Game Report: Dragons vs. Giants @ Tokyo Dome -- Morino's Birthday Blast

What could possibly be better than getting to watch one of your absolute favorite baseball players on their birthday, playing against your most hated enemy team?

Could it be, perhaps, seeing said player get a hit?

And seeing said enemy team lose?

And perhaps, just perhaps, seeing said player get a TWO-RUN HOMERUN to put his team ahead, and wind up as the game hero on his birthday, where his age happens to coincide with his uniform number?

Well, that was tonight for me. I went to the Tokyo Dome for the Yomiuri Giants vs. Chunichi Dragons game, deliberately skipping the Fighters game in Chiba, because tonight was Masahiko "Dragonbutt #31" Morino's 31st birthday, and I've been a Morino fan for several years, even if I haven't gone to that many Dragons games this year due to the still-discombobulated Kanto ouendan situation. Also, I enjoy yelling "Yomiuri taose o!" after every "kattobase". ("Defeat the Giants!", a tradition which only gets yelled after every batter during Giants-Dragons games at the Tokyo Dome.) An entire evening of yelling anti-Giants cheers can really lift the spirits of any devout Giants-hater.

I spent about an hour and a half this afternoon making a "Happy Birthday" sign to hold up at the game, and I was really hoping I wouldn't end up feeling like an idiot for having it. And at first, as Mr. Morino kept swinging for the fences and just hitting pop flies out, it seemed that might be the case, but finally, finally, when it really counted, he came through for us, and I couldn't have been happier.

I was sitting next to an older guy who said he used to be part of the Kanto ouendan, actually, and as such was not allowed to do the Dragons cheers, or wear a jersey or anything, but after he'd had about 5 beers he was helping me hold up my Morino sign and also yelling with everyone else. He had plenty of interesting stories to tell, too.

Anyway, Wei-yin Chen started for Chunichi and Wirfin Obispo started for Yomiuri. Obispo was having huge trouble controlling inside pitches from the start, and just through mostly dumb luck, the Dragons managed to strand 5 runners in the first two innings alone. Whereas Chen retired the first 8 batters he faced, giving up his first hit to, of all people, Obispo.

The Dragons fans sang Happy Birthday to Masahiko Morino before his first at-bat. What surprised most of us was when the Giants fans started singing Happy Birthday to Yoshiyuki Kamei before HIS first at-bat! Apparently Turtlebutt shares a birthday with Dragonbutt, just four years later.

After a sweet throw from Masaaki Koike kept the Giants off the board in the bottom of the 3rd, Koike also put the Dragons ON the board in the top of the 4th with a solo home run that landed in the Giants half of the left-field stands. 1-0. After Morino hit a huge towering shot that was way too high and caught in centerfield, Tony Blanco hit a huge towering shot that actually landed in the stands. 2-0.

The Giants rallied in their half of the 5th to produce 2 runs, tying it at 2-2. They basically loaded the bases after a botched attempt to catch the lead runner at 3rd on a sac bunt, and then Sakamoto drove in two runs with a single to left. They loaded the bases again but then left them there.

Obispo hit Ibata with a pitch for the SECOND time in the top of the 7th, which pissed off a lot of fans, and there was a ton of booing from the Chunichi section, until a few minutes later when Birthday Boy Morino hit a 115-meter line drive out that finally was caught by a Giants fan in the stands instead of a Giants outfielder on the field, scoring Ibata as well. 4-2. You wouldn't believe the chaos that erupted in the Dragons stands at that point, with all the groups of Morino fans out in force tonight as well as just some general joy over taking the lead again. A woman sitting down the row from me who had seen my sign earlier actually ran over to high-five me. Things like that.

The Giants cut that lead in half in the bottom of the 7th when Edgardo Alfonzo pinch-hit for Obispo and hit a home run that was coming almost straight towards me (and infact landed two rows up and about 6 seats over). 4-3. Chen stayed in for a few more batters, getting two outs before giving up a single to Ogasawara's Clean-shaven Doppleganger. To be fair, the "hit" by Ogasawara totally looked foul, and we were surprised Ochiai didn't come out to argue it, but instead came out to switch pitchers to Junichi Kawahara. Kawahara promptly walked Ramirez, and another pitching change brought Nelson Payano out to the mound, who got a groundout out of Kamei to end the inning.

(Take THAT, Giants Birthday Boy.)

Kazuhiro Wada led off the 8th inning with yet another home run to left, which brought the score to 5-3, and that's where it would stay, as Dragons closer Hitoki Iwase pitched a perfect 9th inning to pick up his 29th save of the year. The only sad part was that the Dragons' offense stopped with Araki striking out in the 9th, and Morino on deck -- would have been nice to see him get another birthday at-bat. Or maybe we should just be glad he saved the best for last.



And yes, all of the Dragons' RBIs came in on home runs. I suppose you could say they were giving the Giants a taste of their own medicine.

Morino WAS the game hero, but being as this is the Tokyo Dome and a Giants game, naturally they didn't actually show him on the screen OR even let us hear the press interviewing him afterwards, though we could see them all gathered by the dugout. The security staff started kicking us out a little while after we finished singing some post-game cheers, basically... and since there isn't an official ouendan, the cheers were basically limited to doing the lineup songs, the Ochiai cheer, a round of Moeyo Dragons, and then a second iteration of singing happy birthday to Morino plus his cheer song.

I asked the guy sitting next to me to take a photo of me with my Morino birthday sign, but then saw an even better photo opportunity a few rows down with another group of Morino fans who also had birthday signs for him, and asked if I could jump in for a photo...



It was really a very good day to be a Dragons fan, and more specifically, a Morino fan. Happy birthday, Dragonbutt!

High School Game Report: Seibo vs. Urawa Gakuin @ Omiya

In theory, I've been an Urawa Gakuin High School baseball fan for a while. I moved to Japan a few days before the 2007 Koshien tournament started, and lived in Saitama. There were signs up all over the place saying to support Saitama's representative, Urawa Gakuin High School. So I did. And they lost their first game to Maebashi. The Uragaku pitcher from that game, Kazuyuki Akasaka, was drafted by Chunichi that fall.

The next year, the same exact thing happened. I was teaching a class in the early evening as the Uragaku vs. Yokohama HS game waned on, and all of my students lived in Urawa, so we actually periodically checked the score together during our class, only to see Uragaku fall 6-5 to Yokohama. The Yokohama pitcher from that game, Kenji Tsuchiya, was drafted by the Fighters that fall. He started the Fresh All-Star Game yesterday, infact.

By complete dumb luck, thanks to the Kamagaya Fan Festival in March 2008, my favorite Fighters ni-gun player ended up being Ryota Imanari... who also went to Urawa Gakuin. Around the same time I also became friends with a few people who went to Uragaku, including a guy who even played at Koshien with the 1996 team (which of course also lost in their first game of the tournament, but three guys from that team went on to become pros; Yoshihito Ishii, Masatoshi Ogawa, and Taka Miura). My favorite Baystars player, crazy wacko sidearmer Atsushi Kizuka, is also an Uragaku alum. I even managed to complete my set of getting my photo with all of the Fighters Uragaku alumni (Sunaga, Sakamoto, and I got Imanari last year).

This year, Uragaku swept the Saitama spring regional tournament and the Kanto spring regional tournament. Their first three games in the Saitama Koshien qualifying tournament were all called games, with scores like 25-1, 8-0, 9-0.

So you can imagine how psyched I was to actually finally go to see them play in person on Wednesday, June 22. The fact that it was a matchup against Seibo Gakuen, another reasonably strong school, was just icing on the cake.

I showed up at Omiya Prefectural Stadium at almost exactly 10am, which is when the schedule said the match would start, but at that point, the stadium hadn't even opened yet and there were long lines waiting at the ticket windows. We could hear the players warming up inside the stadium, and if you ducked down just right you could peek through the gates and see them all either running around or hauling wheelbarrows onto the field.

It had been raining off and on all morning until around 9:30am, see, so there was important work to be done to make that field playable. When I finally got into the stadium at 10:15am or so, this is the scene I was greeted by:





There are actual groundskeepers, sure, but for the most part the work was being done by the players and coaches of the respective baseball teams.

My first hour at the park was spent wandering around a little bit, acquiring a program book, getting stared at by a ton of people, taking a few pictures, and generally just sitting there watching the action on the field, which is to say the warmups and the legions of kids pouring sand into puddles and eventually combing down and chalking the ground.

After all that, there was official batting and fielding practice for both teams. If I had brought my actual camera, it would have been a fine time to take photos despite the cloudiness, but all I had was my point-and-shoot, so I just hung out watching for the most part, trying to spot the kids in the real lineup and get an idea what they would be like. I walked up to the field for a little while, but it was just too dark.


Shimazu and Kubo warming up.


The Urawa Gakuin marching band tunes up.


Seibo's marching band, which was rainbow-colored, and has some reserve players wearing "Holy Hopes" jerseys.


The game finally starts at 11:27am!


For the record, the rain never fell at all during the game itself, though the field was still plenty muddy for most of the game, and the players got themselves quite covered in mud as they slid and dived around the field.

Here's my scorecard from the game, but it doesn't quite tell the whole story...

Seibo Gakuen 4 - 3 Urawa Gakuin
Wednesday, July 22, 2009

                     1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9    R  H  E
Seibo Gakuen         2  0  2   0  0  0   0  0  0    4  8  0
Urawa Gakuin         0  0  0   0  1  0   1  1  0    3 10  2

Seibo Gakuen         AB  R  H RB  K BB SH SB  E     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
Sasaki, rf            4  1  1  0  0  0  0  0  0    HP F7 .. S9 .. .. G6 L4 ..
Honjo, cf             3  1  1  0  0  2  0  0  0    BB .. BB G4 .. .. F7 .. S8
Koyasu, 2b            2  1  1  0  0  1  2  0  0    E2 .. S7 .. f5 .. BB .. b3
Kido, lf-1b           2  1  0  1  1  1  1  0  0    s8 .. HP .. KS .. G6 .. BB
Nishimura, ss         4  0  0  0  1  0  1  0  0    KS .. b5 .. G5 .. .. F8 F8
Kojima, 3b            5  0  1  0  0  0  0  0  0    G6 .. E5 .. .. S7 .. F7 G5
C.Yamasaki, 1b        2  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. G5 KS .. .. .. .. .. ..
 Kawasaki, ph         0  0  0  0  0  0  1  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. s1 .. .. ..
 Kataoka, lf          0  0  0  0  0  1  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. .. .. BB ..
Kawai, c              4  0  2  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. S5 .. G5 .. F8 .. S7 ..
Satoh, p              3  0  2  0  0  0  1  0  0    .. b1 .. S7 .. G4 .. S5 ..


Urawa Gakuin         AB  R  H RB  K BB SH SB  E     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
Ishida, 3b            3  1  0  0  0  2  0  0  1    G6 .. G6 .. BB .. G4 .. BB
Yamasaki, ss          4  1  3  1  0  0  1  0  0    G4 .. S7 .. S4 .. H7 .. b1
Ishikawa, cf-lf-cf    4  0  2  0  1  0  0  0  0    S9 .. HP .. KS .. S6 .. G3
Shimazu, 1b           5  0  2  1  0  0  0  0  0    G4 .. S6 .. S3 .. G4 .. F8
Kubo, c               4  1  2  0  0  0  0  0  1    .. G4 .. S7 F9 .. .. S9 ..
Hagiwara, lf-rf-p     3  0  1  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. HP .. G3 .. G3 .. S9 ..
Hoshi, rf             1  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. KC .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 
 Mashima, p           2  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. G4 .. KC .. .. ..
 Tanabe, ph-lf        1  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. .. .. G3 ..
Hanegura, p-cf        1  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. G6 .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
 Takeuchi, ph-lf-rf   3  0  0  1  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. L1 .. F4 .. G4 ..
Suzuki, 2b            4  0  0  0  2  0  0  0  0    .. .. KC .. G4 .. KC G3 ..


Seibo Gakuen       IP  BF  NP   H  HR   K  BBH  RA  ER
Satoh (win)         9  40 134  10   1   5   4   3   3

Urawa Gakuin       IP  BF  NP   H  HR   K  BBH  RA  ER
Hanegura (loss)   2.1  13  48   2   0   1   4   4   0
Mashima           5.2  24  71   5   0   2   2   0   0
Hagiwara            1   5  15   1   0   0   1   0   0

However, if you are wondering, offhand: yes, you ARE reading that right: none of the runs against Uragaku's Hanegura were actually earned, as far as I can tell. The Seibo runners certainly got on base due to the pitcher walking them or hitting them with pitches, but the actual scoring plays were almost all on errors.

I mean, 4 pitches into the game, Hanegura hit Seibo's leadoff batter Sasaki on the foot with a pitch, and 4 pitches later had walked Honjo, mostly on unsuccessful pitchouts. Koyasu sac bunted, and Uragaku catcher Kubo astutely realized that he could throw Sasaki out at third... unfortunately, Kubo's ACTUAL throw went about 5 feet LEFT of the third baseman, so not only was Sasaki safe sliding into third but he was able to get up and run home as well. 1-0, with runners at 1st and 2nd and no outs. A wild pitch during Kido's at-bat moved the runners to second and third, setting the stage for a popout by Kido turning into a sac fly, scoring Honjo. 2-0. Nishimura struck out and Kojima grounded out after that, but it was quite a bad beginning.

(Two unearned runs, because Kido's popout wouldn't be a sac fly if there wasn't that error.)

The same luck struck Hanegura in the top of the 3rd inning. Honjo led off walking on 4 straight pitches, and then Koyasu hit an actual genuine hit! Well, kind of. It went through the third baseman into left field, but the leftfielder had run in for the play and was thus able to throw out Honjo, who was trying to move to third from first. One out. But then Hanegura hit Kido in the leg with a pitch, putting runners on at 1st and 2nd again, and this time the Uragaku manager came out to make a switch, putting the left-handed Hanegura in centerfield and bringing in a right-handed kid named Mashima to pitch. The first pitch Mashima threw was bunted to move the runners to second and third, so two outs. Naturally, again, at this point an error involving the third baseman occurred -- this time, Kojima grounded to third, Uragaku third baseman Ishida scooped the ball up in his glove, and threw it WAAAAAAAY over the first baseman's head! Koyasu scored. Kido scored. 4-0. It was NOT looking good for the Uragaku nine, even though Chikara Yamasaki struck out after that.

(Two more unearned runs, because the play at third base would have been the third out without that error.)

Uragaku ran themselves out of the 3rd inning when, with runners at first and second, Shimazu hit a line drive grounder to short that the shortstop couldn't pick up in time to make the play at first, so it should have loaded the bases, only the runner at second overran third base and got tagged on his way back. Seriously.

Uragaku pitcher Mashima was able to hold Seibo scoreless for the next several innings, but the batters never got their offense going against Seibo starter Yuugo Satoh. In the bottom of the 5th, finally, Ishida walked with one out and then Yamasaki hit a hard ball to second, which Koyasu snagged, fell down, flipped to the shortstop but not in time for the play at second, and the relay wasn't in time for the play at first either. Ishikawa struck out, and with two on and two out, captain Shimazu hit a grounder to first, which the first baseman couldn't quite field, took an awkward swipe at, and ended up knocking the ball foul. Ishida scored on the play and Yamasaki got to third base. 4-1. Unfortunately Kubo hit a pop fly out to right at that point.

The next Uragaku run came in the 7th inning when Yamasaki hit a home run over the left-field wall, making it 4-2. Just to make sure you didn't forget this was high school baseball, Ishikawa followed it up with a headfirst slide into first base for an infield single.

Satoh was already up to 106 pitches by the end of the 7th, but he was still out there in the 8th. Kubo led off with a single and Hagiwara followed it up with another single. Shogo Tanabe pinch-hit for pitcher Mashima, and grounded out to first, getting tagged out on the way there, but moving the runners to second and third, and Kubo scored on a groundout by Shogo Takeuchi. 4-3. Hagiwara was standing there at third, but rather than becoming the tying run, he was left standing there as Suzuki hit a weak grounder to first.


Seibo's pitcher Satoh.


Urawa Gakuin's outfielder/pitcher Hagiwara.

Hagiwara, who had been playing the outfield for most of the game, took the mound for Uragaku in the top of the 9th. In high school team it makes sense for your backup pitchers to play outfield, or for your outfielders to have good enough arms to come in as backup pitchers. It wasn't looking too good as Seibo quickly got up to two on and one out, but then a pop fly and a groundout did end the inning.

The bottom of the 9th game with Uragaku down one run still, and Yuugo Satoh still on the mound for Seibo. He started things off by walking leadoff batter Ishida, and then Yamasaki bunted Ishida to second. Ishikawa grounded to first, moving Ishida to third base with captain Shimazu at the plate. Satoh was already up to around 130 pitches and visibly tiring, and he quickly got out to a 3-0 count on Shimazu. The people around me were saying that shortly Uragaku would tie the game and then they'd have a good chance to go ahead, and the 3-0 pitch came across the plate for a strike.

The band was still playing and the boys were still yelling as Shimazu hit a pop fly to shallow center. As it was caught, the Seibo team went crazy and the Urawa Gakuin team just kind of stood there looking vaguely stunned.


Urawa Gakuin team reserves make up the core ouendan.


Seibo's team celebrates for a few seconds on the field.


The final game score.

Later on I read an article in the Tokyo Shinbun where Shimazu said, "It's the first time since I came here that we're not going to Koshien... but I can't cry, the tears won't come out." He said that he thought he was going to walk on the 3-0 pitch, then the next one was down the middle and he realized Satoh was going to challenge him, and there went the dream for four straight Koshien berths.

That said, I think the Uragaku player I was most impressed by was outfielder Ishikawa, who seemed to have really good range and speed and a good jump on the ball; he made several impressive plays, to me anyway, and had a pretty strong arm to boot.

Not sure who impressed me the most on Seibo. Probably either Satoh-kun for sticking it out the entire game and still bringing it to the end, or possibly Koyasu, the second baseman.

I can definitely say that both marching bands impressed me, at any rate. Seibo tended to play more normal songs that I've heard lots of other bands play, though, and Urawa Gakuin's band had a lot of school-specific ouenka, which were neat to hear.

The folks sitting next to me who kept being astounded that I could write kanji were actually at the game to cheer for the next school, Shiritsu Kawagoe, because a boy who lived down the street from them played on that team. I wished them good luck and hauled my sunburnt back out of the stadium. (The sun came out for a bit towards the end of the game, just long enough to burn me, but not long enough for me to think of putting on sunscreen.)


The huge tournament board that was up outside -- dead tree technology at its best.


The Saitama tournament sign outside Omiya stadium.

So in the meantime, since that game:
Kawagoe did infact win that day, but were later beaten by Kasukabe Higashi, who are slated to play against Seibo in the semi-finals on Tuesday. The other side of the Saitama bracket has Saitama Sakae facing off against Kawaguchi Seiryo (who have never appeared at Koshien) in their semi-finals, and the Saitama final will be held on Wednesday the 29th. I might go... if Teikyo doesn't make it to the East Tokyo finals.

It's interesting seeing the Koshien brackets shape up as I start making my plans to go to the actual summer tournament. I won't be able to follow Urawa Gakuin there, but hopefully I'll be able to follow SOME school that I have an attachment to (Teikyo, maybe?).

Game Report: Giants @ Yakult - Kutabare Yomiuri, Part 2!

The stars and planets aligned yet again on Wednesday for several events to occur:
- Simon is back from Okinawa
- He got the Tsubamegun guys, namely Christopher, to save us seats at the top of Section D
- Christopher hooked me up with the coolest t-shirt on earth
- Shohei Tateyama was the Swallows starter, just like last time I'd gone to Jingu and cheered against the Giants with these guys
- The Swallows beat the Giants! Hooray!

No, seriously, the Swallows have played 10 games against the Giants this year. They have won 3 of those games. I have attended 2 of those 3 winning games. My hatred of the Giants must really provide some good luck for Yakult!

Anyway, there really isn't a reason for me to summarize the game action when you can read the fine recap on Tsubamegun. I'm just going to add a few observations/thoughts.

First, Fukuchi was really close to hitting for the cycle. He hit a homer in the first, a single in the third and a triple in the fourth... but then just like the rest of the team's crazy offense, he also slowed down at that point and didn't get another hit for the rest of the game.

As I was keeping a scorecard, the people around me kept asking if every Yakult batter had gotten a hit yet -- and more importantly, had they all gotten RBIs? After Shohei Tateyama drove in a run in the 4th, we tallied it and noted that D'Antona didn't have a hit yet (he got one in the 5th) and Miyamoto and Beavis didn't have RBIs (they never got any). The team did eventually tally a total of 20 hits, making 33 in the game between both teams, for the second 30-hit game that Simon and I had sat through.

The scary thing about this monster win was that they could have had even MORE points if they hadn't done boneheaded things like grounding into double plays when bunting when they shouldn't have been bunting in the first place. Once was in the 2nd inning with Aikawa on second and Keizo at first, and Tateyama bunted... back to the mound, for a double play to get Aikawa at third. The next time was in the 3rd inning, with Aikawa on third and Keizo on first... Tateyama tried to pull off a squeeze bunt, but struck out instead and Aikawa was caught between 3rd and home for another double play. Imagine a 20-run game instead of just a 13-run game!

And Aoki wasn't even in the starting lineup, which was the kicker. In the 5th inning they did their typical gig where they ask some people in the stands, "who is your favorite player? Can you say a cheering message for them?" and they get this group of three people and the first two say "my favorite player is Aoki... Aoki, ganbatte! Get a hit for me today!" and we're all like "Dude, he's not out there!"

Ogasawara's clean-shaven doppleganger hit two home runs for the Giants, for 5 RBIs of their 7 runs. Grr.

Also, the Giants did something "cute" when Shota Kimura was pitching and they pinch-hit for him with Takuya Kimura.

I had a lot of fun cheering with everyone, and I picked up more of the Swallows ouenka, which are actually somewhat similar in style to the Fighters' ones in general. A funny story: before the game started, a Yakult ouendan leader guy went around saying "Hey guys, we've been told to keep it clean, so please don't sing Kutabare Yomiuri at the start of Tokyo Ondo, okay?" Naturally, though, three batters into the bottom of the first, Fukuchi hit a 2-run home run, everyone high-fived around, opened their umbrellas, looked at each other, and started bellowing "KUTABARE YOMIURI..."

I still haven't figured out a new favorite Swallows player since Miyade was traded. I'm vaguely thinking of going with Yasushi Iihara, though who knows. I was also thinking of Keizo Kawashima, but since he's an ex-Fighter it's a little too weird. You'd think this isn't an important decision, but it's extremely important in Japanese baseball, for female fans, to have an answer to the question "だれのファンですか？" because it's what people ask all the freaking time.

Oh, I give you your Game Heroes:



Fukuchi and Beavis, who were both great with the bat and the glove.



Two outs in the 9th. See, Jingu sucks at showing the score after the game ends, so this is the best I could do.

Game Report: Japan vs. USA College Tournament Game 2

I went to the second game of the Japan-US Collegiate Baseball Tournament on Monday night at the Tokyo Dome. The Japan team won 7-5, mostly on a rally in the 3rd inning where the Japan lineup batted around the order and did typically Japanese things like infield singles and headslides and stealing bases and whatnot for 6 runs, all of which were unearned.

What was striking about this tournament for me, no pun intended, was the differences in the play style and, for lack of a better way to put it, the body types of the two teams.

Japanese players are, with the exception of some like Ryoji Nakata or Okawari-kun Nakamura, not usually huge guys. They don't usually have tree trunks for arms and shoulders a mile wide, and most of them can take off their baseball uniforms, put on some typical Japanese male clothes (by which I mean what they call fashion here), and completely slip into the background and for the most part nobody will even suspect there's anything special about them. Whereas the stereotype for the American baseball player is that he's at least 6 feet tall, and has these huge shoulders and arms and so on and so forth, and, well... looks like a baseball player, or an army recruit.

So when the American players started lining up, the guys behind me were saying things like "Wow! Look at them all, they all look like Major Leaguers!"

And I was thinking... huh, they really do. That's weird. And they're just freshmen or sophomores in college for the most part. Have I just forgotten what the MLB is like, or does the body stereotype start that early?

It's not uncommon in Japan to hear players talking about how "I worked on building leg muscles this winter in order to hit more home runs", or to see players who put their entire body into a throw from the outfield, using momentum and torque for the force on a throw as much as their own arm strength. But I noticed that the USA players tended to throw more just from the arm, rather than with an entire body motion.

I wonder if that difference is part of what caused FOUR Japanese baserunners to be caught stealing. Maybe they just weren't anticipating the catcher being able to nail them at second given his mechanics.

Also, one other major difference was that there was no ouendan at this game, and BOY did it seem quiet.

Anyway, I went to this game with Gen. He was kind enough to get there early and save seats about 15 rows back from the USA dugout, so we had a pretty good view, but as usual the Tokyo Dome sucks for taking photos, even when you're that close. You can see Gen's photos on his site though.

We were also lucky, or rather, I was also lucky, that the lady sitting in front of us happened to be a bigger college baseball dork than I am. We kind of both outed ourselves when Tatsuya Ohishi came out to the mound in the 6th -- I was like "OH MY GOD IT'S OHISHI!!!!" and got really excited and started bouncing up and down in my seat. The lady turns around and asks (in Japanese) "are you a fan?" and I'm like "I'm a HUGE fan! He's my absolute favorite college baseball player in Japan!" and it became clear that both of us had seen him play enough to recognize him warming up by his big yellow glove more than anything. As other guys came into the game we were both geeking out about them, especially the Tohto and Big 6 players. ("It's Soh-chan!" for Rikkio's Tanaka, and such.) We talked about the Koryo HS kids -- when Shohei Habu entered the game, she told me about how former Waseda 2B Hiroki Uemoto has a younger brother going to Meiji now who was also from Koryo. She also had stories about Tomoyuki Sugano, who pitched the last 1.2 innings and is apparently Tatsunori Hara's nephew.

I really didn't know who anybody was on the USA team, but most of the Japan team is pretty familiar to me. I realize it's partially because I go to college games here a lot, but at the same time I'm pretty sure I wouldn't know the USA college players even if I still lived in the US.

Anyway, some kid named Drew Pomerantz started for team USA, and some kid named Yuki Saito started for team Japan. Saito is probably the most famous college pitcher in the country right now, ever since he pitched Waseda Jitsugyo HS to a Koshien championship in 2006. Which is why the Tokyo Dome was fairly full -- they originally allotted only half the infield for seating, but ended up opening up the entire area as the Saito fans kept coming in.

It looked for a bit as if the Saito fans were going to be disappointed as the USA went out to a quick lead in the first inning. Christian Colon got on base via a fielder's choice and stole second, and Matt Newman singled him in. 1-0. Newman advanced when Michael Choice was hit on the shoulder by a pitch, and then Andy Wilkins singled to bring Newman home, 2-0. After every run, the entire USA team emptied the dugout and piled onto the field to congratulate the scoring runner, which was a bit odd as USA settled out to the lead.

But Team Japan rallied off of USA starter Drew Pomeranz in the 3rd inning. While poor Ryo Hayashizaki led off with a strikeout -- he would eventually cause 2 of the 3 outs in the inning -- Shingo Kamegai was safe on a deep infield hit to second, and then Shota Ishimine grounded to the mound. Pomeranz tried to throw to second to get the lead runner but an errant throw allowed Kamegai to reach second safely and Ishimine to be safe at first. Takahiro Araki then took a pitch in his arm to load the bases for Japan's Biggest College Baseball Player, Ryoji Nakata, who swung his mighty bat and promptly struck out.

With bases loaded and two outs, Keiji Nakahara hit a single through to center, scoring Kamegai and Ishimine. 2-2. Masayoshi Katoh followed that with another single, this time to right, and the throw in from the outfield came home but Araki somersaulted past the USA catcher and slapped home plate with his hand on the way through, avoiding a tag. 3-2. Keigo Hagiwara grounded to first, and Andy Wilkins fell over while getting the ball, and thus Hagiwara was safe as Wilkins relayed the ball to Pomeranz covering first. Nakahara scored in the meantime, 4-2, and that was when the USA manager came out to make a pitching change, replacing Pomeranz with TJ Walz.

But Japan wasn't finished. Katoh and Hagiwara pulled off a double steal of second and third off new pitcher Walz, and Takanori Satoh doubled to right anyway, scoring both of the runners. 6-2. Hayashizaki then grounded out to end the inning, having the dubious honor of leading off and ending the inning with outs. Poor kid.

In a sequence of "WTF were you thinking?", the top of the 4th basically went as the following:
Kamegai managed a bunt single, fielded by the third baseman.
During Ishimine's at-bat, Kamegai was caught stealing second.
Ishimine singled to center.
During Araki's at-bat, Ishimine was caught stealing second.
Araki struck out.

Japan was caught stealing 4 times. I actually thought it was 5, but it turned out that in the 5th, what really happened is that Hagiwara struck out, and catcher Grandal fired the ball to second to catch Katoh anyway, but it was irrelevant.

Japan added another run in the 6th when Walz walked the bases loaded, Araki struck out but the third pitch got away from the catcher, so Satoh was able to score and the other runners advanced in the meantime. 7-2.

Tatsuya Ohishi had pitched a pretty good 6th inning, striking out two and giving up a walk, but then team USA started hitting him in the 7th. Yasmani Grandal led off with a line-drive single to center. Tyler Holt struck out, but a pinch-hitting Bryce Brentz ended up hitting another single to left, which advanced Grandal, and then there was a really odd "hit by pitch" call on Chrstian Colon -- from our view it looked like maaaaaybe the ball grazed his arm, but either way, the bases were loaded. Japan pulled Ohishi and put in Toyodai's lefty Masahiro Inui, who promptly gave up a bases-clearing double to Matt Newman. 7-5. Inui then hit Mike Choice in the foot with a pitch, before settling down and striking out Wilkins and Forsythe.

Similarly, Inui loaded the bases in the bottom of the 8th before being pulled for reliever Tomoyuki Sugano, the aforementioned nephew of Tatsunori Hara, and had to watch another pitcher handle his charges. Fortunately, Sugano handled it better than Inui had, and struck out Colon and Newman to end the threat. Sugano also handled the USA batters in the 9th pretty quickly and the game ended at 7-5.

It was a very odd finish. The USA players and Japan players lined up and high-fived each other, and that was about it. I felt like there needed to be a bunch of guys in black uniforms waving flags yelling "FURE FURE USA" and "FURE FURE NIHON" and so on, but there wasn't. No ouendan and no singing makes baseball something something.

As of my finally writing this up, the USA and Japan collegiate teams have tied the series at 2-2 and are playing the final game tonight at Meiji Jingu stadium.

Photopost: Shonan Sea Rex @ Lotte Urawa Marines - It Really Ain't Easy Being Glynn

On Saturday, July 11th, I had a rare choice of which ni-gun game to ride my bicycle to -- Fighters vs. Swallows at Yakult Toda, or Shonan Sea Rex (Yokohama's farm team) vs. Marines at Lotte Urawa. Although it seems obvious that as a Fighters fan I should have gone to Toda, I ended up choosing Lotte Urawa for a few reasons: first, there are more seats there. Toda stadium basically has a tiny set of bleacher benches behind home plate and that's it. Second, I had calculated the Searex rotation and figured out that former Fighters pitcher Ryan Glynn was really likely to start for them. I hadn't seen the Searex yet this year -- heck, I haven't been to a Baystars game since the preseason -- and was also kind of hoping to see Takahiro Matsuka, as well as my ni-gun boyfriend Yuki Takamori. It's funny, I have a favorite ni-gun player for Yokohama, but not a favorite ichi-gun player since Takuro left. Maybe Atsushi Kizuka, though it's been forever since I've seen him play.

I rode my bicycle up there -- it's about 6 miles away and took me a little less than an hour -- and got to Lotte Urawa Stadium around 12pm for a 1pm game. Managed to get a front row seat on the first base side, next to a tall Japanese guy who also had a scorecard and a camera. Bet anything he's also a blogger.

This game was just another case of tough luck for Ryan Glynn, really. He was the Sea Rex starter, and for the second straight Saturday in a row, I was watching Yuta Ohmine start for the ni-gun Marines...







And well, it was just not fated to be a good game for Glynn. It's not really his fault, it's mostly the fault of everyone else out there in the field. Glynn threw 8 innings on 114 pitches, walked 1, struck out 6 guys and gave up 1 home run. Well, and he gave up 11 hits, about half of which I have marked as "through a diving 2B" or "past a lunging SS" and so on.

The Marines took a 1-0 lead in the 2nd off a few of those very "past a diving infielder" singles, as Kanazawa singled, Muniz singled and moved Kanazawa to third, and then Aomatsu singled him in. (Okada hit into a fielder's choice and then stole second, but when Nemoto struck out the inning ended with Okada and Muniz on second and third.)

The Searex might have tied up the game in the 3rd if they didn't run themselves out of it. Toshio Saitoh hit a nice single to lead off and then for whatever reason took off stealing on the first pitch to Noriharu Yamazaki, and was out by a mile.



So then of course, Yamazaki hit a single off of Yuta Ohmine's leg, or glove, I'm not sure which, but there was no throw.



Instead, Ohmine decided he was determined to pick Yamazaki off first base.







But it didn't work and ultimately he walked Kajitani instead. Naturally, that was followed up by Hiroaki Ohnishi grounding into a double play. How many ways can you run yourself out of an inning, seriously?

Well, the Marines grounded into a double play to end their half of the 3rd too, so then in the 4th the Searex finally did something. Keijiro "Waseda's Finest" Matsumoto led off with a double, and Yuta Naitoh struck out. Yuki Takamori (!) singled to right, and Matsumoto ran to third -- I had my camera trained on the plate waiting to see Matsumoto score, but he didn't, and I don't know why he held up at third. Toshiyuki Kitagawa also singled to left, and Matsumoto actually DID finally score. 1-1. Atsushi Kita grounded to Nemoto, who threw to short for the force at second, but fortunately the relay to first was not in time for the double play, so Takamori went to third... but with runners at the corners, Toshio Saitoh grounded out for real. All of those runners and only one run.

The real turning point of the game was in the bottom of the 4th. Juan Muniz led off with a simple single to center, and Hiroshi Miyamoto followed it up with another simple single to center. Except, unfortunately, for Keijiro Matsumoto out there in center field, it was apparently not that simple a single to center, and when he went to retrieve it, whoops! Suddenly the ball was not in front of him, OR in his glove, but was infact past him and going back and he had to go run after it and retrieve it out by the wall. Poor, poor Keijiro! In the meantime, Muniz scored, and even Miyamoto was able to score by the time the ball came in.



(Shown above: Miyamoto is sliding into home plate as Muniz and Aomatsu wave him in. Saitoh is Not Amused.)

So that made it 3-1 on a pretty big blunder. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I don't have a shot of Glynn while this comedy of errors was going on. The next two batters were retired on infield grounders, and then Nemoto hit a pop fly to shallow centerfield. People were joking from the stands, "Don't drop it, Keijiro!" but then Noriharu Yamazaki ran back and made the catch anyway. Thanks, Nori.

I dunno, though, that play kind of took the steam out of both teams for a while. The next few innings went by blindingly fast -- the most exciting thing that happened was at one point between innings Shingo Nonaka came out to throw with Yuta Naitoh in right, only Nonaka somehow lost control of the baseballs he was carrying (misthrow?) and had to go chase them down towards the bullpen, and so Yuta Sekiguchi threw with Naitoh instead... everyone in the stands was laughing at Nonaka, and even Sekiguchi yelled out, "Hey Shingo, can you gimme those baseballs so I can take 'em back?"

Kei Hosoya hit a home run over the left-field wall in the 8th inning, which made it 4-1, which is where the game ended. Glynn threw a complete game; Ohmine threw 7 innings with Taiki Nakagoh and Kentaro Hashimoto picking up the 8th and 9th.

Box score here in Japanese.

On the way back from the bullpen, Glynn was walking with his translator, and his translator noticed me and kind of nodded/smiled at me, so I smiled and said, "Tough game, huh Ryan?"

Glynn looked up, kinda smiled back, and nodded. "Yeah."

I think if it hadn't been such a ridiculous series of events, I might have tried to talk to him more, but I didn't really want to be a pain in the butt after such a game.

We've talked about it before on Michael Westbay's site how Glynn is the unluckiest pitcher in Japan, and no matter how well he throws, he always seems to be doomed to lose. It's kind of sad that it's continued with the Searex -- a complete game with 2 runs that were actually his fault, and the team simply can't score any runs, or at least keep themselves out of double plays and getting caught stealing?

Anyway, since this is a photopost, here are some more photos that I took that didn't really fit into the story...


Masato Watanabe working out at first base before the game. (He didn't actually make an appearance in the game, though.)


Keijiro Matsumoto, walking to first.


TA-KA-MO-RI!!!!


Yuki Takamori and Takeshi Kanazawa at first, #62 - #62.


Keiyo Aomatsu high-fiving first-base coach Takenori Daita after hitting his RBI single to put the Marines ahead in the 2nd inning.




Yuji Hata warming up in the bullpen.


Shingo Nonaka running out to play catch or to chase baseballs or something.


Takayuki Kajitani hitting into a 3-6-3 double play and being out at first.


Kajitani, out and further out.


Yuta Naitoh.


Keijiro Matsumoto standing in front of the scoreboard in the bottom of the 8th.


Okay, so this is Takahiro Matsuka, the smartest guy in baseball... no, just kidding. But Matsuka is the 4th man in the history of the NPB to have graduated from Tokyo University and to also play at ichi-gun. It is unclear whether this is more because Tokyo University does not attract students with baseball talent, or because anyone who graduates from Todai probably has better long-term career choices than "pro baseball player", and are unlikely to be unsucky enough to get drafted anyway. Either way, he is special. I wish I could have worked up the nerve to say something to him (since he was looking at me funny). Maybe next time.

(I know that you have to have fairly good English comprehension to actually get IN to Todai, though whether anyone keeps up with it AFTER passing the entrance exams is another story, of course.)


How the mighty have fallen. Yukiya Yokoyama #99 and Michiomi Yoshihara #45. Yokoyama used to be the Fighters' closer before Micheal. He wasn't particularly good. He spent the rest of his career with Yokohama, sometimes being good, sometimes not being particularly good. Actually, I think he's a fine pitcher, just never when I'm watching.


(I meant to try to write this entry while watching today's Fighters-Marines game, but I got way too distracted. Brian had a decent start, and Shota Ohno hit a grand slam!!! and Makoto Kaneko hit TWO home runs! And Hiroki Ueno pitched and I finally got to see him and was really happy! But then Hisashi "World's Smallest Closer" Takeda gave up 3 runs to tie it at 6-6 in the top of the 9th and so the game went on until 6pm. And just when all hope seemed to be lost, and it was 2 outs in the bottom of the 12th with runners at the corners, and 2 strikes on Tomohiro Nioka, he managed to hit a single to the right-center gap which scored a pinch-running Kazuya Murata. Whew. 7-6. Anyway, that's why it didn't get finished until Sunday evening.

Not that it really matters, although today on 7/12, the Searex managed to beat Lotte 11-7. Go figure.)

One Freaking Hit

Seriously. Kazuhito Tadano just nearly pitched a no-hitter against the Chiba Lotte Marines at the Sapporo Dome. He was perfect through 3 innings, walked 4 guys across the next few innings, and got to the top of the 9th with 2 outs with no hits, when Shoitsu Ohmatsu singled to right. The Fighters won the game 4-0.

And to think, I just saw him last Saturday at Kamagaya pitching a semi-shaky start against the minor-league Marines.

This is why I'm a Tadano fan -- the craziest things happen when he's around!

Game Report: Fighters @ Lions - Who the *%&! is Tatsuyuki Uemoto Anyway

The thing that truly makes Seibu somewhat terrifying as a team is that they ALWAYS seem to have a huge reserve of random talented players, hiding in the wings, waiting to be unleashed upon the rest of the world at any given time. Seriously. I don't know how they manage to keep these guys hidden so well, aside from the fact that Tokorozawa is so damn far away that they always have trouble filling the stadium no matter how good the ichi-gun team is, and nobody bothers schlepping out there for ni-gun games either.

(Last weekend, reported attendance for Fighters ni-gun games at Kamagaya: 1557; 1813. Reported attendance for Lions ni-gun games at Seibu 2nd Stadium: 325; 618. Perhaps Seibu makes sure not to have real seats at their stadium in a deliberate attempt to keep anyone from actually learning about their farm team. Hmm.)

I guess it's a good way to keep the regulars on their toes, though, knowing that there are people waiting in the wings in ni-gun to take their jobs should they falter.

Anyway, this game was really frustrating as a Fighters fan, because we sort of go into Darvish starts expecting to win -- he is, after all, currently leading the PL in ERA, wins, and strikeouts -- so when Seibu went ahead 1-0 early on a Takeya "Okawari-kun" Nakamura home run, it was not a good sign, and two innings later the Lions made it 2-0 with a string of hits and an RBI single from Yoshihito Ishii.

One of my friends asked me how you say "Okawari-kun" in English. I was like "Well, for drinks it's refills, but for food we don't really have one word. Some people call him 'Mr. Second Helpings', if that makes any sense." The Lions fans even have a special cheer for him, yelling "Okawari okawari mou ippon!", essentially asking for another plate of homerun.

I was cheering for Makoto Kaneko with some friends in the front row -- we were calling it "Makoto Festival, #8 for the 8th", and he hit a home run in the 5th inning, which was exciting, and then Terrmel Sledge hit a 2-run home run in the 6th which made it 3-2.

However, in the bottom of the 7th, out of nowhere, this Uemoto kid pinch-hits for that Ginjiro kid, and hits a 2-run homer just to the right of centerfield, caught on the fly by a kid with a glove. And the game was 4-3, and I had a sinking feeling that was where it was going to end, and it did. The ending sucked, too, Chikara Onodera has apparently moved back into the closer role this year and is doing an okay job of it -- Tsuboi was pinch-hitting with one out in the top of the 9th, and Kazuya Murata was the runner at first, and Tsuboi hit a liner to second. It was supposed to be a hit-and-run I think, and Murata was already practically at second base by the time the ball smacked into Yasuyuki Kataoka's glove, and he tagged Murata out, and that was the end of the game.



I seriously don't really want to talk about this game because it made me really grumpy. I didn't even stick around for the hero interview (they were announcing it was Uemoto as I was leaving the stadium), I just kind of ran outside and started walking towards the train station as they were asking him "How did it feel to hit a home run off of Yu Darvish?" and such. Grumble.

I was, infact, so pissed off, that I took an axe and cut off manager Hisanobu Watanabe's head:



No, just kidding. It was part of the Lions Classic display, but when are you pissed off and running towards the station and suddenly see a headless Seibu guy standing there, it is a little freaky. From the front it actually looked like this:



Whatever. I didn't go back to the Seibu Dump on Thursday because I had to stay late at my school helping students by doing mock interviews for an English speaking test they have to take this weekend. Good thing, too, because I would not have been happy watching the Fighters get swept by Seibu. Softbank took 2 of 3 from Orix and now they are in sole possession of 1st place instead of us, too.

On a brighter note, however, when I got home from the Seibu Dump that evening, I was so annoyed about the game that I impulsively decided to go buy tickets for two Fighters games in Hokkaido, so that I would finally be committed to actually going up there, dammit. So, I'll be flying up to Hokkaido on July 30th, and I'll be sitting in the left field stands at the Sapporo Dome for the games against Softbank on July 31st and August 1st. I'm hoping to do a Dome tour on the 30th and hit up Hillman's Hangout and such again.

Game Report: Fighters @ Lions - Tanabata Festival

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- no matter how nice you renovate the Seibu Dump to be, it's still going to have the issue of being in a location that is really inconvenient for not only most of the greater Tokyo area to attend a game, but even for most people in Saitama. Usually on weekends you need to show up pretty early to snag a prime piece of outfield turf seating. This is not a problem on weekdays; you can spread out as much as you want and it's rarely crowded, but you still have to actually schlep out there. For me, even running from train to train and making the quickest connections possible, the earliest I could arrive at the station was 6:09, for a 6pm game.

So by the time I got out there, get a ticket, get a sandwich, and get into the stadium, it was already towards the end of the first inning and the score was 2-2. The bad part is that I missed seeing Shinji Takahashi hit a home run off of Lions starter Takayuki Kishi. The good part is that I didn't see Itokazu walk two and hit one of the first three batters, loading the bases for Seibu (Yoshihito Ishii doubled to drive in those two runs).

As previously mentioned (but I deleted the post in favor of this one), Fighters starter Keisaku Itokazu forgot his uniform and borrowed one from Brian Sweeney...


(photo from Sankei Sports)

And unfortunately, I think the jersey carried Sweeney's bad luck at the Seibu Dome with it. I sat with some of my friends in the back for the first few innings, and one of them (Akki) is a huge Sweeney fan, so when everyone was yelling "Ganbare ganbare Itokazu!" he was yelling "Ganbare ganbare Sweeney!"

Anyway, the Fighters got out to another lead fairly quickly in the 2nd inning. Yoshihiro Satoh, in his very first ichi-gun at-bat of the year, hit a home run to right field. I was surprised enough to see him out there because I'd just watched him all weekend at Kamagaya, but Jason Botts was sent down and Satoh was sent up. Crazy. 3-2.

In the top of the third, Itoi walked, and Inaba singled to right, pretty much a hit-and-run since Itoi was at second base by the time the ball left the infield. Shinji Takahashi hit a pop fly to left, and despite Ozaki charging and throwing in, Itoi was faster and scored. 4-2.

However, the Lions quickly closed that gap in the bottom of the 4th. Yoshihito Ishii was hit on the leg by a pitch, and then GG Satoh hit a long fly ball to right field which looked like a home run, but instead it hit the wall along with Inaba, for a double. Ozaki walked, so the bases were loaded with no outs yet again. Itokazu momentarily got lucky when Taka Miura lined back to the mound (one out) and Itokazu threw to third base to double off Ishii, who had started to run and didn't get back in time (two outs). However, Ginjiro Sumitani singled to center after that, scoring GG Satoh, and in the meantime Itoi's throw back home was relayed OVER the plate, so in the meantime Ozaki scored as well and Ginjiro made it all the way to third. 4-4.

I went down to the front to cheer for the 5th inning, but in the bottom half, Hiroyuki Nakajima singled and then Okawari-kun Nakamura hit a home run to left field, making it 6-4. Itokazu came out of the game at that point and Ken Miyamoto replaced him.

Miyamoto, Ejiri, and Miyanishi kept the Lions from scoring for the rest of the game, but Takayuki Kishi ALSO kept the Fighters from scoring for the rest of the game and ended up with a complete game win, and was the game hero as well. I actually don't have much to say about the rest of the game; I spent most of it talking to people about when they are travelling to various cities, since I'm trying to figure out when to go to Hokkaido and Sendai and so on.



It was a quick game. We were out of the stadium a few minutes before 9pm, so I went around for a few minutes looking at all the Tanabata stuff I'd been too much in a hurry to look at before the game. (Tanabata is a summer festival of sorts, held on July 7th.)

One of the things people do is write wishes on pieces of paper and then tie them to branches, making colorful decorations. They had papers at the Dome, so I even wrote one (I couldn't think of anything to wish for though, so I wrote "いい天気がほしい", which means "I wish for good weather"). Most people wrote baseball-related ones. One of my friends who loves outfielder Tomochika Tsuboi had written one of "I hope Tsuboi plays in tonight's game and does well". He pinch-hit a single in the 9th inning, so I guess she got her wish, sort of.


Some of the tanabata papers.


An older guy attaches his paper to the tree.


Seibu players all wrote tanabata wish papers.


Here's Hiram Bocachica's paper.


Paper lanterns strung above the walkway going towards the Seibu Dome.


In the middle of the 5th or 6th inning, they also told us that the starting pitchers for Wednesday's game would be Darvish and Nishiguchi, so it's back to the Seibu Dump tonight for me!

Game Report / Photopost: Ni-gun Marines vs. Fighters @ Kamagaya

On Saturday, I told most people at Kamagaya that I'd be back on Sunday (July 5th), so I sort of felt obligated to go again.

This time, since I'd actually warned people of my incoming presence, they saved me a seat. And by "they" I mean Ojisan, and by "a seat" I mean "a seat RIGHT BEHIND HOME PLATE IN THE FRONT ROW". It wasn't the best place to take photos due to the thick iron fence they put up there, but it was one heck of a vantage point to watch the pitching from, and the Fighters' starter was Shaggy Shugo Fujii.

But first, Ojisan also gave me his ticket to the day's sign-kai, so I got more shikishi signed. This time it was Yachiho Hoshino and Atsushi Ugumori signing stuff, who were more interesting than Yoshikawa and Ichikawa were. Hoshino draws a star as part of signing his name (since "hoshi" is star), and Ugumori actually just scrawls "Ugu #65", which is fair considering his name 鵜久森 is really difficult to write.


(The guy in the middle is a random fan who won a drawing to pose with the players, I think.)

After that, I went around saying hello to people. See, at Kamagaya, I've come to the conclusion that what goes through people's heads when they see me wandering through the stands can be broken down something like this:

5% - "A white girl? Must be one of the players' wives!"
50% - "How on earth did a poor gaijin wander all the way out here? And why does she have a signed Fighters jersey with a kanji name on the back?"
15% - "Hey, it's THAT GAIJIN. I've seen her on TV and at games around Kanto and such."
30% - "Deanna-san! How are you?"

Fortunately, the latter category has enough people in it at this point that I slowly get to know the people in the other categories through them.

Though then, while going back to my seat after buying lunch, who should I run into but Shane Sakata! She was at the game with some friends of hers and Lenn's from Hawaii, so I got to chat with them in English for a bit, AND they gave me a box of macadamia nut chocolates, which were freaking fantastic, if a bit melty. It's tough to get decent milk chocolate here; normal chocolate in Japan is kind of bittersweet.

And as if that wasn't more than enough excitement, then there was a baseball game, too.

The starting pitchers were


Shaggy Shugo Fujii for the Fighters, and


Kazunari Abe for the Marines. I keep thinking he's like 16 years old.

And yeah, I took advantage of my spot behind home plate to try to get those "ball being released from the pitcher's hand" shots. You can pretty much only take them from that perspective, so I thought it'd be a fun challenge for the day.

Lotte got off to a pretty quick start against the Fighters, anyway. Shunichi Nemoto picked up where he left off on Saturday and hit a double to left, and then Ken Shinzato bunted him to third. (Sho Nakata, playing first, didn't even bother charging the ball, which should give you an idea of how slow he is.) Ryusuke Minami then singled to left, scoring Nemoto. 1-0. Kei Hosoya broke his bat grounding out to short, which moved Minami to second, and then Akira Ohtsuka hit a line drive to left field, which dropped behind Yoshihiro Satoh, and then as he and Yoh scrambled to recover it, Ohtsuka ran and ran and ran and managed to make it all the way to third (barely):



Which scored Minami, 2-0. Takuma Sadaoka struck out after that to end the inning.

The Fighters got two quick outs in the bottom of the 1st and then DH Luis Jimenez hit a single to right field. Sho Nakata managed to lay off a whole bunch of low pitches and walked, and then Ryota Imanari walked into the batter's box, and took the very first pitch he saw and BLAM! sent it over the right-field wall. It was so close to the foul pole I worried that it actually WAS foul, but no, it was a genuine 3-run home run. 3-2!


Ryota SMASH!


High-fives back in the dugout...


...and outside the dugout.

Yes, with a 3-4-5 of Jimenez-Nakata-Imanari, who would have predicted that Ryota was going to be the one to hit the home run? But that's just the way things worked out. Satoh followed it up with a double and was then stranded on base as Ohhira struck out.

(Actually, Ojisan filmed the entire thing -- you can see video in this entry about the game, from Sho Nakata's at-bat to Ryota hitting the home run. I swear he was sitting next to me and I don't even remember seeing him filming, probably because I was too busy taking photos.)

Lotte wasn't too happy about not having the lead anymore, so in the top of the 2nd they took it back with two solo home runs by Aomatsu and Nemoto. I only have the post-HR high-five shots, but...


Aomatsu comes home. (You can see Nemoto on the right getting ready to high-five him.)


Nemoto comes home.

So that made it 4-3, which is where it would stay for a really long time.

The Marines nearly scored another run in the top of the third -- with two outs, Akira Ohtsuka hit a single, a line drive shot right over Shugo Fujii's outstretched glove, and he moved up to second base when Takuma Sadaoka hit an infield single, Kenshi Sugiya falling down as he snagged the ball, unable to stand up in time to make the play. Takumi Kohbe followed that up with a single to center, and Chon-so Yoh charged the ball and threw it in. Akira Ohtsuka charged the plate, but the ball beat him there and he did a crazy somersault to try to avoid the tag, but in doing so avoided the plate and was eventually tagged out anyway as he lie sprawling on the ground, ending the inning.


Ohtsuka runs home. Go go Ohtsuka-Akira!


"Okay, okay, I give up, just tag me already! Oh, my aching back..."

Apparently Abe-kun was only pitching two innings, and Takuya Furuya replaced him on the mound for Lotte for the next four innings, and the Fighters were helpless against him. Seriously, it was kind of embarrassing, he notched 6 strikeouts in 4 innings and only gave up a walk and two hits.

Here's some gratuitous Furuya shots, including more "ball-leaving-the-hand" attempts:







In the top of the 4th, the Marines put the first runner on when rightfielder Ohhira dropped Aomatsu's fly ball to right... and then Aomatsu managed to get himself picked off second on a pitchout to Masato Watanabe. Masato then walked... and when Shunichi Nemoto hit a liner back to the mound, Fujii caught it and threw to first to double off Masato, who wasn't quite quick enough running back to the bag. Sho Nakata was actually dragged off the bag fielding the throw, but somehow Masato was called out anyway, I'm not really sure how that worked. I guess he was on the bag long enough, or in time, or whatever.


Sho Nakata pretending he knows how to play first base.


Shugo Fujii walks off the mound for the last time with Ryota Imanari, at the end of the fourth.

Ryo Sakakibara took over on the mound for the 5th and 6th innings. I hadn't seen him pitch in a long time, but he did pretty well -- 6 up, 6 down, and the 6th inning was even three strikeouts in a row. Quite nice.




Ryo Sakakibara, who pitched the 5th and 6th innings.




Yataro Sakamoto, who pitched the 7th and 8th innings for the Fighters. (He gave up two walks, to Hosoya and Ohtsuka, but was otherwise fine.)

Before the Fighters' Lucky 7, there was Cubby Taiso again, and it was very cute again:



And then Taiki Nakagoh took the mound for Lotte, and promptly walked Takayuki Takaguchi, and then misplayed a grounder by Takuya Nakashima (it was a sac bunt and Nakashima was safe at first as the throw drew Masato Watanabe off the bag). Chon-so Yoh bunted them both up to second and third and things were beginning to look good for the Fighters... so the Marines replaced Nakagoh with lefty relief pitcher Kodai Matsumoto, who struck out Takahiro Imanami and got a groundout from Luis Jimenez. Doh.


Matsumoto pitching.


Matsumoto being coached.

It was about at this point that I went up to chat with Shane Sakata for two innings or so, so I don't really have many photos of the last parts of the game. Takayuki Kanamori pitched the 9th for the Fighters, and gave up two runs to Lotte. I thought they were unearned since Miyamoto reached base when Sho Nakata booted the ball on a grounder to first with Kanamori covering, and then with two outs, Shunichi Nemoto hit a single which moved Miyamoto up, and then Ken Shinzato hit a double which scored Nemoto and Miyamoto, making it 6-3.

Kentaro Hashimoto, who had taken over on the mound for the final out of the 8th, also pitched the 9th for Lotte. Hashimoto came over from Hanshin in the Yasutomo Kubo trade, and is a right-handed reliever. Takaguchi singled, and then Nakashima and Yoh both struck out. With Imanami at bat, the Fighters down 6-3 with two outs in the ninth, Takaguchi just kind of ran to second and nobody tried to stop him, and then Imanami managed to hit a double to center, scoring Takaguchi. 6-4! But then Luis Jimenez struck out on a checked third strike to end the game there.



Box score on NPB's site.

After the game I went player-stalking with my friends. I got photos with a few players again, but there was super-strong wind and so I look like crap because the wind was blowing in my face. I was still happy to catch these guys though -- Sunaga because now I've gotten my photo with all the Urawa Gakuin guys, and Yohei just because I like him and usually he runs away from us.


Me with Hideki Sunaga.


Me with Yohei Kaneko.

I also saw a friend of mine who works for the Fighters, who's helped me with fan club stuff all along when I can't figure out things in Japanese, but who I hadn't seen in person since last March's fan festival. So that was also good.

And well... these didn't fit into the story but I feel like posting them anyway to finish out the photopost:


Shunichi Nemoto


Takumi Kohbe


Chon-so Yoh


Akira Ohtsuka


Kenshi Sugiya


Now I am off to the Fighters-Lions game in an hour or two, hopefully!

Photopost: Kamagaya, July 4th, Marines vs. Fighters

Last year on the 4th of July I celebrated my Americanness by going to the immigration office to do the paperwork to live in Japan for another year. This year, I spent the 4th of July watching baseball, which is arguably more American, although I didn't see any other Americans all day, unless you count Lenn Sakata, and I didn't talk to him anyway.

I got to Kamagaya station in time for the first bus to the field, and yet the place was already pretty crowded, since a lot of people drive there from around Chiba. But a few nice people gave me a ticket to the sign-kai table going on, and I happened to bring shikishi for once, so I ran outside and got them signed by Mitsuo Yoshikawa and Suguru Ichikawa! That was pretty cool.



After that I spent an hour basically wandering around and saying hi to people and talking to friends and taking photos and eating food and all. At one point, Keisuke Tanimoto and Romash Tasuku Dass (pitchers for the Fighters) wandered into the food court, which was pretty wacky. I took a photo but it didn't really come out.

Anyway, there was a game. It featured the following starting pitchers...


Kazuhito Tadano for the Fighters, and


Yuta Ohmine for the Marines.

Rumor was that if Tadano did well, he'd have a really good shot of being moved up to ichi-gun. I wouldn't say he did poorly but I'm also not sure he was fabulous enough for them to move him up. 5.2 innings, 6 strikeouts, 2 earned runs, that's not too bad, but he allowed a lot of runners. The Marines actually had the bases loaded with no outs in the first, but then he got the next three batters to keep runs from scoring. And they had a lot of guys on in the 3rd too, when they scored the first run of the game off a Nemoto double and a Hosoya double. Tadano also gave up the first home run of the gsme to, of all people, Masato Watanabe.

In the meantime, Ohmine got a lot of strikeouts, BUT then proceeded to lead off the 3rd inning by hitting Yoh with a pitch in the shoulder, and then hitting the next batter Konta in the shin. A series of crazy errors during Satoh's two-out at-bat were what scored Konta and Imanami (the latter had tried to bunt up the first two, but succeeded in getting Yoh out on the force at third instead). First, the Fighters' Yoshihiro Satoh hit the ball to left field, but then the Marines' Kenji Satoh, who was playing left, ran out for the ball... and dropped it. So Konta scored, Imanami went to third, and then as they threw in the ball from left, it also MISSED the first baseman and kept going, so eventually the Fighters' Satoh ended up at third, and Imanami also scored, and neither run was earned for Ohmine.

That made it 2-1, and Masato's homerun made it 2-2.

Tadano threw an 0-2 eephus pitch to Takumi Kohbe in the 5th, which was hilarious, and Kohbe struck out on the next pitch and was so pissed off he threw his bat into the ground.

Anyway, in the 6th, Hosoya got on base when the aforementioned Fighters Satoh dropped a fly ball in center, and stole second, and Ohtsuka walked, and then that pesky Masato Watanabe singled to right and drove in Hosoya, making it 3-2, and that's when Tadano came out of the game.

For the record, when Hosoya hit that to center, he actually ran towards 2nd base, then ran back to 1st, and the ball was thrown in by then and he was called safe, but he looked kind of out, and manager Mizukami came out to argue the call. Lotte fans were yelling, "We have a night game to go to in Chiba, hurry up and decide!"

Yachiho Hoshino pitched the top of the 7th inning and gave up a whopping 5 runs to Lotte, including homeruns to Heiuchi (solo leadoff) and Ohtsuka (3-run). 8-2.

Sho Nakata hit a home run in the 8th, a solo shot over the centerfield wall, making it 8-3, not that it really mattered at that point. You can see a box score here for more details; I'll try to add more later, if I have time.



After the game, I went to stalk players with some of my friends, but thanks to the game being long and the last bus out being at 5:19pm, I only got to see a few. I spent a while talking to Luis Jimenez while he was signing stuff, though. He's a nice guy. I made a really dumb comment not realizing his translator was standing right there, too. I swear, I should just stop speaking English altogether. I'm much nicer and much less likely to say something stupid in Japanese (or rather, less likely to say something stupid where I'm aware I'm saying something stupid, instead of just making a language mistake).


Got a photo with Luis, though.


I also caught Yataro Sakamoto and bugged him for a photo. Saitama pride!

Anyway, here are some more photos I took on Saturday. I did say it was a photo post, right?


Toshimasa Konta taking practice swings.


Cubby-mascot reading some of the players' tanabata wishes.


Young infielder Takuya Nakashima.


SE-I-I-CHI! Ohhira, laughing at someone's joke.


Sho Nakata got some kind of weird haircut, not sure if it's since he came down to ni-gun or not.


Ryota Imanari, my favorite Fighters ni-gun kid. Rumor has it that after the all-star break, they might move Shota Ohno down to ni-gun to work on stuff and bring Imanari up. Who knows.


Imanari again.


Shunichi Nemoto watches a ball go flying up.


Takumi Kohbe.


Ryuichi Watanabe warms up with Tadano. But why does his glove say "Ohtsuka"? We don't have a catcher by that name...


Third-base coach Hajime Miki.


Konta running in from the outfield.


Hisao Heiuchi at third base joking around with Miki during a delay.


Masato Watanabe high-fives the dugout after hitting a home run.


Go Go Ohtsuka Akira! (He has the best smile on the Marines, hands down, although Ueno may give him some competition.)


In the 7th inning, they had something called "Cubby Taiso", where kids came on the field to ostensibly do some kind of dance, but in reality just waved noisemakers and did whatever.


I'm off to Kamagaya for Sunday's game. Hope it doesn't rain!

Hiroki Ueno's Ichi-gun Debut

We interrupt this normally totally Fighters-centric blog for a very important announcement about a Lotte pitcher. My 2009 Lotte Ni-Gun Boyfriend, Hiroki Ueno, got called up to ichi-gun yesterday, and when I read about it this morning I startled half of my office by squealing "WHAT?!" aloud. He didn't enter last night's almost-6-hour marathon, but instead came into TONIGHT'S game and pitched the last 2.2 innings for the Marines. And he was good. Every bit as good as I expect him to be for hopefully a long, long time.

(Photo from the Marines site of Ueno-kun on the mound)

He pitched 2.2 innings and faced 9 batters and struck out 6 of them. (box score in Japanese)

I'd been following Ueno's outings all year on the Marines ni-gun team -- how he kept striking people out and not walking them and not really giving up hits (he's 3-1, 2.50 in 13 games, 31 K in 30 innings with 4 walks and 30 hits). He usually seemed to follow Yasutaka Hattori, coming in about 4-5 innings into the game. And yet, I still never managed to see him actually play (not since he graduated college, anyway), because I haven't caught a Lotte ni-gun game in a while and can only do so on weekends and have been swamped with other things.

Oddly, I've been planning for a while to go to Kamagaya THIS coming weekend to see the Marines vs. Fighters ni-gun series, partially because I haven't been to Kamagaya in a while, but a major part was wanting to see Ueno pitch, or at least hoping to get to stalk him after the game for a photo together or an autograph or something. Seriously. Even though I hadn't really babbled about him on here, I've told a bunch of my Fighters friends about him, mostly as "the really awesome pitcher who was Shota Ohno's battery-mate at Toyo University". (I posted a bunch of photos of him with my 2008 Draft Post, since I happened to be at the Toyo-Asia game on the afternoon of draft day. I'd been taking photos of Ueno all day, and then got a text message from a friend like "Our first round pick was Shota Ohno!" and I'm like "Oh! He's right there!")

Well, I hope Ueno does really well at ichi-gun, though that means I'll have to choose a new Lotte ni-gun boyfriend a lot sooner than expected. I suppose all of my other favorite Lotte ni-gun guys are still around to see this weekend, but... oh, Ueno-kun, why couldn't you have gotten called up NEXT week? Now I'll never get to tell you how awesome I think you are :(