but I get this feeling nobody will get it.


Shinji Takahashi has unnaturally white and straight teeth. I wonder if he took advice from Shinjo.


Kensuke Tanaka again. I don't usually get to see him so close up!


Terrmel Sledge heads in from fielding practice.


The first-base side stands.


The third-base side stands.


I ran into my friend Minako and her husband by the first-base fence. Mina was encouraging me to cheer the gaijin players, and so when Micheal Nakamura came by she nudged me so I was like "hey Micheal, good luck" and he waved, and then when Ryan Glynn walked by, I waved at him and shouted, "hey Ryan, what's up?"

He looked up and waved back. "Hey, it's you! I read your interview with Seguignol!"

I nearly fainted. "REALLY?"

"Yeah!"

"Uhh.... thanks! Wow! Uh, good luck! Congrats on the playoffs!" I said, as he walked off.

Minako's like "What did he say? Something about Seguignol?"

I tried to explain, but since my heart was beating in my throat, I think I stumbled over the words. Most of the Fighters fans I know think I'm totally nuts anyway, although I think most of them think it's in a good way.

The players, well, I *know* they think I'm completely nuts.

Since there were no more interesting people to take photos of on the field, I made the mistake then of going to get food. The line was HUGE, around 12:30pm, and it took a while to get through. I wanted yakisoba, and believe it or not, the person in front of me bought the last one they had prepared, so they were like "err... well... we will have more soon... if you want to wait..." So I got yakitori. Which is good, but which makes your fingers extremely messy for taking photos if you're not careful, and naturally I'm not. I was washing my hands when they announced the starting lineups.

I think this is why I never went to Kamagaya on a weekend before -- too crowded. Weekdays are so nice and relaxed!

As it is, the White Fighters' starter was Kazuhito Tadano, so my friends and I held up the "多田野" poster I brought from a few months ago. That was cool. I'm a big Tadano fan.





The starter for the Red Fighters was Shaggy Shugo Fujii:



The managers assembled on folding chairs behind some nets placed behind home plate to watch the action, right on the field.

And well, here, I'll type in my scorecard so you can get an idea of who played and how they did. The game was only 7 innings, and a bunch of special exhibition rules were in place, which is why you see things like the first baseman becoming the DH and other such things:


Sunday, October 05, 2008 - Fighters Town Kamagaya

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
Red Fighters 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 1
White Fighters 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 2 9 0

Attendance: 3085


Red Fighters AB R H RB K BB SH SB E 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
K.Tanaka, 2b 2 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 KS .. S9 .. .. .. ..
Miki, 2b 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. S9 .. ..
Kudoh, cf 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 G6 .. d4 .. F8 .. ..
Tsuboi, lf 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 KS .. .. KS .. .. ..
Murata, ph-lf 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. F7 .. ..
Sledge, 1b-dh 3 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 .. D9 .. KS .. KS ..
Takahashi, c 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. G4 .. S8 .. F6 ..
Watanabe, c 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Koyano, 3b 3 0 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 .. S7 .. S8 .. F9 ..
Oda, dh 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 .. F8 .. BB .. .. ..
Ichikawa, pr-1b 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. KS
Konta, rf 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 .. KS .. F9 .. .. ..
Ugumori, rf 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. F9
M.Kaneko, ss 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. .. KS .. .. .. ..
Yoh, ss 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. G5 .. F9


White Fighters AB R H RB K BB SH SB E 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Morimoto, cf 3 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 KS .. F8 .. S7 .. ..
Satoh, rf 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. KS
Inada, 3b-1b 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 S9 .. G6 .. b5 .. G3
Inaba, rf 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 KC .. F7 .. .. .. ..
Y.Kaneko, lf 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. HP .. KS
Botts, dh 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 G6 .. .. G5 F9 .. ..
Itoi, lf-rf-cf 3 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. F7 .. D8 KS .. ..
Tsuruoka, c 3 1 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 .. H7 .. S7 .. G6 ..
Iiyama, ss 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. S9 .. F9 .. F8 ..
Takaguchi, 2b 3 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. S7 .. S9 .. F7 ..
Nakata, 1b-3b 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. G6 .. G6 .. D7 ..


Red Fighters IP BF H HR K BBH RA ER
Fujii 2 9 4 1 2 0 1 1
Sakamoto 2 9 3 0 0 0 1 1
Miyanishi 2 9 1 0 1 1 0 0
Itoh 1 3 0 0 2 0 0 0

White Fighters IP BF H HR K BBH RA ER
Tadano 1 3 0 0 2 0 0 0
Toyoshima 2 8 3 0 2 0 1 1
Uemura 2 10 3 0 2 1 0 0
Kikuchi 2 6 0 0 2 0 0 0


Tadano only pitched the first inning, a 1-2-3 inning, striking out two and getting a groundout. When the second inning started and they already announced "Pitcher changing to Toyoshima", we were all like "Awwwww." Some people were hoping to see his eephus pitch, I think.

Toyoshima's a cute kid (he's 18, I can call him a kid), but the first thing he did was give up a double to Terrmel Sledge, which was almost a home run, it looked kinda like Inaba somehow jumped and pulled the ball onto the field. Sledge advanced on a groundout and scored on a line-drive single to left by Eiichi Koyano. 1-0 in favor of the Red Fighters.

The weird thing about having your team playing split-squad is that it's REALLY unclear who you are supposed to be cheering for! It's both great when your players get hits AND terrible that the pitcher gave up a hit! Or great for the pitcher to get a strikeout and terrible that a batter struck out! So we were both like "Hossha-kun... ganbare!" but at the same time, "Koyano! Yay!"

There was no ouendan, for the record. Some of the usual suspects cheered for their particular favorite players -- and naturally ALL of us on the 3rd-base side were waving and yelling hello at Hichori every time he came back to the dugout -- but there was no particular organized cheering, unless you count when Hiromi and I broke into the "Jason Botts" version of Gake no Ue no Ponyo.

With one out in the bottom of the second inning, White Fighters catcher Shinya Tsuruoka came to bat. A small guy from Kagoshima, Tsuruoka's cheer song includes the line "Tsuruoka Shinya, home run, aim for a home run" and he basically almost never hits home runs (I was surprised to discover he actually hit one this year since he hit zero in 2007). But somehow this day he discovered some hidden power, and BAM, amazingly, he sent a home run soaring over the left-field wall. 1-1. People were laughing and cheering... and yelling things like "PLEASE DO THAT IN THE REAL GAMES TOO!"

Yuuji Iiyama singled to right, and then Takaguchi singled to left. And well, it took Tsuboi a bit to get the ball in from left, so Iiyama tried to make it to third base, and was thrown out. Oops. Takaguchi made it to second on the play.

The funniest moment of the game (for me, anyway) happened next. Sho Nakata was up to bat and he got out to a 0-1 count, and then hit this hiiiiiigh towering fly ball to right field, and Konta ran to get it, and I swear, one of my friends (I forget who) yelled, without thinking, "OTOSE!" ("Drop it!")

And sure enough, Konta got the ball... and dropped it. We were all laughing for a while about how she jinxed Konta.

Sho-kun grounded out to short anyway, but it was pretty amusing nonetheless.

Tsuruoka also batted in what would be the winning run of the game in the 4th inning, singling off Yataro Sakamoto, to make that final score of 2-1. If there was a game hero for the day, it would certainly be Tsuruoka.

But, in the end, there wasn't, because it was just an exhibition game. It ended with basically very little ceremony at all; Youhei Kaneko struck out, and Jason Botts walked back to the dugout from the on-deck circle.


Takahito Kudoh.


I suppose you could call this "Ironically Batless Takahito Kudoh"?


Hichori Morimoto!


Shinya Tsuruoka high-fiving Yuuji Iiyama, after hitting the home run.


Atsunori Inaba in the on-deck circle.


Yataro Sakamoto.



Yusuke Uemura.


Sledge has a weird batting stance.


Yoshio Itoi.


Naoto Inada.


Youhei Kaneko.


Jason Botts.


Hichori being all goofy over at third base.


After the game, pretty much every fan there wanted to get on a bus and get back to civilization, so the line was insanely long. While hanging out with a bunch of people, a spontaneous plan to go to Yakiniku Erika (the restaurant run by Hichori's parents) emerged, and so I ended up going there for the evening. We watched the Eagles-Softbank game and Iwakuma winning, and then the tail end of the Tigers-Swallows game, and it was altogether a fairly fantastic day overall. Fighters fans rule.

This Sunday morning I'm going to get on a train to Osaka and see the Fighters in the Pacific League playoffs, at the Osaka Dome. I CANNOT WAIT.