4th of July in Oakland: The You, Ess, and A's

This story actually starts towards the end of June. It was a grumpy morning for me, I was running late for work, was feeling pretty tired, really just wanted to go back to sleep. I walked into the BART station near my house, absentmindedly ran my Clipper card over the machine, and suddenly noticed that there was a BIG ELEPHANT IN AN OAKLAND A'S JERSEY STANDING IN FRONT OF ME!

This is one of the A's promotions with BART -- they have their mascot Stomper riding around on the trains sometimes, and even better, occasionally you'll catch the street crew in stations giving away free A's tickets and BART tickets! This had happened to one of my coworkers who lives in Oakland a few weeks ago as well, but since I live in San Francisco, which is decidedly Hipster Giants Fan Land, I figured there was no way I'd ever get that lucky. Apparently I was wrong!

You may be wondering, what did I have to do to get free A's tickets?

I had to get my picture taken with Stomper.

That was it. Really. And if you know me at all, you know I LOVE getting my photo with mascots and baseball people, and have been known to chase down mascots in Japan with my friends.  Think about this one: first, I don't have to chase down Stomper for a photo.  Second, they WANT me to get a photo with Stomper.  Third, they're going to give me free tickets to a baseball game for getting my photo with Stomper.  Does it get better than that?



Actually, it does, because the tickets they gave me were for the 4th of July game! I'd already been thinking of going on the 3rd or 4th, vaguely in the hope of seeing Bobby, but even so, just to watch baseball on July 4th. And it ALSO gets better because they gave me two $5 BART tickets, which would pay for me to get to the game! And the tickets were for 200-level seats behind the bullpens, not something crappy in the middle of the outfield! How lucky is that?

(The retarded thing is, I swear to god, there were people just saying "no thanks" and walking past the A's crew and going down to the platform. WTF? How do you turn down BART tickets and baseball tickets? San Francisco is dumb.  I walked off saying "You guys made my day!" and went to work with a big smile on my face instead of a big frown.)

Anyway, as for the day of the game itself, I went with one of my coworkers who lives in Oakland, and we had a pretty good time.  I mentioned that I knew Bobby Valentine from my days in Japan, and hoped to say hi to him, and I even wore my Bobby 2010 t-shirt from the Keep Bobby in Chiba campaign back during the 2009 season when the Lotte front office was stupid and decided to fire him.  UNFORTUNATELY, the downside of us having seats in the 200-level for a day game with no batting practice and a crowd-drawing team like the Red Sox was that the ushers and staff were being particularly careful about letting people who didn't have appropriate tickets down to the front of the field, and I made a few attempts to get down to the dugout but completely failed.  Here, however, is proof that I really did make the attempt:



And I saw a guy in the stands holding up a "In Bobby V We Trust" sign during the game, too:



Anyway, disappointment about not seeing Bobby aside, and given that I actually root for the A's in general, it was really a pretty good game.  Aaron Cook, who's mostly spent his career in the Rockies system, started for the Red Sox, and AJ Griffin, who's barely older than my interns at work, started for the A's.

Because it was the 4th of July, they were theoretically giving out some kind of red, white, and blue A's hats, although we not only were too late to receive one, we didn't even SEE anyone wearing one anywhere.  But, they had a whole bunch of pregame ceremonies involving the Marines and various other military things, including a bunch of fighter jets flying over the stadium after the singing of the National Anthem.

And then things got underway.  Brandon Moss hit a home run right over the "400" sign in dead center in the 2nd inning to put the A's up 1-0, and then in the 4th, David Ortiz tied things up for the Red Sox by hitting a home run of his own into the corner of the right-field stands, slightly over from the A's mini-ouendan cheering section, making it 1-1.

I haven't really been paying close attention to the MLB like I used to back in the old days, so my brain started to wonder "How many career home runs is that for Big Papi now?" and before I could even look it up on my phone, someone a few rows behind us said "Hey, that was his 400th career home run!"

And sure enough, the A's announcer even called that out the next time Ortiz was up to bat, and there was a stadium-wide round of applause for him:



(Honestly, in a semi-related point, I was kinda shocked to hear what stupid shit Manny Ramirez has been up to since last I lived in the USA -- but at the same time, I'm kinda sad I never got out to a Sacramento River Cats game to see him while he was playing there this year.  Apparently he was released a few weeks ago, at his own request.)

The Red Sox did go up 2-1 in the top of the 6th after Ortiz walked, Jarrod Saltalamacchia (who I pointed out as "the most annoying name to stitch on a uniform") reached on a fielding error by Jemile Weeks and Adrian Gonzalez singled in Ortiz.

But the A's tied it up in their half of the 6th when Brandon Moss hit a "double" that was really a sun ball that got lost by 3 guys in left field and just dropped, and then Brandon Inge hit a real double to bring him in ("Inge-sanity!"), and then Coco Crisp hit a triple to right to lead off the bottom of the 7th and was brought in by a single by Jemile Weeks, and that made it 3-2 and the A's won the game. Box score here.

There were a surprising number of people carrying brooms around the stadium:





But well, that's about what you can expect.

Personally, I was glad the game ended by 4pm because it was pretty hot and sunny out there.  On the other hand, because BART was running on a Sunday schedule it took forever to get on a train!  They actually have police holding up people at the staircase to the station and only let people through in waves, so that the platforms don't become crowded enough to be dangerous.  I was surprised, since in Japan, teams would often run extra trains after games to disperse the fans (well, Seibu and Hanshin and teams that owned their own train lines at least.  Nevermind...)

Still, it was a good time at the park.  If I'm lucky I can try to see Bobby around Labor Day, I guess.

Photopost: Tomochika Tsuboi and the San Rafael Pacifics

So a week or two ago (June 23rd to be precise), Edwin was in town for a J-Pop concert, and I thought it'd be fun for us to go do some kind of baseball game. The most interesting option that weekend was not, in my opinion, the Giants-A's game, or any of the possible semi-local minor-league stuff, but instead, I got a Zipcar and did the 30-minute drive up to San Rafael to check out the San Rafael Pacifics, a team in the independent North American Baseball League.

The REAL reason for this, though, was that I'd heard from Patrick and others that former Fighter Tomochika Tsuboi was playing for the Pacifics and I HAD to check it out. Tsuboi fandom goes back for me longer than just about any Japanese baseball player, and infact was the first Japanese player t-shirt I ever owned. He was batting second and playing right field for the Fighters in the first game I ever saw in Japan, and even finished that year out at .330, second to Ogasawara.

So you better believe that if Tsuboi was playing this close to home, I HAD to check it out at some point.

Having absolutely no idea what to expect, we showed up, found parking, and sprung for the "Dugout Club" seats for $22 (you can kinda see the chart here). See, the seating is mostly just an infield bleachers around home plate, the dugouts are below that, and so this "Dugout Club" is actually along the baseline from the dugout out to the base. The nice thing about it is that there are all of these tables there, so we essentially got there, found a table right along the field, and then put down our stuff, cameras, scorecards, signboards... yes, I even brought along my Tsuboi sign that I made like 4 years ago in Japan.

After the players finished their warmups and were walking back to the dugout, I held up the sign and yelled "TSUBOI-SAN!!!"  He looked over and started laughing and called over to me in Japanese, basically, "Why on earth do you have that??" and I called back, "Because I'm a Fighters fan!!"

Yeah.

The staff had told me before the game that it was okay to go on the field AFTER the game and talk to players, so I figured I'd just leave it until then.

Edwin, taking advantage of the not-gouging food prices, had pizza and chili, and I had a hot dog, and the table really was pretty awesome for that.  We had wristbands that let us go in and out of the dugout club area, and the food trailer was literally behind us.  Only problem is that bathrooms were outside the stadium and were actually just port-a-potties.  It reminded me of minor-league parks in Japan, except those generally have nicer bathrooms.

As for the game itself, it was the San Rafael Pacifics vs. the Hawaii Stars.  Tsuboi was once again batting second and playing left field!  The starter for the Pacifics was a righty named Matt Durkin, who's from San Jose and spent some time in the Mets organization, and the starter for the stars was a sidearming lefty named Dallas Mahan who's basically an indie league journeyman (literally something like 10 years in the indies after spending a short time in the Mariners organization, he's almost as old as me!)

Everything was fairly normal for a minor-league atmosphere for the first few innings -- decent play but nothing spectacular, a few miscues here and there, a lot of gimmicks like a burrito-eating contest and a dizzy bat race against the team mascot, Sir Francis the Drake, a large green duck wearing bloomers and a cape.

Then the bottom of the 6th hit, and the Pacifics just ripped open the Stars, basically.  Mahan got taken out of the game with the score at 3-2 Pacifics and a runner on second... and Steve Detwiler immediately hit a home run off reliever Cortney Arruda to make it 5-2, and then a few walks and ANOTHER homer by Johnny Woodard later it was 8-2, and then 5 hits and a hit-by-pitch later it was 11-2, which is what the final score eventually was, after a 9-run inning.  You can see a boxscore here.

And sure enough after the game we went on the field, and I got to talk to Tsuboi for around 10 minutes!  He doesn't speak English, apparently, so he was actually pretty happy to just chat with me for a while in Japanese.  But he said that he's having a really fun time in the USA playing baseball anyway, just that it's a little bit of a pain that there's not very much in Japanese out in San Rafael and all.  I asked if he'd been to things like the San Francisco Japantown (he asked where I live and I said SF, and he's like "So around 40 minutes by car?") and he said yeah, but it's far.

Amusingly I was wearing my really old Fighters #7 t-shirt, he asked "who's that?  Itoi?" and I'm like "No, dude, it's YOU!" and took off my jacket so he could see.  I told him I'd been a Fighters fan for almost 10 years, and that I first saw him so long ago, and we reminisced about it ("Yeah... Ide, Tsuboi, Ogasawara, remember those days?")  I helped Edwin talk a bit too, mostly a little about Koshien and all, and PL Gakuen, and watching the games over the internet and the time differences and all.  Mostly, though, I kind of can't believe that I WAS TALKING TO TSUBOI!  I mean, he was a veritable All-Star back in his day!  And I used to cheer for him with the Fighters for years! He even went through my Fighters cheerboard book like "Hichori... Kensuke... Inaba... natsukashii!"

Pretty awesome.  I told him I'd try to come back sometime again.  Edwin and I both got signatures and pictures with him, he really was super-nice to us.

Here's a few photos from the day:


Starting lineup for the Pacifics, posted outside the stadium.


Me with Sir Francis the Drake.


The team lining up for the national anthem.


Pacifics starter Matt Durkin.


Tsuboi running in from left field.


Stars starter Dallas Mahan.


Tsuboi at bat.


Tsuboi at first base.


And here's an awesome picture of me with Tsuboi!  How cool is that?

You can see the whole photo set here.

Bizarrely, I should be going back up to San Rafael tonight (July 6) -- guess who's coming to pitch?  None other than Eri Yoshida and the Maui Na Koa Ikaika!  That should be pretty awesome too!  Wonder if I'll get to meet her or not.

Photopost: Darvish vs. A's, June 7th

Uh, hi.  Is this thing on?  Yeah, I know I don't write here much (and even left off in the middle of my January uniform-wearing thing -- if you're really curious how the rest of the month went, you can go check out the album on Facebook).

Anyway, what I've been up to the last six months baseball-wise: not much.  Work has been keeping me pretty busy.  I went back to Japan for 2 weeks in April and went to around 20 games and stalked the Nichidai Sanko boys (which I should photopost about), and I went to a Frederick Keys minor-league game in DC with my brother, and I'm going to watch the San Rafael Pacifics tonight to see Tomochika Tsuboi, former Fighters guy, who is now playing in the indie leagues over here.  I also hope to see the Tacoma Rainiers sometime since Brian Sweeney and Luis Jimenez are playing for them, but last weekend it was 106 degrees in Sacramento and I couldn't do that.

The other game I went to was the A's vs. Rangers game on June 7th because Darvish was starting for the Rangers.  Go figure, the Rangers were in the Bay Area for an entire week and the only day he started was the afternoon game where my company was having a team-building event.  Of course, I skipped the event and went to the game...

I really wanted to meet Tateyama, which I didn't succeed in.   But I did meet a ton of Japanese people, who were all crowding the Rangers bullpen before the game, including a lady who came here from Sapporo by herself to see him, a guy from Ibaraki who was cosplaying as Darvish, some various other people, I just chatted with them in Japanese, very fun. Even the guy who was sitting two seats to my left was from Hokkaido, though he works in San Jose now. I wore my Imanari jersey so a lot of people were saying things to me about how "Ryota got traded to Hanshin, didn't he?  Too bad..."  Very cool times, even if Darvish sucked (he gave up 6 runs on 6 hits and 6 walks in 5 innings, no joke) and the Rangers lost, I still had a good time at the game.  (Plus in all honesty I kinda want the A's to win, they're really the underdog around here since I work with too many hipster Giants fans.)

I also brought my camera, so here are some shots from it.
See the entire photo set here with more Darvish and some Tanner Scheppers and whatnot.




Darvish in the bullpen warming up


Yoshinori Tateyama greets Mike Napoli at the bullpen


Koji Uehara goes for a walk in the late innings


Darvish cosplayer dude.  He came here from Ibaraki.

You know, the photos of Darvish remind me an awful lot of another photoset I took in March 2008...

Your 2011 Japan Series Champions, the Hawks

But it's 6:30am here in Seattle, so I'm going to sleep in a bit. Unlike the last time I was watching a Japan Series game in the US (the 2006 Fighters-Dragons series), you have plenty of other places to learn about what happened during the game in English these days, so you should go take a look at them.

Personally, I really wanted this series to go to seven games, so I'm happy for that, at least. I thought it was pretty silly of the Dragons to let Ochiai go as manager, in the midst of what is clearly the most successful run in franchise history. (The Dragons were in the Series in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, and 2011, although they only won it in 2007.) His contract was up at the end of October, so the Dragons were paying him a million yen a day for the postseason.

Curiously, the last time the Hawks won the Japan Series was in 2003 against the Tigers, and in that series the home team won every game. This time, the home team lost every game until the final game, and even funnier, four games were decided by 2-1 scores (game 1, 2, 4, and 6, with the Dragons winning 3 of those), and the other 3 games were shutouts.

As a primary Pacific League fan, the Hawks are a very frustrating team to go up against in recent years, as they have a pitching staff to die for and a fairly stacked lineup as well. And it was particularly heartbreaking to see the Fighters fall behind them this year. So I suppose I was pulling for Chunichi in this series, but when things happen like Tanishige going 0-for-23, there's only so much you can do.

Kokubo as the MVP was a little bit odd (it felt like it really should have been one of the pitchers, didn't it?) but it was kind of amusing when they pointed out to him during the interview that he, at the age of 40, had ousted his manager Akiyama from the oldest Japan Series MVP, as a 37-year-old Akiyama had gotten that award in 1999 when the Hawks beat Chunichi then. (And at that time Kokubo and Matsunaka were a LOT younger! It was definitely weird watching Matsunaka hobble home and flop onto home plate for the 2nd run of the game tonight, let's just put it that way.)

Anyway, the Jingu Taikai is in a few days, and then after that is the month of fan festivals and rookie unveiling events and holiday parties, and then in January starts rookie training, and February is spring training... Japan is nice in that baseball season never *truly* ends, if you're a crazy diehard fan. Which makes it all the more sad to me that I'm not there anymore.

(2 weeks until I move to San Francisco!)

Monday Foto: Soukeisen

Actually, this is just me being too tired to write ANYTHING about the four games I attended this weekend, where Waseda won both of the Soukeisen games (6-2 and 4-2) and Yakult won on Saturday night 3-2 but the Giants won on Sunday night 6-2.

This is my favorite photo I took all weekend:



Waseda's Shota Sugiyama slides headfirst into 3rd base for a triple. It's really rare to see a headslide from the "oh my god he's flying towards us!" perspective!

Friday Foto: Draft Aftermath, the paper version

For amusement value, I often like to buy the daily sports papers after a big event has happened, to see their different takes on it (and occasionally to cut out articles to stick up on the wall or whatever).

Anyway, here's your spread of the "big" papers today:



Let's see, first, 4 out of 6 have Sugano on the cover. None have Fujioka.

Upper left, Sports Hochi (a Giants-based paper anyway) has "Impossible! Chosen by Nippon Ham in the lottery!"

Upper right, Sankei Sports (aka Sanspo) has "Hara is completely stunned! Nippon Ham stole Sugano!!" (where 強奪 really means more like "plunder" or "extort", a very strong version of steal)

Middle left, Sponichi has a big "SUGANO SHOCK!!" with tears in his eyes and a note about "He could enter Nihon Seimei or..."

Middle right, Nikkan has "Sugano is stunned! He may refuse to sign!"

Then in non-Sugano news, Daily Sports, a Tigers-based paper, has "Hayata Itoh is the 2nd incarnation of Shinjiro Hiyama!" in the lower left :)

Also in non-Sugano news, Tokyo Chunichi Sports has THEIR front page headline, "Morimichi got his big job done and picked Shuhei Takahashi!"

---

Sponichi and Nikkan have the Fighters' 7th-round pick Takumi Ohshima (from the Waseda University softball club) on their SECOND PAGE. With his softball team, being a dork with softballs and baseballs, etc. Apparently, for the record, Ohshima is some kind of ungodly good softball player who's done things like hit homeruns in 13 consecutive games, was a world-class Japanese softball team member up through high school, and basically went to a tryout earlier this month and passed -- the scouts liked his large frame and power. (It's unclear to me how good his batting will translate to baseball.) Amusingly one scout even says "Sure, he has no experience in baseball, not since elementary school, but we think he'll be an interesting project".

There's not as much on Fujioka as expected, but I kinda like it that way. Papers have photos of him with captain and 3rd-round pick Daichi Suzuki and with his parents. It's expected that he will get Number 18 as Naruse already has 17.

Can you imagine a Lotte rotation of Karakawa, Naruse, Ueno, Fujioka, and Shunsuke? That's just crazy. It's like my fantasy team or something.

Yusuke Nomura, for the record, seems pretty happy going home to Hiroshima and wants to face Tomoaki Kanemoto.

And for fun, here's Yokohama HS's Otosaka and Kondoh.

Draft 2011 Liveblogging

Will be done here. I'm going to finish up a pre-draft photopost (ongoing college player photopost is here) in the morning and the draft itself is in the afternoon.

I'm on pins and needles as usual -- just like last year I was so worried about where Ohishi and Kagami were going to end up, this year I'm hoping Takahiro Fujioka ends up somewhere good. But there are a ton of other guys I'm worried about too, of course.

And yeah, I've been to 22394092309439 games in the last month but haven't been blogging about them here. I apologize for that, especially the lack of Tokyo Big 6 coverage in what has been one of the more interesting semesters in recent history. But well, I'm returning to the US on Nov 3rd. So, busy.

[Moving the "liveblogging" part below the draft chart. Also I made a new label for these draft tables -- "Draft Results". Then I can look back through my 6 years of draft tables without going through all of my posts with "draft notes" and photos and such under "draft".]

Name                   Pos  HS/Univ/Company         T/B   DOB          Ht/Wt  
--------------------   ---  ---------------         ---   ----------   -------
Dragons: 
1 Shuhei Takahashi      IF  Tokaidai Kofu HS        R/L   01/18/1994   185/83
2 Kentaro Nishikawa     P   Seiryo HS               R/R   04/18/1993   184/72
3 Shinji Tajima         P   Tokai Gakuen Univ       R/R                181/84
4 Takehiko Tsuji        P   Nittai Univ             R/R   07/27/1989   182/86
5 Takahiro Kawasaki     P   Tsu Higashi HS          R/R   08/02/1993   186/77
6 Sanghun Song          P   信一高校 (HS in Korea)   R/R   02/24/1993   190/93

Swallows: 
1 Shuhei Takahashi
  Ryuhei Kawakami       OF  Kosei Gakuin HS         R/R   05/08/1993   181/80
2 Ryohei Kiya           P   Nihon Bunri Univ        R/R   04/07/1989   180/85
3 Wataru Hiyane         IF  Nihon Seishi Ishinomaki R/R   06/20/1987   180/73
4 Yuya Ota              P   Nihon Seishi Ishinomaki L/L                175/73
5 Yuji Nakane           P   Tohoku Fukushi Univ     R/R   09/07/1989   180/80
6 Masato Furuno         P   Mitsubishi Junko Kobe   R/R   09/27/1986   178/78

I1 Takeaki Tokuyama     P   Ritsumeikan University  R/S   07/21/1989   185/83
I2 Hugo Kanabushi       P   Hakuoh University       L/L   05/22/1989   180/71

Giants: 
1 Tomoyuki Sugano
  Ryuya Matsumoto       P   Eimei HS                L/L   04/29/1993   193/78
2 Nobutaka Imamura      P   Osaka Gakuin Univ HS    L/L   03/15/1994   180/73
3 Ryuji Ichioka         P   Oki Computer Gakuin     R/R   01/11/1991   179/70
4 Kyosuke Takagi        P   Kokugakuin Univ         L/L   09/05/1989   183/79
5 Go Takahashi          IF  Nihon Bunri HS          R/R   04/30/1993   183/75
6 Yuki Egarashi         P   Toshiba                 R/R   11/14/1986   183/78
7 Seiji Tahara          P   Kurashiki Oceans

I1 Kazuki Mori          P   Shiritsu Kashiwa HS     R/R   06/23/1993   185/92
I2 Mizuki Tsuchida      P   SIL Ehime               R/R   01/01/1990   181/91
I3 Shogo Shibata        P   Meiji University        L/L   04/13/1989   175/70
I4 Yoh Yoshikawa        C   Rakuhoku HS             R/R                183/102
I5 Takashi Amemiya      P   BCL Niigata Albirex     R/R   07/06/1987   174/83
I6 Takahiro Watanabe    P   BCL Niigata Albirex     L/L   08/26/1992   173/70

Tigers: 
1 Hayata Itoh           OF  Keio University         R/L   05/08/1989   178/84
2 Hiroaki Saiuchi       P   Seiko Gakuin HS         R/R   07/19/1993   182/80
3 Naoto Nishida         OF  Osaka Toin HS           R/L                187/92
4 Kazuo Itoh            P   Tokyo Kokusai Univ      R/R   12/13/1989   184/82
5 Ryoma Matsuda         P   Hasami HS               R/R   02/08/1994   183/83

I1 Seiya Hirokami       C   Gunma Diamond Pegasus

Carp: 
1 Yusuke Nomura         P   Meiji University        R/R   06/24/1989   177/75
2 Ryosuke Kikuchi       IF  Chukyo Gakuin Univ      R/R                171/69
3 Takaya Toda           P   Shonan HS               L/L   06/10/1993   180/66
4 Shohei Habu           OF  Waseda University       R/L   08/16/1989   180/76

I1 Hajime Tominaga      P   SIL Tokushima           R/R   06/20/1989   179/80
I2 Masataka Nakamura    OF  SIL Kagawa              R/R   11/07/1983   183/90
I3 Kohei Tsukada        P   Waseda University       R/R   08/24/1989   192/89
I4 Kazuma Mike          OF  Shiritsu Wakayama HS    R/S                180/76


Baystars: 
1 Takahiro Fujioka
  Ryuya Matsumoto
  Yujo Kitakata         P   Karatsu Shogyo HS       R/R   01/25/1994   180/80    
2 Shuto Takajo          C   Kyushu Kokusai HS       R/R   05/03/1993   176/79
3 Yuki Watanabe         IF  Kanzei HS               R/R   04/09/1993   180/74
4 Masayuki Kuwahara     IF  Fukuchiyama Seibi HS    R/R                171/73
5 Tomo Otosaka          OF  Yokohama HS             R/L   01/06/1994   183/75
6 Mikihisa Travis Samura P  Urasoe Shogyo HS        R/R   10/09/1993   191/80
7 Hyuma Matsui          IF  Mitsubishi Hiroshima    R/R   03/17/1991   180/80
8 Komura Toru           P   Chigasaki Nishihama HS  L/L                177/76
9 Takuro Itoh           P   Teikyo HS               R/R   04/02/1993   185/86

I1 Kosuke Tomita        P   SIL Kagawa              R/R   04/24/1988   186/88
I2 Masashi Nishimori    C   SIL Kagawa              R/R   12/29/1987   182/80

Hawks: 
1 Shota Takeda          P   Miyazaki Nichidai HS    R/R   04/03/1993   187/77
2 Shoji Yoshimoto       P   Adachi Gakuen HS        R/R   06/26/1993   186/75
3 Masayoshi Tsukada     IF  Hakuoh Univ             R/L   07/23/1989   180/79
4 Naoki Shirane         P   Kaisei HS (Shimane)     R/R   04/28/1993   185/98
5 Shinya Kayama         P   JX-ENEOS                L/L   11/23/1989   172/62

I1 Go Kamamoto          OF  Sairyo HS               R/L   09/03/1993   180/80
I2 Kyohei Kamezawa      IF  SIL Kagawa              R/L   10/15/1988   174/73
I3 Shota Miura          P   Iwate University        R/R   11/10/1989   177/67
I4 Takashi Shimizu      P   Gunma Diamond Pegasus   L/L   05/15/1984   177/76
I5 Shinya Arasaki       IF  Nihon Bunri University  R/L                171/73
I6 Akihiro Sasanuma     C   All Ashikaga Club       R/R   07/17/1987   183/81
I7 Kazuya Iida          C   SIL Kochi               R/R   03/10/1986   182/83

Fighters: 
1 Tomoyuki Sugano       P   Tokai University        R/R   10/11/1989   185/86
2 Go Matsumoto          IF  Teikyo HS               R/R   08/11/1993   180/80
3 Shingo Ishikawa       OF  E. Osaka Kashiwara HS   R/R   04/27/1993   178/73
4 Kensuke Kondoh        C   Yokohama HS             R/L   08/09/1993   172/83
5 Toshiharu Moriuchi    P   JR Higashinihon Tohoku  R/R   01/02/1985   180/80
6 Naoyuki Uwasawa       P   Senshudai Matsudo HS    R/R   02/26/1994   187/85 
7 Takumi Ohshima        C   Waseda Univ Softball    R/L   02/14/1990   180/97

Lions: 
1 Ken Togame            P   JR Higashinihon         R/R   11/07/1987   183/82
2 Hirotaka Koishi       P   NTT Higashinihon        L/L   04/13/1987   177/85
3 Hitoto Komazuki       C   Tonan HS                R/R   04/21/1993   176/86
4 Kyohei Nagae          IF  Kaisei HS (Mie)         R/L   05/07/1993   173/75
5 Shotaro Tashiro       OF  Hachinohe University    L/L   12/13/1989   177/72

I1 Komei Fujisawa       C   Matsumoto University    R/L   11/11/1989   180/80

Buffaloes: 
1 Shuhei Takahashi
  Ryoichi Adachi        IF  Toshiba                 R/R   01/07/1988   178/74
2 Takuya Shimada        IF  JR Higashinihon         R/R   01/22/1987   178/76
3 Tatsuya Satoh         P   Honda                   R/R   07/26/1986   178/75
4 Tomoyuki Kaida        P   Nihon Seimei            L/L   09/02/1987   178/78
5 Ryuji Shoji           C   J-Project               R/R   02/01/1987   176/81
6 Yuki Tsutsumi         IF  Saga Ryukoku HS         R/L   09/21/1993   172/70
7 Shuhei Kojima         IF  Sumitomo Metals Kashima R/L   06/05/1987   177/75
8 Takayoshi Kawabata    OF  JR Higashinihon         R/R   02/04/1985   176/80

I1 Daiki Inakura        OF  Kofuku HS               R/R   05/11/1993   180/85
I2 Shoki Kakihara       IF  Tosu HS                 R/R                175/75

Eagles: 
1 Takahiro Fujioka
  Yoshitaka Mutoh       P   JR Hokkaido             R/R   07/22/1987   177/72
2 Yoshinao Kamata       P   Kanazawa HS             R/R   10/26/1993   177/75
3 Takumi Miyoshi        P   Kyushu Kokusai HS       R/R   06/07/1993   173/74
4 Takero Okajima        C   Hakuoh Univ             R/L   09/07/1989   174/68
5 Rintaro Kitagawa      OF  Meitoku Gijuku HS       R/L   06/21/1993   185/82
6 Hiroaki Shimauchi     OF  Meiji University        L/L   02/02/1990   180/75

I1 Takahiro Jinbo       OF  Hokkaido Transys        R/R   12/09/1986   174/76

Marines: 
1 Takahiro Fujioka      P   Toyo University         L/L   07/17/1989   183/85
2 Yuhei Nakaushiro      P   Kinki University        L/L   09/17/1989   182/72
3 Daichi Suzuki         IF  Toyo University         R/L   08/18/1989   176/76
4 Naoya Masuda          P   Kansai Kokusai Univ     R/R   10/25/1989   176/80

-----------------------

I've got the TV on but the show isn't on yet. Hmm.

Well, here's a nice blank grid to fill in as things go!

4:53pm The show is starting!!!

5pm They're announcing the teams and representatives, who are coming into the room in waiver order, so, I'm going to get prepared with the waiver order for the first round:

5:10pm: They showed Fujioka and Sugano in their college's press rooms, and Nomura with Shimauchi and Shibata and the rest of the Meiji club in their dorm. It's very quiet as people submit their first round picks...

Marines: Takahiro Fujioka
Baystars: Takahiro Fujioka
Eagles: Takahiro Fujioka
Carp: Yusuke Nomura
Buffaloes: Shuhei Takahashi
Tigers: Hayata Itoh
Lions: Ken Togame
Giants: Tomoyuki Sugano
Fighters: Tomoyuki Sugano
Swallows: Shuhei Takahashi
Hawks: Shota Takeda
Dragons: Shuhei Takahashi

So Nomura goes home to Hiroshima unchallenged, Itoh is going to Hanshin (oi), Togame as a sleeper pic to Seibu, and Takeda to the Hawks as expected. And WTF on challenging Sugano.

5:20 Lottery #1 is for Fujioka and... he's going to CHIBA MARINE!

I'm actually happy for him. He can get to ichi-gun quicker in a currently weak team like this, AND it means that the Marines now have BOTH of my absolute favorite Toyodai pitchers EVER (the other being Ueno). Also it's great for him in that he's from Gunma and his family can come see him play.

5:22 Lottery #2 is for Takahashi Shuhei... and .... and he's going to Chunichi after the Chunichi rep Takagi actually seemed to screw up the draw.

5:26 Lottery #3 is for Tomoyuki Sugano. WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY SO IMPROBABLE I CAN'T BELIEVE THE FIGHTERS ARE GOING FOR HIM. And would you believe it but SUGANO IS GOING TO THE FIGHTERS??!?!

Hara looks pissed. I wonder if Sugano will actually sign or will pull some kinda stunt. Jason Coskrey just invoked the word "Chono"...

Well, anyway, it's time for the backup first round picks...

Baystars: Ryuya Matsumoto, P
Eagles: Yoshitaka Mutoh, P
Buffaloes: Ryoichi Adachi, IF
Giants: Ryuya Matsumoto, P
Swallows: Ryuhei Kawakami, OF

5:35 second lottery... and Matsumoto is going to the Giants.

For the record, I LOVE the Adachi pick.

Baystars finally get a first-round pick with Kitakata from Karatsu Sho HS. Yay for Saga-ken players!!!

Okay, shortly stuff will go into waiver order for the rest of the picks.

Your overall first round picks:
Marines: Takahiro Fujioka, LHP, Toyo University
Baystars: Yujo Kitakata, RHP, Karatsu Shogyo HS
Eagles: Yoshitaka Mutoh, RHP, JR Hokkaido
Carp: Yusuke Nomura, RHP, Meiji University
Buffaloes: Ryoichi Adachi, IF, Toshiba
Tigers: Hayata Itoh, OF, Keio University
Lions: Ken Togame, RHP, JR Higashinihon
Giants: Ryuya Matsumoto, LHP, Eimei HS
Fighters: Tomoyuki Sugano, RHP, Tokai University
Swallows: Ryuhei Kawakami, OF, Kosei Gakuin HS
Hawks: Shota Takeda, RHP, Miyazaki Nichidai HS
Dragons: Shuhei Takahashi, IF, Tokaidai Kofu HS

5:45pm It's off TV here and I'm basically kinda thumbing through the draft magazines to dig up info while looking at the Sportsnavi and such to see what the picks are... hm, sounds like Kozo has a justin.tv feed as well.

It was nice to see Fujioka's interview, he seems nervous but happy. Sugano... I couldn't really read what he was saying.

6pm NAKAUSHIRO TO LOTTE!!!! TAKAJO TO YOKOHAMA!!!! that's so cool! Nakaushiro is also super-interesting and Takajo was my favorite catcher not named Suzuki in this last Koshien :)

6:13pm Teikyo connection with the Fighters continues as we get captain Go Matsumoto. He's a great raw pick, kinda like Sugiya, very talented shortstop, I saw him at Koshien as a freshman. Great pick.

I am also, btw, a fan of the Rakuten picking Kamata in the second round, glad Saiuchi has gone already too. A little surprised Matsumoto went before Itoh Takuro to be honest -- wonder what's up there. We'll see :)

6:15 Third round starts. Softbank took Yoshimoto in the second round, I guess they are going for a monopoly on "Nantoka no Darvish" HS pitchers this year.

6:28 Still entering data but OMG Miyoshi goes to Rakuten? Glad to see both him and Takajo get picked, though. Awesome.

-----------------------

It's 7:50pm and the main draft is over. I guess ikusei is starting. Interesting to see which guys DIDN'T get drafted, in some ways, I suppose.

Shogo Shibata, the nice boy with Behcet's disease, got chosen in the Ikusei rounds, by the Giants. Not sure how I feel about that.

Lots of interesting Ikusei picks honestly. I've seen a lot of the indie league guys play, actually. Have a photo with Seiya Hirogami.. just posted one of Iida catching for Irabu... heard about Takashi Shimizu pitching his no-hitter... so wacky.

Everyone is wondering what's up with this Waseda Softball guy for the Fighters... apparently he was a world-class softball player, but how does that project to baseball? There's got to be some bizarre story here.

Draft 2011 -- Photopost preview

Well, even though I wasn't in Japan for most of this year, myself and my camera have gone to an awful lot of amateur baseball games over the years anyway, especially local college games, so here's a few of the guys who submitted letters for this year's draft. (I'll be updating this as the afternoon goes on to take my mind off being nervous. And then I'll move the liveblogging post to the top.)

Tokyo Big 6

Hayata Itoh, Keio University, OF

I used to write a ton about Itoh and nicknamed him "Clutchy McClutchitude" because he always came through for the team in big situations. He's often compared to Atsunori Inaba because he's an outfielder from Chukyodai Chukyo who bats lefty for power and average, has a good arm and speed and so on.

He's a pretty smart guy overall, and he knows Pi to 115 places. And in the spring he missed the batting Triple Crown by ONE HIT. But this semester he's been kind of erratic, and I'm really not sure what's up with that. A few weeks ago there was a game where a whole bunch of close umpiring calls went against Keio, culminating in a guy getting tagged out by being punched in the head basically, and Itoh and Etoh-kantoku both were really angry about it, to the point that Itoh wasn't even bowing to the umpires before each at-bat like he used to, and didn't have the team line up and bow to the stands, and that one day, snuck out of Jingu so he wouldn't have to face fans or press! (Seriously.)

Anyway, he's a veritable superstar and should do pretty well in the pros. He hits for power and average and has a really sweet swing. Over his college career he's also really filled out a lot more and really looks like, well, a baseball player. I don't think he'll be a cleanup batter in the pros, and I'm not even sure he'll have as good a rookie year as, say, Shota Ishimine, but he'll do fine. (I'd love to eat those words, but the fact is, if he DOES get drafted by a team like Hanshin, he's unlikely to get a lot of playing time his first year, you know?)




The swing.


At the USA-Japan tournament.


This is one of my favorite photos I ever took of him -- he's standing at 3rd base during Soukeisen talking trash with Waseda's Ayuki Matsumoto (the Baystars' Keijiro's little brother)

Yusuke Nomura, Meiji Univ, RHP

I've also talked about Nomura a lot, being as the first time I ever saw him pitch was in Koshien 2007. He was the Koryo HS ace and was considered fairly unstoppable, until he ran up against the Miracle Saga Kita team and ran out of steam in the 8th inning and Hiroshi Soejima hit that grand slam and well, that's history.

Nomura has had a fairly awesome college career in Big 6 though; he pitched 34 scoreless innings as a freshman to get the ERA title then and also got the ERA title last spring. He just got his 30th win last weekend and he passed 300 strikeouts during the 2011 spring semester. Almost all of the pitchers who accomplished that in Big 6 have gone pro and most have had successful careers. I suspect Nomura will too -- he's been very solid his entire time, never misses a game, never gets injured, always strikes out a ton of guys and never walks anyone. He's not huge and he's not going to ever throw 150+, but his control is great and he's got a very stoic manner on the mound.




As you can see, he's VERY consistent in his form. I have so many photos of him that look exactly the same that it's hard to choose one. The top is from the fall 2011 semester and the bottom is from the Japan-US tournament.


Here's how I'll always remember him, actually -- he has this habit while standing on the sidelines of tossing a ball up and down in the air, almost like juggling, so here he is on the mound doing the same thing.

Just for fun:



Nomura during his sophomore year. Clearly younger, but not much else has changed about him. He's simply consistent.

Shogo Shibata, Meiji University, LHP

Shogo has an amazing story -- he suffers from Behçet's disease, an incurable immunodeficiency, which he was diagnosed with when he was in junior high school. But he entered Aikodai Meiden HS anyway (you may recognize that as Ichiro's alma mater) and worked as hard as he could given the disease he was facing, and his 3rd year he pitched at Koshien. Then he entered Meiji University, and has been trying his best, but of course has also been in the shadow of many other pitchers there, what with being the same year as Nomura.

(There was a TV special about him when he was in high school. You can watch it on Youtube starting here).

I don't think Shogo will get drafted unless some team does it for the story, like Chunichi, but he IS a decent lefty pitcher and a really nice guy too. There was an article about him in Shube this past week how he basically is entering the draft because he wants to follow his dream and refuses to ever run away from things no matter how unlikely or difficult they are.





Hiroaki Shimauchi, Meiji University, OF

I haven't talked about Shimauchi much. This has been a gross mistake on my part. He has very quietly managed to have 3 amazing semesters playing for Meiji as a lefty-batting lefty-throwing outfielder from Seiryo HS, who sometimes even gets compared to being a "smaller Matsui". He put up a 1.064 OPS in the fall 2010 semester but didn't play during opening weekend and so didn't qualify for the batting leaders. He put up a .954 OPS in the spring 2011 semester, good enough for 4th, and his .385 BA was good enough for 3rd. He put up a .959 OPS this semester, with a league-leading 16 walks (the only way anyone's catching that during Soukeisen is if they walk EVERY TIME THEY COME TO THE PLATE pretty much) and a home run. (Oh, and 2 strikeouts against those 16 walks.)

It kinda sucks that I never actually got to know Shimauchi, since I did get to know a bunch of the other 4th-year Meiji players, and he seems like a nice guy. I gave him a bunch of photos last week and got him to sign one and told him good luck in the draft and all, and he seemed surprised but happy. We'll see what happens.







Keisuke Okazaki, Rikkio University, IF

I honestly don't know what's going to happen to Okazaki in this draft. I could see reasons for him getting drafted: he's been a consistently good batter in his last 2 years of Big 6, including leading the league in OPS by far this semester with an 1.184 as well as being the batting champion at .424. He was Rikkio's captain this year and they've actually done better this year than they had in a while. He played 2nd base for a long time, though has been mostly at 1st this year. He's from PL Gakuen HS and was on that same team as Kenta Maeda, they were both regulars from their freshman year. He has some power and he has a decent glove.

On the other hand, I've met Okazaki several times, and we even got a photo together in the US, and he is barely bigger than me, and I mean both heightwise and weightwise. (I'm 5'7".) In Japan that doesn't actually matter as much as it would in the US, but I don't think Okazaki runs enough to make up for his small frame. And of course, there have been lots of Big 6 batting champs who haven't made it to the pros, or did make it and haven't been all that great there.

On the other other hand, I never expected Fumiya Araki to get drafted last year, and look how that worked out! So who knows.


(I am mostly showing off my mad photo-taking luck here.)





Shohei Habu, Waseda University, OF

A teammate of Nomura's during that Koshien 2007, Habu has been a consistently decent player over his years at Waseda, though he hasn't been stellar this year per se. Still, he's a Waseda outfielder who bats lefty and can run, so there may be teams interested in him. Or not.

Tohto League

Daichi Suzuki, Toyo University, SS

Toyo captain, national team captain as well. Decent shortstop, decent lefty batter. My impression of him personality-wise is that he's kind of a jackass, but that's not really fair. He comes from Toin Gakuen HS, which is a nice academic and baseball pedigree to have.





Takahiro Fujioka, Toyo University, LHP

My favorite player going into the draft. He's tall, left-handed, throws 150 km/h (for reals, not this Jingu gun stuff), strikes out a ton of batters, throws a ton of complete games, goes to the mound with a smile on his face no matter what the situation, and has a great personality in general. In short, he's like a left-handed Kagami, but actually probably better in that his mechanics are less likely to get him injured and his manager isn't an idiot in overusing him.

(I have a few more photos of him in a preseason game post from the Hosei grounds, where I met him for the first time, and the US-Japan tourney. I also have a whole ton of photos of him from earlier, back to April 2009, that I never posted. Whoops.)





Takuya Uchiyama, Toyo University, RHP





Kyosuke Takagi, Kokugakuin University, LHP

Other Leagues

Tomoyuki Sugano, Tokai University, RHP

Widely regarded as the best pitcher in this draft, Sugano is the nephew of Giants manager Tatsunori Hara, and there's a good chance that ONLY the Giants will take him, like with Sawamura last year. Lame, but at least it means Fujioka won't go to the Giants.


Pre-season game at Meiji university's grounds (this is when I met him and got a photo together)


2010 All-Japan national collegiate tournament.


2011 US-Japan tournament in North Carolina.

Shotaro Tashiro, Hachinohe University, OF

Kinda another Shogo Akiyama type, though probably a little more on the speed and less on the boom. These are from the same 2010 All-Japan tournament. I have a lot of photos of him, though I'm not sure why. Something must have struck me as intriguing about him at the time, maybe it's the way he puts his arms together when he bats? I just don't remember at this point.