And now, so can you.
Part 1: Katsuya Nomura is a grumpy old man
And he makes me laugh way too much.
First, this is a commercial I see on TV a lot. I still giggle every time I see it.
The non-baseball player is Kimura Takuya, of the music/talent group SMAP, explaining that with this new technology by Fujitsu you can record things and play them over and over again. So Nomura-kantoku, of course, records Masahiro Tanaka and then puts him out there to pitch again. "Now substituting for Ma-kun... Ma-kun!" "Not bad, huh?"
Okay, second, this is a bunch of the KMJ clips -- Kumejima, where the Rakuten Golden Eagles are holding spring camp. (Nevermind that even after a week and a half, every time I see Kumejima -- 久米島 -- I think of the Softbank Hawks pitcher Yuuki Kume, 久米勇紀, who I saw pitch for Meiji University last fall. And I'm like "Why are the Eagles training on Kume's Island?" But that's beside the point.) Anyway, if you go into about 1:04 of this video, you'll see the part that I saw the other night and again couldn't stop laughing for several minutes...
A bunch of kids ask Katsuya Nomura for his autograph. "Sign?" they ask. He looks at them and says, "Sine? Cosine. Tangent! Sine, cosine, tangent. It's today's math lesson! Repeat!"
It's funny, I used to think Nomura was such a grumpy old man and nothing else, who just muttered random things to mess with people, but now I've come to realize he's actually a lot more brilliant than most people give him credit for. Really, look out for Rakuten this year. They really might come out of nowhere and kick a significant amount of butt.
Part 2: Buchimeki King, Yuuki Yoshimura!
I'm amazed this is on YouTube since I just saw it last night, but I'm glad, because this was made of pure awesome.
First, let me make it clear that I am sick and tired of seeing Sho Nakata on TV all the time. Infact, the only thing I might be more sick of hearing about is the Erik Bedard trade over in Seattle. So, at first when I saw this on J-Spo I was like "Great, another Sho Nakata special," but then I saw, "hey, wait a minute, it's actually Hichori vs. Nakata. That's got to be good!"
"Buchimeku" means to go through, so what they were doing was setting up 10 boards and then seeing which player could hit a ball through the most boards with one swing. So naturally Hichori has to trash-talk quite a bit. (I won't ruin the ending and let you know who won and by how many, though -- maybe I will in the comments. I will say that this kind of thing takes not only POWER but AIM and leave it at that.)
Part of why it's funny is also because in the Shukan Baseball magazine this week had a quote from Hichori like "Nakata? Cleanup hitter? What are you TALKING about, *I'M* going to be the Fighters' cleanup hitter this year... I'm gonna hit .300, steal 30 bases, hit 15 home runs, and get another golden glove and best nine nomination. Ok?"
Also, for the record, the woman in these segments is TV talent Sheila, a Japanese-Cuban who I'd seen on a bunch of TBS sports shows before but never bothered to look up. Apparently she comes to America to do MLB interviews in Spanish and Japanese from time to time. Lucky girl.
Right, so onwards to another favorite team of mine, the Yokohama Baystars, as they also take the Buchimeki King challenge:
First up is Daisuke Miura. Yes, Miura's a pitcher, but who cares, he's also the "Bancho" of the team, which loosely means "gang leader", although to me it means "dude with too much hair gel". To his credit, he beats Sho Nakata.
Second up is, naturally, 2007 CL Home Run King Shuuichi Murata, who ties Miura's total. I know I've thought about this before, but if I had to pick one of the Baystars guys as a huge line drive hitter, offhand I'd pick Yuuki Yoshimura over Shuuichi Murata. Murata hits huge blasts of home runs but they do often go up in the air, so it should be no surprise that Murata's shots in the Buchimeki game also take an arc to them.
Murata says, "Let's go get my kohai to take a shot at this", so they go grab Yoshimura and get him to try it. I just have the following to say:
- WHY DID I NOT REALIZE MURATA AND YOSHIMURA BOTH WENT TO THE SAME HIGH SCHOOL?
- And that high school, Higashi Fukuoka, is also the alma mater of Kensuke Tanaka (Fighters 2B) and Keiji Uezono (Hanshin 2007 ROY)? And Murata and Kensuke played together at the 1998 Summer Koshien which is like the craziest Koshien ever?
- Yoshimura. Is. Amazing. Just watch.
Part 3: Baseball Dorama, "Full Swing"
Actually, I haven't watched this yet. Infact, I wasn't even aware of it until I managed to finally catch part of the NHK taiga drama "Atsu-Hime" the other night, and saw a commercial for it. But I'm going to go try to find and watch it sometime soon.
Full Swing - Official NHK Webpage
Basically, this TV show is a 6-part miniseries about Michihiro Takabatake. Takabatake was a marginal player for the Hawks in the late 1960's and early 70's, before becoming a coach and scout for several teams. He went back to school to become a certified high school teacher in his late 50's, and then after only a year or so of teaching, died of pancreatic cancer.
I believe that the show mostly focuses on his teaching career, but I'm betting that there's a really fascinating story behind the guy. I mean, for one, why he reregistered his name as Yasumasa in 1977. And why exactly did he decide to become a teacher? And more, why did he turn down being drafted by the Giants in 1966 out of Chuo University, only to accept being drafted by the Nankai Hawks out of Hitachi in 1967?
Unfortunately, I don't have time to figure out the story right now. If anyone happens to read this, and actually knows the story, please please please tell me.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Monday, February 04, 2008
古田さんのトレーニング, or, How Furuta Stays in Shape Nowadays
I'd seen the Atsuya Furuta commercials for the Nintendo Wii on TV once or twice, but today while heading home, I was in Ikebukuro station and saw this on the wall and thought, "Hey, I recognize that guy!"
You can see the Furuta WiiFit television commercials on the official Wii site. His are numbers 11, 12, and 16. 16 is undoubtedly the funniest, involving the hula hoop exercise.
But to be honest, if you want to know what Furuta is up to these days besides playing Nintendo Wii games, he's restarted his blog on a non-Swallows site.
While I'm at it, in other things I saw on TV tonight, they had some features around the various Spring training camps. Apparently the foreigners on the Baystars were introduced to the Japanese holiday of Setsubun today, which involves throwing beans to "cast out evil spirits". (I was supposed to celebrate it today, but since it was snowing and freezing cold in Tokyo we decided against it.) They also did the normal tour of showing the young hotshots working out -- it was nice to see some of Rakuten's Hasebe finally, I'm really looking forward to seeing him pitch this year. Saw Kazuhisa Ishii wearing #61 and not looking quite as cool as Seibu's #16, Wakui, who has a trendy but messy hairstyle these days.
But the kicker -- the absolute most awesome thing I saw -- was from the Chiba Lotte Marines spring camp, which is in Yuuta Omine's hometown of Ishigaki. The Marines drafted another guy named Yuuta, Yuuta Shimoshikiryo, in the college/industry draft this past fall. Shimoshikiryo, in addition to having an extremely long name, also has an extremely low release point. As in, he's another submariner. So, he's been working out with Shunsuke Watanabe, and they were interviewed on the news together, where Shunsuke was being funny about having a "lower" classman, and Shimoshikiryo was like "BEST. SEMPAI. EVER."
Bobby Valentine is excited to be back in camp but fortunately does not weigh in on the ugly new Lotte uniforms.
You can see the Furuta WiiFit television commercials on the official Wii site. His are numbers 11, 12, and 16. 16 is undoubtedly the funniest, involving the hula hoop exercise.
But to be honest, if you want to know what Furuta is up to these days besides playing Nintendo Wii games, he's restarted his blog on a non-Swallows site.
While I'm at it, in other things I saw on TV tonight, they had some features around the various Spring training camps. Apparently the foreigners on the Baystars were introduced to the Japanese holiday of Setsubun today, which involves throwing beans to "cast out evil spirits". (I was supposed to celebrate it today, but since it was snowing and freezing cold in Tokyo we decided against it.) They also did the normal tour of showing the young hotshots working out -- it was nice to see some of Rakuten's Hasebe finally, I'm really looking forward to seeing him pitch this year. Saw Kazuhisa Ishii wearing #61 and not looking quite as cool as Seibu's #16, Wakui, who has a trendy but messy hairstyle these days.
But the kicker -- the absolute most awesome thing I saw -- was from the Chiba Lotte Marines spring camp, which is in Yuuta Omine's hometown of Ishigaki. The Marines drafted another guy named Yuuta, Yuuta Shimoshikiryo, in the college/industry draft this past fall. Shimoshikiryo, in addition to having an extremely long name, also has an extremely low release point. As in, he's another submariner. So, he's been working out with Shunsuke Watanabe, and they were interviewed on the news together, where Shunsuke was being funny about having a "lower" classman, and Shimoshikiryo was like "BEST. SEMPAI. EVER."
Bobby Valentine is excited to be back in camp but fortunately does not weigh in on the ugly new Lotte uniforms.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Tatsunamitude - #3 on the 3rd
A bit ago I had noticed that there was this "Mr. Dragons Exhibit" in the Nagoya Central Towers, basically some sort of display dedicated to Kazuyoshi Tatsunami. Since I couldn't really get down to Nagoya on my own to go see it, I bugged my friend Jeff to go check it out. Jeff is one of the best photographers I know, hands-down, and he's also been a big Dragons fan for the last 15 years or so and an even BIGGER Tatsunami fan. Or, in his words, "To me, [Tatsunami] is the closest the Dragons are ever going to get to having their own Cal Ripken."
Anyway, check out Jeff's pictures, this is great stuff. It's kind of depressing how Tatsunami is likely to be one of the very last of these sorts of players -- long distinguished career all on the same team. They're dying out in Japan the same way they died out in America, although now it's more because of guys defecting to the MLB, not because of the typical hot-stoving that scatters careers nowadays.
Anyway, check out Jeff's pictures, this is great stuff. It's kind of depressing how Tatsunami is likely to be one of the very last of these sorts of players -- long distinguished career all on the same team. They're dying out in Japan the same way they died out in America, although now it's more because of guys defecting to the MLB, not because of the typical hot-stoving that scatters careers nowadays.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Happy Hichori Morimoto Day!
(I did this last year too, so why not?)
It's Hichori Morimoto's 27th birthday today!
As you know, Hichori is one of my favorite players in the entire world. He's a crazy good baseball player and a crazy funny person in general. Like his predecessor in the Fighters centerfield spot Tsuyoshi Shinjo, Hichori has a goal of making people laugh and enjoy baseball, whether it's fans, teammates, or whoever.
Sadly, unlike last year when lots of Hichori-isms were showing up in the press, this year's highschool slugger boy Nakata Sho is completely dominating the Fighters media (and you have no idea how annoying it's getting), so I'm not entirely sure exactly what Hichori is up to, although he was apparently spotted in Hawaii taking batting practice a few weeks ago, hanging out with Shinjo. Cool.
So, instead of rounding up a "What's up with Hichori" for Hichori day this year, I'm going to translate his Wikipedia page into English! Yay!
(I'm leaving the Japanese in this post for now because I'm sure I'll want to tweak my translation in the future and it's easier to do it this way than to keep looking back and forth)
森本 稀哲（もりもと ひちょり、1981年1月31日 - ）は、東京都荒川区出身のプロ野球選手。ポジションは外野手で、主に中堅手。北海道日本ハムファイターズ所属。真面目でとにかく明るい性格とスキンヘッドが特徴。イメージカラーは緑。
Hichori Morimoto (1/31/1981 -) is a pro baseball player from the Arakawa area of Tokyo. He is an outfielder for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, primarily playing center field. He has a bright and interesting personality and is known for having a shaven head. His associated color is green.
在日コリアン（韓国籍）の父と、日本人の母を持つ。生家は東京都荒川区西日暮里で焼肉店「絵理花」を営んでいる。
小学生の時、髪の毛はじめ体毛すべてが突如抜け落ち生えてこなくなる原因不明の難病にかかった。現在はこの病気を克服しているが、当時の苦労を忘れないように、そして同じ病気で苦しむ人に勇気を与えるためにと毎日自身で剃刀を当ててスキンヘッドにし続けている。
His father is a resident (zainichi) Korean and his mother is Japanese. They run a yakiniku restaurant called "Erika" in the Nippori neighborhood of Tokyo where Hichori grew up.
When he was in elementary school, suddenly all of his hair fell out due to an unknown disease. He has gotten better from the disease now, but in order to remember those times and also in honor of other people who have illnesses that cause hair to fall out, he shaves his head every day.
帝京高校では1998年に主将、遊撃手として夏の甲子園に出場。3回戦・浜田高校戦で8回に和田毅（現福岡ソフトバンクホークス）からバックスクリーンへの同点本塁打を放つも敗退。高校通算34本塁打。同年秋のドラフト4位で日本ハムに入団し、入団当初は内野手であったが外野手に転向した。
In 1998, Hichori was captain and shortstop for Teikyo High School's baseball team, which played in the Summer Koshien tournament. In the third round of the tournament, playing against Shimane Prefecture's Hamada High School, their team was down 2-0 in the 8th inning, and Hichori hit a 2-run homer off of Tsuyoshi Wada to tie the game (though Hamada went on to win the game anyway). Hichori hit 34 home runs total during his high school career, and was drafted by the Fighters in the fourth round of the 1998 draft, and they converted him to an outfielder.
2年目の2000年、1軍初出場。その後打撃で伸び悩むが、2005年、課題だった打撃が向上し、初の100試合以上に出場。翌年の飛躍につなげる。
He made his debut at the top team level in 2000, but it wasn't until 2005 that he really improved enough to stick around and play in over 100 games.
2006年
4月下旬から1番・左翼手に定着し、初の規定打席に到達。パシフィック・リーグ最多得点を記録。チームメイトの新庄剛志・稲葉篤紀とともにゴールデングラブ賞を受賞し、同チームで外野手部門を独占した。オールスターゲームに初選出されている。
2006 -
- At the end of April he established himself as the leadoff hitter and regular left fielder. He led the Pacific League that year in runs scored, and along with his teammates Atsunori Inaba (RF) and Tsuyoshi Shinjo (CF), won an all-Fighters Golden Glove outfield. 2006 also was Hichori's first time being elected to play in the All-Star game.
2007年
前年で引退した新庄剛志に代わり中堅手に定着。不動の1番打者として全イニング出場し、初の打率3割を記録。24試合連続安打はパ・リーグ歴代6位タイ、球団では大下弘と並び最多タイ記録。
2007 -
- Hichori inherited uniform number #1 from the recently-retired Tsuyoshi Shinjo. He batted leadoff and played in every single inning of every single game for the Fighters (ed. note: this is not strictly true -- he DH'ed in one game, the "dare aitsu" game of September 30, but it's true he never missed a game or an at-bat), and batted .300 for the first time. His 24-game hitting streak was tied for the 6th best in Pacific League history and tied for the team best with Hiroshi Oshita.
2年連続で最多得票でゴールデングラブ賞と、初のベストナインを獲得。補殺数は両リーグ1位の15個を記録した。
- He also led the Golden Glove voting for the second year in a row, made the Best Nine team for the first time, and led all of NPB outfielders in assists with 15. (ed. note: No joke. The next highest were 10 from Yokohama's Kinjoh and Rakuten's Teppei.)
同じ歳で元チームメイトの實松一成（現読売ジャイアンツ）とは親友である。また、新庄からは弟分のように可愛がられており、森本を自らの背番号1の後継者に指名した。
He is still close friends with former teammate and fellow 1998 draftee Kazunari Sanematsu (now with the Giants -- and thank god for that). Also, he feels like a younger brother to Shinjo, who gave him the uniform number #1 and named him as his "successor".
Uniform numbers
- 53 (in 1999)
- 46 (2000-2006)
- 1 (2007-)
Titles / Awards / Records
Titles:
- Golden Glove, 2006 & 2007
- Best Nine - 2007, OF
Awards:
- All-star game voting (2 times, 2006 / 2007)
- All-star game "new player award" - 2006
- All-star game MVP - 2007
- Japan Series MVP - 2006
Records:
- Every inning of every game - 2007
- 24-game hitting streak - tied for 6th in PL history, tied for top of Fighters team history
- 2 leadoff home runs in consecutive games (4/25/06, 4/26/06 vs. Seibu), the 11th person to do so
- Stole home during an All-Star game, the 3rd person to ever do so
- 6 hits in a game (9/17/2006 against Chiba), tying a league record
Firsts:
- Debut game: 8/2/2000, against Seibu at the Seibu dome, came in as a pinch-hitter in the 10th inning, struck out against Shinji Mori
- First starting lineup appearance: 8/10/2000, against Kintetsu at the Osaka Dome, batting first, playing left field
- First hit: same game (8/10/2000), in the third inning off Narciso Elvira
- First home run: same game, 9th inning, off Shinji Udaka
- First RBI: same game, it was that home run
- First stolen base: 7/18/2001, against Seibu at the Tokyo Dome -- in the 2nd inning, pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, catcher Tsutomu Itoh
Trivia:
-「ひちょり」の命名は父による。「稀哲」の韓国語での発音「ヒチョル」から取られた。
- His father named him "Hee-chol" in Korean, and then they made the kanji for "Hichori" in Japanese.
- 入団当時「ひろより」と振り仮名を振ってあった名鑑もあった。また、「稀哲」を「秘哲」と誤植していた名鑑もあった。
- When he first joined the team they misprinted the kanji for his name, thinking it was "Hiroyori".
- 小学生時代に、当時好きだったクラスメイトの女子から「（ドラゴンボールの）ピッコロみたい」と言われた事がある。
- "He looks like Piccolo (from Dragonball Z)!" said female classmates of his in elementary school.
- 高校時代、登校日にはいつも両親手製の焼肉弁当（肉・タレは店で使うものと同じ）を持参し、他の野球部員と交換していた。仲間に焼肉弁当を堪能してもらおうという計らいによる。
- During high school, his parents always made him a yakiniku bento for lunch, which he would bring to school and trade/share with his other baseball teammates. Everyone liked this arrangement :)
- 2006年10月12日のパ・リーグプレーオフ第2ステージ・対福岡ソフトバンクホークス2回戦の9回裏、内野で送球が逸れた際に二塁からホームインし、サヨナラ勝利でリーグ優勝を決めた。優勝の瞬間については「何が何だか分からなかったが、稲葉さんを見たら『喜びを通り越した怖い顔』をしていたので、優勝したことに気付いた」と語っている。
- On 10/12/2006, during the second game of the Pacific League Second Stage playoffs, in the 9th inning, he ran home from second base to score the deciding (and only) run of the game, which won the league championship for the Fighters. He said of that moment, "With all that happened, I best remember seeing Inaba's face, which was of such complete joy that I realized we were the champions."
- 森本には専用の応援歌があるが、2006年のアジアシリーズ決勝戦（11月12日）の第4打席ではファンから後継者という期待を込め、新庄の応援歌の替え歌が演奏された（歌詞中の「メジャー」を「鎌ケ谷」、「新庄」を「稀哲」としていた）。
- During the final game of the 2006 Asia Series, fans sang a parody of Shinjo's player cheer song to cheer for Hichori, replacing the words "Major" with "Kamagaya" and "Shinjo" with "Hichori".
- 2006年11月18日、長袖を千葉県鎌ケ谷市・ファイターズスタジアムに送ってしまったため。札幌市で行われた優勝パレードに半袖のユニフォーム姿で登場した。
- Hichori's long sleeves were supposedly left in Fighters Town Kamagaya and thus he wore short sleeves for the Fighters victory parade in Sapporo on 11/18/2006.
- 2007年3月18日、北海道新幹線大使に任命。
- On 3/18/2007, he was an ambassador for the Hokkaido Shinkansen project.
- 2007年シーズンから、新庄の後を継ぐかのようにタイムリーヒット及び本塁打に「○○ヒッツ!」「○○ホームラン!」と命名している。
- From the 2007 season onwards, he took up Shinjo's gimmick of naming his RBI hits and home runs "so-and-so hit" and "so-and-so home run".
Performances/Jokes
- 2004年9月20日、試合前練習に他の外野手4人（SHINJO、島田一輝、石本努、坪井智哉）とともに『秘密戦隊ゴレンジャー』のマスクをつけて参加。
- 9/20/2004, before the game, he and 4 other players (Shinjo, Shimada, Ishimoto, and Tsuboi) went out in Mighty Morphin Power Ranger masks.
- 2006年7月2日、試合後のヒーローインタビューで尾崎豊の『きっと忘れない』を熱唱（前年のファン感謝イベントでの公約による）。
- 7/2/2006, he sang Yutaka Ozaki's "Kitto Wasurenai" song during a hero interview.
- 2006年7月21日、オールスターゲーム第1戦の試合前イベントに漫画『ドラゴンボール』の登場人物・ピッコロの姿で登場。しかし版権の問題からか、実況は一切コメントをしなかった。第2戦（7月23日）の試合前イベントにはカツラを装着し、差し歯を抜いて登場。
- 7/21/2006 - during the All-Star game, he dressed up as Piccolo from Dragonball Z.
- 2006年8月13日、試合前のスターティングメンバー紹介時に1人だけ「ラリージャパン」の幟をつけた自転車で入場（他の先発メンバーは全員ラリーカーに乗って入場。ラリージャパンの宣伝のため）。
- 8/13/2006 - during the starting lineups, he rode a "Rally Japan" little bicycle out onto the field, despite that all of the other players had ridden cars out.
- 2006年10月26日、日本シリーズ優勝決定後のビールかけの場にスピードスケート選手の衣装で登場。
- During the beer-spraying party following the 2006 Japan Series, he dressed up as a speed skater.
- 2007年6月2日、試合前練習に特注の竹馬とズボンを履いて登場。当日先発登板したダルビッシュ有の身長をはるかに超える3mの「ひちょ・マックス」姿で守備練習を行った。
- 6/2/2007, he came out onto the field before the game wearing stilts and called himself "Hicho MAX!"
- 2007年7月20日に行われたオールスターゲーム第1戦では帽子から「伸びた頭」を披露。しかし遠目ではよく分からなかったため、不評であった。
- 7/20/2007 - during the All-Star 2007 games, he dressed up as a conehead.
- 翌日（7月21日）の第2戦ではタイのムエタイ風の姿（上半身裸に緑のトランクス）で登場し、全パのヒルマン監督と打ち合った。
- The next day he came out dressing like a Muay Thai boxer in green trunks.
- 同年シーズンオフの三井ゴールデングラブ賞表彰式会場に、マイケル・ジャクソン『スリラー』の様な上下赤のレザーファッションとメイクで登場
- During the Golden Glove ceremonies, he dressed up as Michael Jackson.
- 同年（12月1日）札幌ドームで開催された日ハムのファンフェスティバルにて、選手のPK対決で同じ地元のJリーグチーム・コンサドーレ札幌のユニフォームを着てゴールを決めた(その時のキーパー役は鶴岡慎也)。
- During the fan festival, he came out dressed up as a soccer player for Consadole Sapporo, and kicked a goal (the goalkeeper was Fighters catcher Shinya Tsuruoka).
Yikes, my brain hurts from going through all that. I need to add pictures to most of those later "episodes", although I'm sure by now everyone's seen the one of him dressed as Piccolo during the ASG...
Anyway, happy Hichori day! And remember.. Hichori Day means only one day until Spring Training!
It's Hichori Morimoto's 27th birthday today!
As you know, Hichori is one of my favorite players in the entire world. He's a crazy good baseball player and a crazy funny person in general. Like his predecessor in the Fighters centerfield spot Tsuyoshi Shinjo, Hichori has a goal of making people laugh and enjoy baseball, whether it's fans, teammates, or whoever.
Sadly, unlike last year when lots of Hichori-isms were showing up in the press, this year's highschool slugger boy Nakata Sho is completely dominating the Fighters media (and you have no idea how annoying it's getting), so I'm not entirely sure exactly what Hichori is up to, although he was apparently spotted in Hawaii taking batting practice a few weeks ago, hanging out with Shinjo. Cool.
So, instead of rounding up a "What's up with Hichori" for Hichori day this year, I'm going to translate his Wikipedia page into English! Yay!
(I'm leaving the Japanese in this post for now because I'm sure I'll want to tweak my translation in the future and it's easier to do it this way than to keep looking back and forth)
森本 稀哲（もりもと ひちょり、1981年1月31日 - ）は、東京都荒川区出身のプロ野球選手。ポジションは外野手で、主に中堅手。北海道日本ハムファイターズ所属。真面目でとにかく明るい性格とスキンヘッドが特徴。イメージカラーは緑。
Hichori Morimoto (1/31/1981 -) is a pro baseball player from the Arakawa area of Tokyo. He is an outfielder for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, primarily playing center field. He has a bright and interesting personality and is known for having a shaven head. His associated color is green.
在日コリアン（韓国籍）の父と、日本人の母を持つ。生家は東京都荒川区西日暮里で焼肉店「絵理花」を営んでいる。
小学生の時、髪の毛はじめ体毛すべてが突如抜け落ち生えてこなくなる原因不明の難病にかかった。現在はこの病気を克服しているが、当時の苦労を忘れないように、そして同じ病気で苦しむ人に勇気を与えるためにと毎日自身で剃刀を当ててスキンヘッドにし続けている。
His father is a resident (zainichi) Korean and his mother is Japanese. They run a yakiniku restaurant called "Erika" in the Nippori neighborhood of Tokyo where Hichori grew up.
When he was in elementary school, suddenly all of his hair fell out due to an unknown disease. He has gotten better from the disease now, but in order to remember those times and also in honor of other people who have illnesses that cause hair to fall out, he shaves his head every day.
帝京高校では1998年に主将、遊撃手として夏の甲子園に出場。3回戦・浜田高校戦で8回に和田毅（現福岡ソフトバンクホークス）からバックスクリーンへの同点本塁打を放つも敗退。高校通算34本塁打。同年秋のドラフト4位で日本ハムに入団し、入団当初は内野手であったが外野手に転向した。
In 1998, Hichori was captain and shortstop for Teikyo High School's baseball team, which played in the Summer Koshien tournament. In the third round of the tournament, playing against Shimane Prefecture's Hamada High School, their team was down 2-0 in the 8th inning, and Hichori hit a 2-run homer off of Tsuyoshi Wada to tie the game (though Hamada went on to win the game anyway). Hichori hit 34 home runs total during his high school career, and was drafted by the Fighters in the fourth round of the 1998 draft, and they converted him to an outfielder.
2年目の2000年、1軍初出場。その後打撃で伸び悩むが、2005年、課題だった打撃が向上し、初の100試合以上に出場。翌年の飛躍につなげる。
He made his debut at the top team level in 2000, but it wasn't until 2005 that he really improved enough to stick around and play in over 100 games.
2006年
4月下旬から1番・左翼手に定着し、初の規定打席に到達。パシフィック・リーグ最多得点を記録。チームメイトの新庄剛志・稲葉篤紀とともにゴールデングラブ賞を受賞し、同チームで外野手部門を独占した。オールスターゲームに初選出されている。
2006 -
- At the end of April he established himself as the leadoff hitter and regular left fielder. He led the Pacific League that year in runs scored, and along with his teammates Atsunori Inaba (RF) and Tsuyoshi Shinjo (CF), won an all-Fighters Golden Glove outfield. 2006 also was Hichori's first time being elected to play in the All-Star game.
2007年
前年で引退した新庄剛志に代わり中堅手に定着。不動の1番打者として全イニング出場し、初の打率3割を記録。24試合連続安打はパ・リーグ歴代6位タイ、球団では大下弘と並び最多タイ記録。
2007 -
- Hichori inherited uniform number #1 from the recently-retired Tsuyoshi Shinjo. He batted leadoff and played in every single inning of every single game for the Fighters (ed. note: this is not strictly true -- he DH'ed in one game, the "dare aitsu" game of September 30, but it's true he never missed a game or an at-bat), and batted .300 for the first time. His 24-game hitting streak was tied for the 6th best in Pacific League history and tied for the team best with Hiroshi Oshita.
2年連続で最多得票でゴールデングラブ賞と、初のベストナインを獲得。補殺数は両リーグ1位の15個を記録した。
- He also led the Golden Glove voting for the second year in a row, made the Best Nine team for the first time, and led all of NPB outfielders in assists with 15. (ed. note: No joke. The next highest were 10 from Yokohama's Kinjoh and Rakuten's Teppei.)
同じ歳で元チームメイトの實松一成（現読売ジャイアンツ）とは親友である。また、新庄からは弟分のように可愛がられており、森本を自らの背番号1の後継者に指名した。
He is still close friends with former teammate and fellow 1998 draftee Kazunari Sanematsu (now with the Giants -- and thank god for that). Also, he feels like a younger brother to Shinjo, who gave him the uniform number #1 and named him as his "successor".
Uniform numbers
- 53 (in 1999)
- 46 (2000-2006)
- 1 (2007-)
Titles / Awards / Records
Titles:
- Golden Glove, 2006 & 2007
- Best Nine - 2007, OF
Awards:
- All-star game voting (2 times, 2006 / 2007)
- All-star game "new player award" - 2006
- All-star game MVP - 2007
- Japan Series MVP - 2006
Records:
- Every inning of every game - 2007
- 24-game hitting streak - tied for 6th in PL history, tied for top of Fighters team history
- 2 leadoff home runs in consecutive games (4/25/06, 4/26/06 vs. Seibu), the 11th person to do so
- Stole home during an All-Star game, the 3rd person to ever do so
- 6 hits in a game (9/17/2006 against Chiba), tying a league record
Firsts:
- Debut game: 8/2/2000, against Seibu at the Seibu dome, came in as a pinch-hitter in the 10th inning, struck out against Shinji Mori
- First starting lineup appearance: 8/10/2000, against Kintetsu at the Osaka Dome, batting first, playing left field
- First hit: same game (8/10/2000), in the third inning off Narciso Elvira
- First home run: same game, 9th inning, off Shinji Udaka
- First RBI: same game, it was that home run
- First stolen base: 7/18/2001, against Seibu at the Tokyo Dome -- in the 2nd inning, pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, catcher Tsutomu Itoh
Trivia:
-「ひちょり」の命名は父による。「稀哲」の韓国語での発音「ヒチョル」から取られた。
- His father named him "Hee-chol" in Korean, and then they made the kanji for "Hichori" in Japanese.
- 入団当時「ひろより」と振り仮名を振ってあった名鑑もあった。また、「稀哲」を「秘哲」と誤植していた名鑑もあった。
- When he first joined the team they misprinted the kanji for his name, thinking it was "Hiroyori".
- 小学生時代に、当時好きだったクラスメイトの女子から「（ドラゴンボールの）ピッコロみたい」と言われた事がある。
- "He looks like Piccolo (from Dragonball Z)!" said female classmates of his in elementary school.
- 高校時代、登校日にはいつも両親手製の焼肉弁当（肉・タレは店で使うものと同じ）を持参し、他の野球部員と交換していた。仲間に焼肉弁当を堪能してもらおうという計らいによる。
- During high school, his parents always made him a yakiniku bento for lunch, which he would bring to school and trade/share with his other baseball teammates. Everyone liked this arrangement :)
- 2006年10月12日のパ・リーグプレーオフ第2ステージ・対福岡ソフトバンクホークス2回戦の9回裏、内野で送球が逸れた際に二塁からホームインし、サヨナラ勝利でリーグ優勝を決めた。優勝の瞬間については「何が何だか分からなかったが、稲葉さんを見たら『喜びを通り越した怖い顔』をしていたので、優勝したことに気付いた」と語っている。
- On 10/12/2006, during the second game of the Pacific League Second Stage playoffs, in the 9th inning, he ran home from second base to score the deciding (and only) run of the game, which won the league championship for the Fighters. He said of that moment, "With all that happened, I best remember seeing Inaba's face, which was of such complete joy that I realized we were the champions."
- 森本には専用の応援歌があるが、2006年のアジアシリーズ決勝戦（11月12日）の第4打席ではファンから後継者という期待を込め、新庄の応援歌の替え歌が演奏された（歌詞中の「メジャー」を「鎌ケ谷」、「新庄」を「稀哲」としていた）。
- During the final game of the 2006 Asia Series, fans sang a parody of Shinjo's player cheer song to cheer for Hichori, replacing the words "Major" with "Kamagaya" and "Shinjo" with "Hichori".
- 2006年11月18日、長袖を千葉県鎌ケ谷市・ファイターズスタジアムに送ってしまったため。札幌市で行われた優勝パレードに半袖のユニフォーム姿で登場した。
- Hichori's long sleeves were supposedly left in Fighters Town Kamagaya and thus he wore short sleeves for the Fighters victory parade in Sapporo on 11/18/2006.
- 2007年3月18日、北海道新幹線大使に任命。
- On 3/18/2007, he was an ambassador for the Hokkaido Shinkansen project.
- 2007年シーズンから、新庄の後を継ぐかのようにタイムリーヒット及び本塁打に「○○ヒッツ!」「○○ホームラン!」と命名している。
- From the 2007 season onwards, he took up Shinjo's gimmick of naming his RBI hits and home runs "so-and-so hit" and "so-and-so home run".
Performances/Jokes
- 2004年9月20日、試合前練習に他の外野手4人（SHINJO、島田一輝、石本努、坪井智哉）とともに『秘密戦隊ゴレンジャー』のマスクをつけて参加。
- 9/20/2004, before the game, he and 4 other players (Shinjo, Shimada, Ishimoto, and Tsuboi) went out in Mighty Morphin Power Ranger masks.
- 2006年7月2日、試合後のヒーローインタビューで尾崎豊の『きっと忘れない』を熱唱（前年のファン感謝イベントでの公約による）。
- 7/2/2006, he sang Yutaka Ozaki's "Kitto Wasurenai" song during a hero interview.
- 2006年7月21日、オールスターゲーム第1戦の試合前イベントに漫画『ドラゴンボール』の登場人物・ピッコロの姿で登場。しかし版権の問題からか、実況は一切コメントをしなかった。第2戦（7月23日）の試合前イベントにはカツラを装着し、差し歯を抜いて登場。
- 7/21/2006 - during the All-Star game, he dressed up as Piccolo from Dragonball Z.
- 2006年8月13日、試合前のスターティングメンバー紹介時に1人だけ「ラリージャパン」の幟をつけた自転車で入場（他の先発メンバーは全員ラリーカーに乗って入場。ラリージャパンの宣伝のため）。
- 8/13/2006 - during the starting lineups, he rode a "Rally Japan" little bicycle out onto the field, despite that all of the other players had ridden cars out.
- 2006年10月26日、日本シリーズ優勝決定後のビールかけの場にスピードスケート選手の衣装で登場。
- During the beer-spraying party following the 2006 Japan Series, he dressed up as a speed skater.
- 2007年6月2日、試合前練習に特注の竹馬とズボンを履いて登場。当日先発登板したダルビッシュ有の身長をはるかに超える3mの「ひちょ・マックス」姿で守備練習を行った。
- 6/2/2007, he came out onto the field before the game wearing stilts and called himself "Hicho MAX!"
- 2007年7月20日に行われたオールスターゲーム第1戦では帽子から「伸びた頭」を披露。しかし遠目ではよく分からなかったため、不評であった。
- 7/20/2007 - during the All-Star 2007 games, he dressed up as a conehead.
- 翌日（7月21日）の第2戦ではタイのムエタイ風の姿（上半身裸に緑のトランクス）で登場し、全パのヒルマン監督と打ち合った。
- The next day he came out dressing like a Muay Thai boxer in green trunks.
- 同年シーズンオフの三井ゴールデングラブ賞表彰式会場に、マイケル・ジャクソン『スリラー』の様な上下赤のレザーファッションとメイクで登場
- During the Golden Glove ceremonies, he dressed up as Michael Jackson.
- 同年（12月1日）札幌ドームで開催された日ハムのファンフェスティバルにて、選手のPK対決で同じ地元のJリーグチーム・コンサドーレ札幌のユニフォームを着てゴールを決めた(その時のキーパー役は鶴岡慎也)。
- During the fan festival, he came out dressed up as a soccer player for Consadole Sapporo, and kicked a goal (the goalkeeper was Fighters catcher Shinya Tsuruoka).
Yikes, my brain hurts from going through all that. I need to add pictures to most of those later "episodes", although I'm sure by now everyone's seen the one of him dressed as Piccolo during the ASG...
Anyway, happy Hichori day! And remember.. Hichori Day means only one day until Spring Training!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Powell Outage, aka NPB Roundup, Dondake Edition
On January 11, articles happily reported that Jeremy Powell was going back to Orix. It was even on the Buffaloes' site. They said he would wear #50 and made him a player page accordingly.
However, uh, today, supposedly the Softbank Hawks signed Powell? Huh? They seem to be claiming either that the Powell signing by Orix was announced but not finalized, or finalized but not announced properly, or something like that.
I see nothing of it mentioned on the Hawks' site yet, though there's a bunch of articles categorized as "パウエル獲得" on Yahoo and other sports article sites. And sadly, this is all the variety of stuff that I have trouble reading, but I'm sure that whenever people figure out what the hell is going on, it'll get posted to the thread on japanesebaseball.com accordingly.
(There is another article in the Daily Yomiuri which has some more details, but is almost as "WTF?" as everything else, I think.)
Spring training starts in only a few days, so I hope they get this mess straightened out soon. (And in all honesty, I hope he ends up with Orix, because Softbank already has a pretty loaded rotation.)
Anyway, on another note, the Fighters apparently invited Jermaine Van Buren to spring training to try out for the team. Yes, this guy. They're very kind to him, saying that he's 1-2 in 16 games in the majors, rather than mentioning his career 9.00 ERA and that he's walked 24 guys and struck out 11. But to be fair, his AAA numbers are actually really good and the kind of stuff that can sometimes transition really nicely to Japan. So, who knows.
However, uh, today, supposedly the Softbank Hawks signed Powell? Huh? They seem to be claiming either that the Powell signing by Orix was announced but not finalized, or finalized but not announced properly, or something like that.
I see nothing of it mentioned on the Hawks' site yet, though there's a bunch of articles categorized as "パウエル獲得" on Yahoo and other sports article sites. And sadly, this is all the variety of stuff that I have trouble reading, but I'm sure that whenever people figure out what the hell is going on, it'll get posted to the thread on japanesebaseball.com accordingly.
(There is another article in the Daily Yomiuri which has some more details, but is almost as "WTF?" as everything else, I think.)
Spring training starts in only a few days, so I hope they get this mess straightened out soon. (And in all honesty, I hope he ends up with Orix, because Softbank already has a pretty loaded rotation.)
Anyway, on another note, the Fighters apparently invited Jermaine Van Buren to spring training to try out for the team. Yes, this guy. They're very kind to him, saying that he's 1-2 in 16 games in the majors, rather than mentioning his career 9.00 ERA and that he's walked 24 guys and struck out 11. But to be fair, his AAA numbers are actually really good and the kind of stuff that can sometimes transition really nicely to Japan. So, who knows.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
NPB Roundup - Money Riceball
Seriously, the problem with the Japanese baseball news at this point is that most of it is things like which guys are going to be in the ichi-gun or ni-gun camps for spring training, which starts in about a week (yay!!)... or random gossip about players and what trips they're making for personal training time, or some last-minute contract-signing stuff (such as Old Man Shimoyanagi finally agreeing to a 2-year deal with the Tigers), or whatever else people think is worth reporting about, even if it's something like "Sho Nakata's mom rants about her son".
Mostly I just skim articles and go "Er, whatever" a lot of the time, but tonight when I came across one saying that Orix Buffaloes manager Terry Collins came back to Japan and essentially said "Hamanaka? Who the hell is that?" about Osamu Hamanaka, I was thinking that they're REALLY stretching it for stories. To be fair, Orix did the Hirano-Hamanaka trade like two months ago now and have been hyping the "Kiyo-Hama" combination. Erm.
Senichi Hoshino's 61st birthday was on Tuesday, and there was a big party for him. I saw it on TV a bit, but here's a picture of him eating a special "2008" rice-baseball and curry. He said that he hopes to eat delicious curry again in August", following the Olympics, I suppose :) It's funny how I never really understood why Hoshino is so well-liked until I came here and saw him on TV all the time, and now I get it. He oozes charisma.
I also just realized that I never mentioned here about Koji Yamamoto and Tsuneo Horiuchi being elected to the Japanese baseball HOF. (Press conference photos here.) I really ought to get down there and check out the new HOFer stuff and the Hoshino Japan exhibit. Hmm.
The funny part is, in college, one of my Japanese professors had a Tsuneo Horiuchi poster up on her wall. I asked her who he was, and she told me how great a pitcher he was, and how great it was to be a Giants fan in their V9 days. She grew up in Tokyo and was a gigantic Giants fan. She said that pretty much EVERYONE in Japan was a Giants fan. It took me a while to find out how untrue that statement was, of course.
Which also reminds me -- since putting my Fighters calendar up on my wall at work, which has new manager Nashida as the January guy, I've had comments anywhere from "Why the heck is Nashida your manager? He's not even a Fighters OB. Is it because Takada went to manage the Swallows?" from one guy, to "Ohhh, I remember when Nashida was young. He was VERY cool and had MANY female baseball fans!" from one woman. As for my Dragons calendar, which is on the other wall, the overwhelming reaction has been "Why is Kosuke Fukudome in this calendar? He isn't on the Dragons anymore."
And that leads me into my latest conspiracy theory. See, the Swallows and Fighters both recently posted their "welcome to the new guys!" about the players involved in the 3-for-3 trade a week ago. The Fighters welcomed Fujii, Miki, and Sakamoto, who will wear #18, #33, and #30 respectively, and the Swallows welcomed Hashimoto, Oshimoto, and Kawashima (sigh), who will wear 35, 65, and 00 respectively.
Anyway, I had this weird realization that the aforementioned new Yakult manager Shigeru Takada... just spent a 3-year stint as the general manager of the Nippon Ham Fighters. And he even would have been at the helm to draft Kawashima, and Hashimoto and Oshimoto came in the two previous years. I'm not sure why, but this just feels very Gillick-like to me -- a GM switching teams and then grabbing some of his old prospects to follow him. Although I suppose it can't be THAT Gillick-like, being as he traded away veterans to get younger players.
In other news, Seibu outfielder GG Sato attempted to go into salary arbitration to be the seventh Japanese player in history to do so. However, he was denied. I have to admit I don't really understand the system at all, and it's true, you rarely ever hear about players here going to arbitration. (Come to think of it I haven't seen any crazy stories about holdouts/etc this year; I must just not be reading enough articles, but it's plainly nowhere near as exciting as last year with Sekimoto's crying, Satozaki's yawning, and Morino's dragonbutting.)
It also seems that most teams have their rosters pretty set now. Wayne Graczyk talks about this year's foreigners in the Japan Times, and this week's Shukan Baseball is the "money issue", in which we find out that Ichiro's 2008 salary is larger than the 2008 team payrolls for the Hiroshima Carp and the Rakuten Golden Eagles. I mentioned this in a class tonight to try to get a discussion started about economics, but instead it turned into a discussion about how they all need to make sure they teach their children to bat left-handed and run very fast.
Also, in case you're curious, the payrolls from this chart:
Giants: 53.9-oku
Dragons: 38.2-oku
Tigers: 36.5-oku
Baystars: 23.6-oku
Yakult: 22.8-oku
Carp: 15.5-oku
Hawks: 34.5-oku
Marines: 26.4-oku
Fighters: 23.3-oku
Orix: 23.4-oku
Seibu: 21.8-oku
Rakuten: 17.3-oku
Of course, these aren't exact figures -- they had an estimate for Shimoyanagi's salary, for example -- but still, it's kind of scary.
Speaking of the Hawks and Giants, an image that pretty much showed up on every sports site possible, rightfully, is one of Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima, and Isao Harimoto hanging out together at a celebration dinner recently. I'm not sure what the MLB equivalent would be, but it'd be something to the effect of if you could get Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ty Cobb to pose for a picture together. Again, Japan is really lucky in some ways that its legendary baseball figures are mostly still alive, although that's becoming less true.
In fact, I was noticing that a lot of former Nishitetsu guys have been dying lately, what with Inao and Hanai passing away in December, and then earlier this week Hirokazu Katoh died at the age of 56 of lung cancer. Katoh spent most of his early career languishing on Nishitetsu's ni-gun team, then spent a few years breaking into the Hanshin Tigers lineup before he eventually became a base-stealing terror with the Yokohama Taiyo Whales for a few years in the mid-80's, even ending up on one all-star team. He worked as a media analyst after retiring as a player.
I heard about Katoh's death while I was at a baseball card shop looking through cards from the early 1990's Yokohama teams; it was announced on the evening news. Katoh's last year as a pro player was 1990, with the Whales -- a team that had a young hotshot pitcher named Kazuhiro Sasaki who would become a star closer a few years later, a not-so-hotshot pitcher named Tadanori Ishii who would become a hotshot shortstop named Takuro Ishii a few years later, a kid named Motonobu Tanishige who would become one of the best defensive catchers in Japan's history, and a big slugger named Jim Paciorek who would go on to be awesome for Hanshin two years later before fading away. Oh yeah, they also had a guy named Masahiro Takahashi who I would see going 3-for-4 in a Master's League game 17 years later, but that's beside the point. I thought it was really surreal to be digging through the early 1990's Baystars and then to hear about Katoh's death. At least it put it all in context, I guess.
Mostly I just skim articles and go "Er, whatever" a lot of the time, but tonight when I came across one saying that Orix Buffaloes manager Terry Collins came back to Japan and essentially said "Hamanaka? Who the hell is that?" about Osamu Hamanaka, I was thinking that they're REALLY stretching it for stories. To be fair, Orix did the Hirano-Hamanaka trade like two months ago now and have been hyping the "Kiyo-Hama" combination. Erm.
Senichi Hoshino's 61st birthday was on Tuesday, and there was a big party for him. I saw it on TV a bit, but here's a picture of him eating a special "2008" rice-baseball and curry. He said that he hopes to eat delicious curry again in August", following the Olympics, I suppose :) It's funny how I never really understood why Hoshino is so well-liked until I came here and saw him on TV all the time, and now I get it. He oozes charisma.
I also just realized that I never mentioned here about Koji Yamamoto and Tsuneo Horiuchi being elected to the Japanese baseball HOF. (Press conference photos here.) I really ought to get down there and check out the new HOFer stuff and the Hoshino Japan exhibit. Hmm.
The funny part is, in college, one of my Japanese professors had a Tsuneo Horiuchi poster up on her wall. I asked her who he was, and she told me how great a pitcher he was, and how great it was to be a Giants fan in their V9 days. She grew up in Tokyo and was a gigantic Giants fan. She said that pretty much EVERYONE in Japan was a Giants fan. It took me a while to find out how untrue that statement was, of course.
Which also reminds me -- since putting my Fighters calendar up on my wall at work, which has new manager Nashida as the January guy, I've had comments anywhere from "Why the heck is Nashida your manager? He's not even a Fighters OB. Is it because Takada went to manage the Swallows?" from one guy, to "Ohhh, I remember when Nashida was young. He was VERY cool and had MANY female baseball fans!" from one woman. As for my Dragons calendar, which is on the other wall, the overwhelming reaction has been "Why is Kosuke Fukudome in this calendar? He isn't on the Dragons anymore."
And that leads me into my latest conspiracy theory. See, the Swallows and Fighters both recently posted their "welcome to the new guys!" about the players involved in the 3-for-3 trade a week ago. The Fighters welcomed Fujii, Miki, and Sakamoto, who will wear #18, #33, and #30 respectively, and the Swallows welcomed Hashimoto, Oshimoto, and Kawashima (sigh), who will wear 35, 65, and 00 respectively.
Anyway, I had this weird realization that the aforementioned new Yakult manager Shigeru Takada... just spent a 3-year stint as the general manager of the Nippon Ham Fighters. And he even would have been at the helm to draft Kawashima, and Hashimoto and Oshimoto came in the two previous years. I'm not sure why, but this just feels very Gillick-like to me -- a GM switching teams and then grabbing some of his old prospects to follow him. Although I suppose it can't be THAT Gillick-like, being as he traded away veterans to get younger players.
In other news, Seibu outfielder GG Sato attempted to go into salary arbitration to be the seventh Japanese player in history to do so. However, he was denied. I have to admit I don't really understand the system at all, and it's true, you rarely ever hear about players here going to arbitration. (Come to think of it I haven't seen any crazy stories about holdouts/etc this year; I must just not be reading enough articles, but it's plainly nowhere near as exciting as last year with Sekimoto's crying, Satozaki's yawning, and Morino's dragonbutting.)
It also seems that most teams have their rosters pretty set now. Wayne Graczyk talks about this year's foreigners in the Japan Times, and this week's Shukan Baseball is the "money issue", in which we find out that Ichiro's 2008 salary is larger than the 2008 team payrolls for the Hiroshima Carp and the Rakuten Golden Eagles. I mentioned this in a class tonight to try to get a discussion started about economics, but instead it turned into a discussion about how they all need to make sure they teach their children to bat left-handed and run very fast.
Also, in case you're curious, the payrolls from this chart:
Giants: 53.9-oku
Dragons: 38.2-oku
Tigers: 36.5-oku
Baystars: 23.6-oku
Yakult: 22.8-oku
Carp: 15.5-oku
Hawks: 34.5-oku
Marines: 26.4-oku
Fighters: 23.3-oku
Orix: 23.4-oku
Seibu: 21.8-oku
Rakuten: 17.3-oku
Of course, these aren't exact figures -- they had an estimate for Shimoyanagi's salary, for example -- but still, it's kind of scary.
Speaking of the Hawks and Giants, an image that pretty much showed up on every sports site possible, rightfully, is one of Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima, and Isao Harimoto hanging out together at a celebration dinner recently. I'm not sure what the MLB equivalent would be, but it'd be something to the effect of if you could get Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ty Cobb to pose for a picture together. Again, Japan is really lucky in some ways that its legendary baseball figures are mostly still alive, although that's becoming less true.
In fact, I was noticing that a lot of former Nishitetsu guys have been dying lately, what with Inao and Hanai passing away in December, and then earlier this week Hirokazu Katoh died at the age of 56 of lung cancer. Katoh spent most of his early career languishing on Nishitetsu's ni-gun team, then spent a few years breaking into the Hanshin Tigers lineup before he eventually became a base-stealing terror with the Yokohama Taiyo Whales for a few years in the mid-80's, even ending up on one all-star team. He worked as a media analyst after retiring as a player.
I heard about Katoh's death while I was at a baseball card shop looking through cards from the early 1990's Yokohama teams; it was announced on the evening news. Katoh's last year as a pro player was 1990, with the Whales -- a team that had a young hotshot pitcher named Kazuhiro Sasaki who would become a star closer a few years later, a not-so-hotshot pitcher named Tadanori Ishii who would become a hotshot shortstop named Takuro Ishii a few years later, a kid named Motonobu Tanishige who would become one of the best defensive catchers in Japan's history, and a big slugger named Jim Paciorek who would go on to be awesome for Hanshin two years later before fading away. Oh yeah, they also had a guy named Masahiro Takahashi who I would see going 3-for-4 in a Master's League game 17 years later, but that's beside the point. I thought it was really surreal to be digging through the early 1990's Baystars and then to hear about Katoh's death. At least it put it all in context, I guess.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Baseball Card Shopping, Part 3 - Mint Ikebukuro
Mint in Ikebukuro is actually two floors. The floors aren't connected; if you want to go up to the 2F store you have to exit the 1F store and go upstairs and enter the other half, which is odd but normal for Japanese buildings.
Mint Ikebukuro 1F
Mint Ikebukuro 2F
("Trading cards, sports figures")
Location: 東京都豊島区東池袋1-28-6 (Google Map)
Tokyo-to, Toshima-ku, Higashi Ikebukuro 1-28-6
Hours: 1F: 11am - 8pm (every day, both floors)
Directions: From the JR Ikebukuro station, pretend you're going to the Sunshine 60 building. Take the "Sunshine Exit", which is on the east side of the station, and walk forward until you can bear left and follow the crowds crossing the big intersection to "Sunshine Road" (there'll be a Lotteria on the left and a Sanrio Gift Gate on your right once you enter the correct street, also a Shakey's on your left). Walk down Sunshine Road for 3 blocks and turn right on the corner with the Sega arcade, the Matsuya, and most importantly, the 50-yen arcade with all the UFO catchers. Go halfway down that block and it'll be on your left.
Size / Type: Standalone store, relatively huge, TWO FLOORS!
People: Eh. I was sort of put off both by the proprietors and the clientele but I might have just been there at a bad time, plus I got angry listening to them talking about how they wished they'd gotten Ogasawara signed stuff when he was on the Fighters because now they're worth more with him on the Giants grrrrr.
Stock of interest: The first floor is mostly soccer stuff with a handful of baseball stuff, nothing too exciting, some random packs and a lot of rookie cards, some figurines, a bit of soccer memorabilia and some MLB stuff.
The second floor has lots of boxes full of single cards you can look through, plus ample counter space to do so -- two full counter/bookcases of baseball card boxes. Handful of interesting cards from the early 90's, lots from the later 90's. Team sets not as well-organized but they make up for it by having more sets of stuff to poke through. This store had a full array of Rookie Edition sets from both this year and a few past years, including lots of the insert cards, and team rookie sets. Pretty big amount of single cards labelled as normal, which means they cost 50 yen each, and that includes way old stuff too.
Lots of packs but nothing too old or exciting, just a lot of 2007 team packs and they did have 2007 1st Edition, at least. Also plenty of the normal assortment of MLB stuff.
The thing is, the other two counter/bookcases are full of soccer cards and bikini model cards, which makes for some interesting clientele. The other problem is that the cases are pretty close to each other -- if one person is standing there looking at cards, it's difficult for another person to squeeze by them to look at other stuff.
What I bought:
Photo
Shigetoshi Hasegawa 1992 BBM (50 yen!)
Masahiro Tanaka 2007 Rookie Edition (300 yen)
Masahiko Morino 2007 Rookie Edition insert card reflector (250 yen)
Two packs of BBM 1st Edition (210 yen each)
I got a Shogo Akada signature insert card in the BBM 1st packs, plus a Munenori Kawasaki, plus a Carp Yuuki Saitoh, so I was happy with that.
Logic on the Masahiro Tanaka card: basically, I didn't care if I got the entire Rookie Edition, I just wanted one card from each team since they have a rookie group photo on the back of all of them, and after like 3 packs, the only team I had no cards from was Rakuten. So, I had decided I would stop buying packs and just buy one Rakuten card -- BUT, if I was gonna spend 50 yen on like, Naoto Watanabe, why not just splurge the 300 yen for Masahiro Tanaka? And then I made the mistake of looking through the Rookie Edition insert cards and I found the Morino card in with the "1997 Rookie Special" reflectors and... and... yeah. I actually had looked for an early Morino card in the 1997-2000ish singles but didn't find any, sadly.
Something seriously surreal in this store was seeing, in the early 1990's sets, say, a Takashi Saitoh 1993 card for 50 yen next to a Kazuhiro Sasaki card from the same set going for 800 yen. Also lots of early Motonobu Tanishige cards, when he was on the Baystars. (There really were a lot of great players on the Baystars at one point, but they all moved on elsewhere, it seemed.)
(Man, now I'm wishing I'd really taken notes on what some of these places had, but I'm mostly going on my memory of what I looked through, plus what things I thought about buying. Anywhere that still had BBM 2007 1st, I bought a pack, too.)
Mint Ikebukuro 1F
Mint Ikebukuro 2F
("Trading cards, sports figures")
Location: 東京都豊島区東池袋1-28-6 (Google Map)
Tokyo-to, Toshima-ku, Higashi Ikebukuro 1-28-6
Hours: 1F: 11am - 8pm (every day, both floors)
Directions: From the JR Ikebukuro station, pretend you're going to the Sunshine 60 building. Take the "Sunshine Exit", which is on the east side of the station, and walk forward until you can bear left and follow the crowds crossing the big intersection to "Sunshine Road" (there'll be a Lotteria on the left and a Sanrio Gift Gate on your right once you enter the correct street, also a Shakey's on your left). Walk down Sunshine Road for 3 blocks and turn right on the corner with the Sega arcade, the Matsuya, and most importantly, the 50-yen arcade with all the UFO catchers. Go halfway down that block and it'll be on your left.
Size / Type: Standalone store, relatively huge, TWO FLOORS!
People: Eh. I was sort of put off both by the proprietors and the clientele but I might have just been there at a bad time, plus I got angry listening to them talking about how they wished they'd gotten Ogasawara signed stuff when he was on the Fighters because now they're worth more with him on the Giants grrrrr.
Stock of interest: The first floor is mostly soccer stuff with a handful of baseball stuff, nothing too exciting, some random packs and a lot of rookie cards, some figurines, a bit of soccer memorabilia and some MLB stuff.
The second floor has lots of boxes full of single cards you can look through, plus ample counter space to do so -- two full counter/bookcases of baseball card boxes. Handful of interesting cards from the early 90's, lots from the later 90's. Team sets not as well-organized but they make up for it by having more sets of stuff to poke through. This store had a full array of Rookie Edition sets from both this year and a few past years, including lots of the insert cards, and team rookie sets. Pretty big amount of single cards labelled as normal, which means they cost 50 yen each, and that includes way old stuff too.
Lots of packs but nothing too old or exciting, just a lot of 2007 team packs and they did have 2007 1st Edition, at least. Also plenty of the normal assortment of MLB stuff.
The thing is, the other two counter/bookcases are full of soccer cards and bikini model cards, which makes for some interesting clientele. The other problem is that the cases are pretty close to each other -- if one person is standing there looking at cards, it's difficult for another person to squeeze by them to look at other stuff.
What I bought:
Photo
Shigetoshi Hasegawa 1992 BBM (50 yen!)
Masahiro Tanaka 2007 Rookie Edition (300 yen)
Masahiko Morino 2007 Rookie Edition insert card reflector (250 yen)
Two packs of BBM 1st Edition (210 yen each)
I got a Shogo Akada signature insert card in the BBM 1st packs, plus a Munenori Kawasaki, plus a Carp Yuuki Saitoh, so I was happy with that.
Logic on the Masahiro Tanaka card: basically, I didn't care if I got the entire Rookie Edition, I just wanted one card from each team since they have a rookie group photo on the back of all of them, and after like 3 packs, the only team I had no cards from was Rakuten. So, I had decided I would stop buying packs and just buy one Rakuten card -- BUT, if I was gonna spend 50 yen on like, Naoto Watanabe, why not just splurge the 300 yen for Masahiro Tanaka? And then I made the mistake of looking through the Rookie Edition insert cards and I found the Morino card in with the "1997 Rookie Special" reflectors and... and... yeah. I actually had looked for an early Morino card in the 1997-2000ish singles but didn't find any, sadly.
Something seriously surreal in this store was seeing, in the early 1990's sets, say, a Takashi Saitoh 1993 card for 50 yen next to a Kazuhiro Sasaki card from the same set going for 800 yen. Also lots of early Motonobu Tanishige cards, when he was on the Baystars. (There really were a lot of great players on the Baystars at one point, but they all moved on elsewhere, it seemed.)
(Man, now I'm wishing I'd really taken notes on what some of these places had, but I'm mostly going on my memory of what I looked through, plus what things I thought about buying. Anywhere that still had BBM 2007 1st, I bought a pack, too.)
Monday, January 21, 2008
Baseball Card Shopping, Part 2 - Mint Chiba
I want to write reviews of the Mint stores, but I keep thinking "I don't have time to write all of them right now" and not doing it, so I'll try to do one at a time. I just visited the Mint store in Chiba yesterday, so here's what I have to say about it:
Mint Chiba
"Trading cards, sports figures, hobby collections, capsule/gacha"
Location: 千葉県千葉市中央区富士見2-3-1 BEE-ONE3F (Google Map)
Chiba-ken, Chiba-shi, Chuo-ku, Fujimi 2-3-1, Bee-One building, third floor
Hours: 9:30am - 8pm, every day
Directions: From JR Chiba station (or Keisei Chiba, or Monorail Chiba), go to the east exit of the JR Chiba station. There'll be a big parking turnaround. Walk down the sidewalk on your left side -- you'll see a Jonathan's diner in the distance, walk towards it but DON'T WALK TO IT. Instead, a bit before you hit the crossroads you'll see an "Underground passage". Go downstairs into the underground passage and take exit "B1". When you come up from the stairs, there are a few big commercial buildings on your right. Walk up the block a bit and one of them has a sign for Yodobashi Camera - no, sadly not in English, but you can't miss it if you can read katakana. Go into that building, and there should be elevators on both sides of you before you actually get into the Yodobashi store. Take the elevators to the 3rd floor, which is a mall-like area, walk past the guitar shop, and you'll see the Mint store (and after it, Yellow Submarine).
Size / Type: Mall store, medium size
People: Polite enough (There was just one guy at the counter and I didn't really talk to him until I was ready to buy, but he didn't seem freaked out by having an American chick picking through the books of cards)
Stock of interest: 2005 unopened packs (BBM 2nd, Hanshin Tigers, Dragons, some other team packs. 4-card 2005 2nd sets for 100 yen in clear plastic so you can see the top card, 4-card 2004 sets in the same way. Konami 2005 Prime Nine packs for Orix, Dragons, Carp. Lots of 2006 packs including BBM 1st AND 2nd, team packs, etc. Binder with Calbee cards from the 1970's (I was so excited to see a Yoshiro Sotokoba card from 1975 that I actually said "Holy crap!!" out loud and got some funny looks. It only cost 400 yen! But I don't really need it.)
NOT much before 1998 in terms of BBM, surprisingly, and very few single cards before 2005.
They had a LOT of team sets for reasonable prices, but just for common cards. So if you want, you could pay 1000 yen and get all 36 Swallows cards in the 2007 1st Edition, and then also get all 15 Swallows cards in 2007 BBM 2nd Edition for another 500 yen. (I actually was looking for Swallows sets for a friend.) But that doesn't include any of the extras for players (Gold gloves, "Be Aggressive", etc).
Another thing that was both cool and uncool was -- in their older BBM sets, say 2002, you could get crazy deals where it'd be like, 100 yen for 10 cards from a team from that year. The catch is that they were all wrapped, so you could only see the first card and the last card in the set, and couldn't just look through all the individual cards to see what they had. I picked up a Dragons 2002 set because I saw Morino on top and Tatsunami on the bottom, though. I figured, "If separate cards are normally 50 yen and so these are two cards I want, I'm essentially getting 8 cards free!"
The binders were really neat, you could look through team sets and see the "puzzle piece" cards as they should be when assembled. This is particularly neat for the "Hashire, Norichika!" 12-card Aoki set in this year's Yakult team packs, or the 6-card "Kyuuji Special" in Hanshin's packs, or the Chunichi/Fighters/etc 3-card sets I showed in some of my other baseball card posts here. They also had the individual cards in binders for many boxed sets, like the all-star sets and so on.
They also HAD the Furuta retirement set normal 27 cards for only 500 yen... well, until I bought it, that is :) I do mean just the regular 27 cards -- apparently the 4000-yen boxed set comes with some special card, plus the box is special, but honestly I don't care that much about having the box.
There's a special box with lots of Chiba Lotte Marines cards, which shouldn't be surprising for the Chiba store. They also have a box of Marines rookie cards, which are really cool (but kind of expensive). There's also the usual "box of cards of Japanese players now in the majors", and there are some boxes of normal MLB cards too, but I don't pay much attention to those.
This store also has a ton of soccer cards, as well as "idol" cards, ie, collectable cards of Japanese bikini models. It also had a lot of figurines of both sports and other things; you could get a complete 12-set of those capsule game baseball figures for 5800 yen, but since I got to see them all I decided I didn't REALLY want them.
What I bought:
Photo
2 packs of 1st edition 2007 BBM (210 yen each)
1 pack of 2nd edition 2005 BBM (210 yen)
2 plastic 4-packs of 2nd edition 2005 BBM (one with Ogasawara on top, one with Shinji Takahashi) (100 yen each)
1 10-card plastic pack of Chunichi Dragons 2002 (100 yen)
Furuta intai set, 27 regular cards (500 yen)
Yukio Tanaka "Rookie Edition" 2003 BBM card (50 yen)
I have to write about the Furuta set some other time just because it's really neat.
I didn't get anything super-inspiring in the BBM 2007 1sts, a few good players and a Matsuzaka golden glove card. Nor the 2005s, really, though I got a reflector card of a Nobuhiko Matsunaka "starting lineup" card from the same game as Seguignol.
Dragons 10-card set had Morino, Kawakami, Sekikawa, Ohnishi, H. Watanabe, Noguchi, Eiji Ochiai, Asakura, Makoto Kitoh, and Tatsunami. Not bad for 100 yen.
I'll hopefully talk about the other Mint stores soon. Last weekend I visited the Ikebukuro, Urawa, Fujisawa and Yokohama stores, and I usually frequent the Jimbocho store, and I'm going to go check out Komagome today.
Mint Chiba
"Trading cards, sports figures, hobby collections, capsule/gacha"
Location: 千葉県千葉市中央区富士見2-3-1 BEE-ONE3F (Google Map)
Chiba-ken, Chiba-shi, Chuo-ku, Fujimi 2-3-1, Bee-One building, third floor
Hours: 9:30am - 8pm, every day
Directions: From JR Chiba station (or Keisei Chiba, or Monorail Chiba), go to the east exit of the JR Chiba station. There'll be a big parking turnaround. Walk down the sidewalk on your left side -- you'll see a Jonathan's diner in the distance, walk towards it but DON'T WALK TO IT. Instead, a bit before you hit the crossroads you'll see an "Underground passage". Go downstairs into the underground passage and take exit "B1". When you come up from the stairs, there are a few big commercial buildings on your right. Walk up the block a bit and one of them has a sign for Yodobashi Camera - no, sadly not in English, but you can't miss it if you can read katakana. Go into that building, and there should be elevators on both sides of you before you actually get into the Yodobashi store. Take the elevators to the 3rd floor, which is a mall-like area, walk past the guitar shop, and you'll see the Mint store (and after it, Yellow Submarine).
Size / Type: Mall store, medium size
People: Polite enough (There was just one guy at the counter and I didn't really talk to him until I was ready to buy, but he didn't seem freaked out by having an American chick picking through the books of cards)
Stock of interest: 2005 unopened packs (BBM 2nd, Hanshin Tigers, Dragons, some other team packs. 4-card 2005 2nd sets for 100 yen in clear plastic so you can see the top card, 4-card 2004 sets in the same way. Konami 2005 Prime Nine packs for Orix, Dragons, Carp. Lots of 2006 packs including BBM 1st AND 2nd, team packs, etc. Binder with Calbee cards from the 1970's (I was so excited to see a Yoshiro Sotokoba card from 1975 that I actually said "Holy crap!!" out loud and got some funny looks. It only cost 400 yen! But I don't really need it.)
NOT much before 1998 in terms of BBM, surprisingly, and very few single cards before 2005.
They had a LOT of team sets for reasonable prices, but just for common cards. So if you want, you could pay 1000 yen and get all 36 Swallows cards in the 2007 1st Edition, and then also get all 15 Swallows cards in 2007 BBM 2nd Edition for another 500 yen. (I actually was looking for Swallows sets for a friend.) But that doesn't include any of the extras for players (Gold gloves, "Be Aggressive", etc).
Another thing that was both cool and uncool was -- in their older BBM sets, say 2002, you could get crazy deals where it'd be like, 100 yen for 10 cards from a team from that year. The catch is that they were all wrapped, so you could only see the first card and the last card in the set, and couldn't just look through all the individual cards to see what they had. I picked up a Dragons 2002 set because I saw Morino on top and Tatsunami on the bottom, though. I figured, "If separate cards are normally 50 yen and so these are two cards I want, I'm essentially getting 8 cards free!"
The binders were really neat, you could look through team sets and see the "puzzle piece" cards as they should be when assembled. This is particularly neat for the "Hashire, Norichika!" 12-card Aoki set in this year's Yakult team packs, or the 6-card "Kyuuji Special" in Hanshin's packs, or the Chunichi/Fighters/etc 3-card sets I showed in some of my other baseball card posts here. They also had the individual cards in binders for many boxed sets, like the all-star sets and so on.
They also HAD the Furuta retirement set normal 27 cards for only 500 yen... well, until I bought it, that is :) I do mean just the regular 27 cards -- apparently the 4000-yen boxed set comes with some special card, plus the box is special, but honestly I don't care that much about having the box.
There's a special box with lots of Chiba Lotte Marines cards, which shouldn't be surprising for the Chiba store. They also have a box of Marines rookie cards, which are really cool (but kind of expensive). There's also the usual "box of cards of Japanese players now in the majors", and there are some boxes of normal MLB cards too, but I don't pay much attention to those.
This store also has a ton of soccer cards, as well as "idol" cards, ie, collectable cards of Japanese bikini models. It also had a lot of figurines of both sports and other things; you could get a complete 12-set of those capsule game baseball figures for 5800 yen, but since I got to see them all I decided I didn't REALLY want them.
What I bought:
Photo
2 packs of 1st edition 2007 BBM (210 yen each)
1 pack of 2nd edition 2005 BBM (210 yen)
2 plastic 4-packs of 2nd edition 2005 BBM (one with Ogasawara on top, one with Shinji Takahashi) (100 yen each)
1 10-card plastic pack of Chunichi Dragons 2002 (100 yen)
Furuta intai set, 27 regular cards (500 yen)
Yukio Tanaka "Rookie Edition" 2003 BBM card (50 yen)
I have to write about the Furuta set some other time just because it's really neat.
I didn't get anything super-inspiring in the BBM 2007 1sts, a few good players and a Matsuzaka golden glove card. Nor the 2005s, really, though I got a reflector card of a Nobuhiko Matsunaka "starting lineup" card from the same game as Seguignol.
Dragons 10-card set had Morino, Kawakami, Sekikawa, Ohnishi, H. Watanabe, Noguchi, Eiji Ochiai, Asakura, Makoto Kitoh, and Tatsunami. Not bad for 100 yen.
I'll hopefully talk about the other Mint stores soon. Last weekend I visited the Ikebukuro, Urawa, Fujisawa and Yokohama stores, and I usually frequent the Jimbocho store, and I'm going to go check out Komagome today.
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