Who the hell is *THAT*?

You know how people compare the Yomiuri Giants to being like the New York Yankees? Well, that comparison just went one step further today.


(from here)


(from here)

Who the hell is that guy, and what has he done with the Guts we all know and love?

Whoever he is, he sure doesn't LOOK like Michihiro Ogasawara to me. Ogasawara's supposed to have facial hair and wear a Fighters hat. This guy's just some weird clean-shaven doppleganger who's playing for the Giants.

I bet this is what Red Sox fans felt like seeing Johnny Damon in clean-cut Yankee-mode for the first time...

Sign waves

I'm not going to be done cropping/resizing/tagging the Hiroshima pictures tonight. But I like what I've gone through of the set so far. Hopefully they'll be up by Tuesday morning.

I try not to go too many days without writing something here, though, and hey, there's actually some Mariners news to talk about.

As several players and front offices are getting ready to dance to the arbitration tango, the M's have made (or are making) a few additions to their staff, some subtle, some not-so-subtle. None of them have been of the ridiculous tie-up-your-payroll-for-the-next-decade sort yet, which is the most encouraging part.

Lessee, I don't see an official link for it, but USSM says the Mariners signed Justin Lehr to a minor-league contract. At worst, we'll have another good pitcher on the Tacoma team, and at best he'll be someone who can help us out in the bullpen next year for cheap.

Then the other word on the street is that the Mariners are about to sign John Thomson to a one-year contract with an option for 2008. Thomson comes with an injury history, but he comes cheap, and general consensus is that it's a good risk to take. Jeff Sullivan also points out that his name is not spelled Thompson.

Then, the big news of the weekend is that the Mariners also appear to be on the verge of signing Jose Guillen, as either an outfielder or a designated hitter, or both, depending on who you listen to, and depending, of course, on how well he's recovered from his elbow surgery back in July. I'm personally pretty ambivalent about this -- I tend not to get that excited during the offseason about most signings. However, I realize that a lot of other people will be excited about it, for better or worse. For example, my mother lives in VA and is a huge Jose Guillen fan for some reason, even naming a teddy bear after him. Oddly, I suppose I could end up renaming my own Bearemy Reed (nee Teddy Beardado) to Fuzzy Guillen, given the likelihood of Reed being thrown overboard the good ship Mariner this winter.

The Jose Guillen story that most sticks in my head, of course, was from Sam Walker's book Fantasyland, which you should go out and read right this second if you haven't, as it's possibly the funniest baseball book ever written. Sam's Tout Wars team was headed into the last weeks of the season in dire straits and Guillen had gotten himself suspended for going ballistic when they pinch-run for him, so Sam took things into his own hands by staging a protest:

  In the nineteen hours since we landed in San Francisco, Nando and I have visited Kinkos, Staples, and The Home Depot. We've bought poster board, markers, stencils, duct tape, and wooden stakes, and made picket signs that say "Free Jose", "Reinstate Jose", "Fantasy Owners Are People, Too", and Nando's favorite: "Sciame on Scioscia."
  Calling ourselves the National Association of Fantasy Baseball Owners, we printed four hundred leaflets on fluorescent green paper. At the top, there's a smiling photo of Guillen, followed by our manifesto:

Last Sunday, the Anaheim Angels SUSPENDED Jose Guillen, without pay, for the remainder of the season. His "CRIME" was publicly expressing his displeasure after manager Mike Scioscia removed him from a game the night before. Rather than having his enthusiasm and passion for baseball REWARDED, the bumbling Angels tossed him out on the street. This RASH move was made without any consideration for the impact it may have on the FIVE MILLION people WORLDWIDE who play fantasy basbeall, including thousands of our armed forces serving in war zones. Many of us who drafted Jose, or acquired him in trades, take great pride in his ALL-STAR caliber season, in which he's hit .294 with 27 home runs, 104 RBI, 5 steals, and 88 runs scored. We believe that Jose Guillen has been unjustly STOLEN from us, and we DEMAND that Angels management reverse this RECKLESS course and restore Jose to the lineup.

Needless to say, Sam and Nando got a few "right on!"s from some other fantasy sports players, a chuckle from Scioscia, an "Um, no" from Darin Erstad, a "Shoot Jose" from an Angels fan, a disgusted look from Billy Beane, and from Troy Percival, an "I don't give a shit about your fantasy team. That guy's an asshole."

On the other hand, the usually-amusing-but-currently-defunct Ball-Wonk, in his Nats adventures, insists that Jose Guillen is kind to children and America's next supermodel. So who knows. I think this is much better than the Carl Everett risk last year; Guillen's much younger, at least, and has a much higher chance of actually contributing in the field.

And really, you should go read Fantasyland right now if you haven't already. I wasn't joking about that.

Japan Photos, Part 3 - Nagoya

I could have done the set of "Koshien in the Rain" photos from Sept 6 separately, but figure I'll just append a few of those for my real Koshien photo set.

This set of photos is from September 7th. By that point I was about halfway through my week of staying in Osaka. We took a day trip to Nagoya that day, went to the Nagoya Castle and some other touristy stuff during the daytime, and then made our way out to the Nagoya Dome for a game where the Chunichi Dragons played the Yakult Swallows. Here's my blog entry for that day, or you can also see a game log. Short version: Kenshin Kawakami, the Chunichi ace who got their only win in the Japan Series this year, and who tied Igawa for the Central League strikeout crown, got roughed up something awful by the Swallows, giving up a grand slam to backup catcher Masakazu Fukukawa, as the Swallows ultimately won 6-3, starter Masanori Ishikawa getting the win for Yakult. I did get to see Masao Kida and Shingo Takatsu play in that game, as well as Akinori Iwamura. But none of my pictures of them came out at all! Sorry!

I sat in the upper deck of the Nagoya Dome for this game, and actually bought a Dragons shirt and cheer sticks and everything, and learned some of the cheer songs from a girl sitting next to me. I had no idea that a month later I'd be cheering AGAINST the Dragons in the Japan Series. Oops.

Photo set with thumbnails and descriptions here:
Dragons vs. Swallows at the Nagoya Dome, September 7, 2006

This isn't a particularly huge set either due to dome lighting, though there are a few neat pictures in there, I think. I got a lot of shots of the fans in the outfield stands cheering and holding up signs.

I picked out a few randomly from the set:

Outside the dome, inside, and mascots:


Cheering banners and cheer sticks:


Kenshin Kawakami, Norichika Aoki, and a late scoreboard:


The shop, a cartoon stand, Kazuki Inoue, an Asahi Beer dude, and cheerleader girls:


I hope people are enjoying these sets. Next up will be Hiroshima Stadium, where I got a lot more player shots since I was there for batting practice and there was actual daylight. Domes are great in some ways, but not for photography.

Okajima Wears Red Socks

It's somewhat surreal, but Red Sox Sign Lefty Okajima is the headline of the afternoon. Contract's for 2 years, $2.5 million according to the AP.

Hideki Okajima, a tall hefty lefty who will be 31 on Christmas, played for most of his career with the Giants, winning two Japan Series with them before being part of the Nippon Ham Fighters team which won this year. He grew up in Kyoto, and went to Higashiyama High, pitching at the spring invitational Koshien tournament in 1992 and 1993. He was drafted as the Giants third-round pick in the 1993-1994 offseason, and went on to pitch well in various roles, shining as both a lefty relief ace and a closer for the Giants. This year he was 2-2 with 4 saves and an ERA of 2.14, striking out 63 in 54.2 innings with a WHIP of 1.09. Lefties hit a miniscule .186 against him, and all of the 5 home runs he gave up were to right-handed batters.

He came to the Fighters in a trade right before the 2006 season, the Fighters sending no-bat catcher Kazunari Sanematsu and journeyman infielder Shigeyuki Furuki to the Giants for him. It's easily one of the best trades the Fighters have ever made. I will always remember Okajima best for moments like this, striking out Kosuke Fukudome in the Japan Series, over and over and over again. Hopefully he will find a suitable new lefty slugger over here to become the bane of. Personally, I suggest Big Jim Fuku-Thome.

The real downside to Okajima's new team being the Red Sox is that there's very little chance of me getting to tell him how awesome I thought he was in the Japan Series, as Sox fans are notorious for filling up Safeco within about five seconds of the gates opening for batting practice, and all the Japanese fans are going to come in to see Matsuzaka, too.

Shinjo's new career?

Thanks to The2Belo informing me about it, I went and watched the November 20th episode of the TV variety show SMAPxSMAP. (Everyone loves SMAP, right?) Recently-retired Fighters outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo was the guest, and it was probably the funniest episode of any Japanese TV show I've ever seen. I literally was laughing so hard I almost fell out of my chair.

Shinjo started off the show by coming out and pretending he was the owner of "Bistro SMAP", the Iron-Chef-like food competition they do on the show... as the real owner Masahiro Nakai walks out, dressed in an identical host outfit, wondering what the hell is going on. Shinjo's just like, "There's been a change in ownership here." The other four SMAP guys are like "Yeah, I heard that too." After the gag, Shinjo says that the food he wants to eat is "nippon ichi oishii ryouri", which could be interpreted as "the best cooking in Japan", or more likely, "tasty food for a Japan Champion!"


(screen capture from SMAPxSMAP 11/20/2006, Fuji TV)

They went down to the kitchen for a while after that to chat while the SMAP guys prepared a feast for champions. Takuya Kimura and Tsuyoshi Kusanagi were one team, and Shingo Katori and Goro Inagaki were the other. Shinjo talked about various stunts he'd pulled and other details about the team (at one point he was talking about Hichori, and the other guys are like "Hichori... is that a nickname?" and Masa and Shinjo are both like "No, it's his real name! Did you see when he dressed up as Piccolo at the All-Star Game?"). Katori even said how he didn't really follow baseball, but watching Shinjo made him think it looked really fun and exciting, and Shinjo said, "Hearing that from people makes me really happy."



The food they made was really really yummy. Despite that Kimura and Kusanagi won, I liked Shingo and Goro's arrangement better, partially because I've had a weird craving for good omurice lately, but mostly because they made this awesome dessert that was basically a baseball in a glove bowl, the ball being made out of strawberry mousse and cake, and they even decorated it with a "Shinjo HT 63". So cool! (So yummy-looking...)



Shingo Katori came out dressed up in a Fighters uniform when Shinjo was trying the desserts, and he was like "Look, I'm manager Hillman! 1, 2, 3, SHINJIRARENAAAAAIIII". It was pretty funny.



Now, here's the scary part. After the Bistro SMAP half of the show, they did this second half where it was almost like they were parodying themselves or something. They were initiating Shinjo into an idol group called the "Skate Boys", where they were all dressed up as an 80's boy band, in pink tank tops with a glittery "S" on them, and white shorts, and high white knee socks, and headbands with cutesy nicknames on them. First they sang and danced to a song. Shinjo really did try pretty hard to follow the routine.



Then, uhhh... they practiced doing their smiles as "cute boy band idols". It was pretty frightening. Shinjo's in the middle of the bottom row here as they all pose together.



Then they went and did this gag where all six "boy band members" had caricatures drawn on this carnival-board thingy, and they all had to throw baseballs to try to knock out the faces. Shinjo's is in the bottom right. Since there was another Tsuyoshi in the band, Shinjo became "Tsuyo-tsuyo", as Kusanagi was "Tsuyo-chan".



At one point Kimura threw a few baseballs and utterly missed the board, which was funny enough, but then he got down on one knee and put his glove on his head in the same pose Shinjo and Hichori and Inaba used to do all year in the Fighters outfield, and Shinjo cracked up and joined him here too:



Yeah.

Well, anyway. This was a tremendously funny episode of SMAPxSMAP. To be fair, the last time I watched it was when Orix's Kiyohara and Nakamura were on it, and they aren't anywhere near as charismatic. The disturbing part was how well Shinjo fit in with SMAP -- he's about the same age as the older members, has similar looks (they all have disturbingly white bright teeth and smiles), and similar mannerisms and charisma. I think he's going to be pretty awesome if and when he ends up as a TV personality somewhere. I'd almost like to see him teamed up with Kazushige Nagashima for something. Maybe they could be a pair of cops and have to hunt down Kazuhiro Kiyohara as a yakuza lord. That'd rule.

Japan Photos, Part 2 - Tokyo Dome / Seibu Dome

Yeah, I'm aware that the Yankees won the posting bid of $25 million or so for Kei Igawa, but you can read about that all over the place. I'll do some sort of post-posting post at some point. I guess we already know what he looks like in pinstripes, so it's all good. (Does this mean it's my job to make fun of the way he dresses more or less now that he'll be a Yankee? And is it cool or uncool for MLB players to carry around anime totebags? Ah, Kei-chan, I do hope you do well... except when facing the Mariners, of course.)

Anyway, these pictures are from my second full day in Japan, where I hung out with my friend Li again. Being from New York, he actually wanted to find a Shinjo jersey, so we met up at the Tokyo Dome so I could show him the big baseball store there and take some pictures, and we could then take the train out to Tokorozawa for the Lions-Fighters game. You can read my blog entry about the day, or the game log on the Fighters' site. Quick version is that Fighters' starter Satoru Kanemura gave up a grand slam to catcher Toru Hosokawa, and the Lions' Fumiya Nishiguchi had much better luck keeping the Fighters lineup down, so the Lions won 6-2 in the end.

I sat in the outfield unreserved turf "seating" during this game, cheering my lungs out with a ton of other Fighters fans, so most of the pictures are actually of fans and such, rather than of players. Plus, the lighting at the Seibu Dome is pretty atrocious and they had pretty thick fences around the field.

Photo set with thumbnails and descriptions is here:
Tokyo Dome and Invoice Seibu Dome, full photo set

Outside the Tokyo Dome; outside and inside the Seibu Dome


To:Do shop, Giants Adidas shop, and "Giants Is Giants" poster:


A Hichori sign, a Shinjo sign, and a baseball caught by the guy next to me.


Cardboard cutouts of Lions players outside a bento stand, an oendan leader, a beer guy, and a cute kid.


There's some other fun things in the photo set, and this one is less than half the size of the Sendai one. Enjoy!

Next up: Swallows vs. Dragons at the Nagoya Dome. Should be up in time to be a Friday Foto, even!

Random Roundups

Well, let's see. Today (the 27th) was Willie Bloomquist's birthday (and Pudge Rodriguez and Jimmy Rollins and Mike Scioscia, if you're counting) and his present this year from the Mariners is a contract extension! Whee!

The Hall of Who?

The 2007 Hall of Fame candidate list is now out. Let's face it, Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr are pretty much guarantees. There are a lot of question marks out there for a lot of the other players on the list -- many of whom are close, but not quite HOF quality. The only one I feel somewhat strongly about is Rich Gossage -- it just seems wrong that last year they voted in the Bruce but not the Goose. Either way, this would be an opportune time to plug The Goose Is Loose, which was one of the funniest baseball books I've ever read. The other funny case on the list to me (besides Jay Buhner, heh heh) is Tommy John -- I don't actually think he should be in the HOF, but I do think he had a long and amazing career, and that he doesn't actually have to be in the HOF to be immortalized, since pretty much every pitcher from now on who blows out his elbow will think of the guy.

Who Wants To Pay A Millionaire?

This past week saw Gary Matthews sign a ridiculous 5/50 contract with the Angels, the Astros sign Carlos Lee to an even more ridiculous 6/100 contract (and Woody Williams for 2/12.5), and the Orioles signed Danys Baez to a ridiculous 3/19 contract. But it's not all completely ridiculous. Philly is signing Adam Eaton to a 3/24 contract, and David Dellucci is following the J-Mike path from the Phillies to Cleveland, signing a reported 3/12 contract. Former Pepperdine Wave Randy Wolf is supposedly returning to South California with the Dodgers, for a very reasonable 1/8 contract coming off TJ surgery. (So much for the Wolf Pack in Philly.)

Around the Blogs in 80 Seconds

Jeff at Lookout Landing neatly summed up the Mariners 2006 season in quotes, Derek at USSM wrote Winter Meetings: The Text Adventure, Dave forwarded an interesting article about the life of King Felix, Conor Glassey wrote a song parody called White 'n' Dirty about Willie Bloomquist, and Phillies Flow has a lot of good recent stuff on Chris Coste, including a link to an article about his career path, and an entry arguing why Coste should make the 2007 roster. Mike Berquist has finished his series on the 1950 "Whiz Kids" Phillies, posting the final entry today; links to the rest of the series are at the bottom of that entry. Last, but not least, MetsGrrl wonders how I omitted the latest GQ model Jose Reyes from my NL All-Cute Team; but in reality, seeing that hair, I have to consider DFA'ing David Wright, actually.

Welcome to Sapporo, Mr. Green

Hey, it appears that Andy Green is signing with the Fighters, which is rad. At 5'9" and 175 pounds, he's got about the right physique to fit in (he'll pretty much mimic Kensuke Tanaka), and if he can hit in Japan like he did in 2005 in the PCL (.343/.422/.587, voted league MVP), that'll be pretty sweet. Not quite an Ogasawara replacement, but I think he'd be a good righty to put between Kensuke and Inaba or Seguignol, what with Naoto Inada (another lefty batter) most likely stepping in to take over at either third or first.

In the natural cycle of gaijin, the Fighters are not offering Brad Thomas a contract for next year. The big left-hander was 4-1 with a 3.74 ERA, striking out 43 in 45.2 innings pitched. He'd be a good pickup for some other team in Japan, given the general musical chairs game going on right now.

I'm not Gary Garland, Nor Do I Play Him On TV

Without Gary out there reading all the Japanese newspapers and translating interesting tidbits into English, I guess I have to go try to make sense of what's going on. I'm not as thorough in reading the news, but here's a few things:

First, Julio Zuleta is a free agent, having come to a halt in contract talks with the Hawks, as he wanted a multiyear deal and they wouldn't budge on it. I wonder if another Japanese team will sign him or if he'll get any interest from MLB.

Zuleta's former team, the Cubs, seem more interested in Kei Igawa. I do wonder whether Igawa knows he's a "second-tier" pitcher.

I keep seeing articles about "Nippon Ham's Kaneko signs" referring to Youhei Kaneko, the drafted outfielder from Honda. Oops.

Bobby Valentine keeps going on these trips to Okinawa to talk with Yaeyama Shoko ace Yuta Ohmine, who originally said he wouldn't play for any team except the Hawks, but has since relented and signed with Lotte. They promised him uniform number 1, and on this trip to Ishigaki Bobby brought him a uniform.

In other "What's Bobby V Up To?" news, Bobby posted a link on his blog to a YouTube clip where he's leading a cha-cha dance on stage before a Marines game earlier this year.

Komadai Tomakomai high school ace Masahiro Tanaka, drafted onto the Rakuten Eagles a few months ago, has been told that he will start on the top-level team in spring camp, as the management has said that he's "just not a minor league player". Tanaka will wear uniform number 18, which has a connotation of being worn by ace pitchers.

There was a second tryout at Chiba Marine Stadium on Monday with representatives watching from all 12 teams. 36 players participated, including released players such as the Fighters' Tomochika Tsuboi, the Hawks' Katsuhiko Miyaji, and Seibu's Fumikazu Takanami. (It doesn't sound like Tsuboi did particularly well, unfortunately.)

Dragonbutt Masahiko Morino is apparently causing a stir with the Chunichi management by demanding a significant raise in his contract.

Sounds like half of the Fighters don't want to go on their victory trip to New Zealand from December 14-26. Ogasawara's ducking out on account of switching teams, Shinjo retired, Yagi has a leave of absence, and Inaba and Hillman are only going for part of the trip, etc. Takes the fun out of it, doesn't it?

The Yakult Swallows are getting rid of Rick Guttormson. He wanted a 2-year, 700-million yen contract; they offered him a 1-year, 150-million yen contract; and alas, it appears they have agreed to disagree. Guttormson was 9-10 with a 2.58 ERA this year, and a no-hitter on May 25th against Rakuten.

Tomoaki Egawa has apparently been designated to be the Hawks' "post-Kokubo" third baseman, and as such is apparently assigned to train with him and absorb some "Kokuboism". Egawa's had a somewhat crazy few years, as he was a pitcher for Ujiyamada high school, pitched at Koshien, was drafted as a pitcher by the Hawks, but since he hit a lot of home runs and the Hawks are so pitching-heavy already he was converted to shortstop/third base, and then entirely played outfield for the Waikiki BeachBoys in the Hawaiian Winter League this year. He hit .274/.343/.483 on the Hawks' farm team in 2006; that's not too shabby for a 19-year-old kid.

Err, anyway. So on one final note, mostly bookmarked for myself: Nikkan Sports's contract signing news page with everything they know about contracts, which is pretty much everything I know about contracts.

Japan Photos, Part 1 - Sendai

I had some spare time this long weekend and cropped/resized/thumbed/labelled/sorted the first installment of Japanese baseball pictures from my trip in September. (If you are new to this blog or weren't paying attention in September or are putting off doing work on a Monday morning, feel free to read my Japan Trip entries, care of Blogger's handy new labelling tool!)

I realized that part of why I have felt such a huge mental block towards actually going through the trip collection is that I took around 400 pictures in Sendai. It was a BEAUTIFUL sunny Saturday afternoon and I was in a stadium and city I'd never been to before. I'm pretty sure I took more pictures at that game than any other game I attended, seriously. So in theory I should be able to go through my other sets a lot more quickly in the future, and will be hacking away at them in the next few weeks.

So, these pictures are from September 2nd, at a game of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks vs. the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles at Miyagi Fullcast Stadium in Sendai, Japan. Blog entry from that day is here and the scoreboard/gamelog/etc is here. Short version: I hadn't even been in Japan for 24 hours when I hopped on a shinkansen to Sendai just to see the Hawks' Saitoh pitch against Rakuten's Ichiba. Saitoh was wonderful and the Hawks won the game 4-1, Nobuhiko Matsunaka scoring the first run for Softbank on a solo home run and Jose Fernandez scoring the only run for Rakuten on a solo home run off closer Mahara in the ninth.

Photo set with thumbnails and descriptions is here:
Eagles vs. Hawks at Miyagi Fullcast Stadium, Full Photo Set

Though I have no idea whether anyone will actually click on that link and look at the 128 pictures I sorted out, so I figured I'd throw a few thumbnails up here as encouragement:

The stadium itself:


Pre-game, and the complexities of trash:


Selling goods, selling food, and a mighty swing:


Shibahara, Matoba, Honda, Fernandez, Jolbert Cabrera:


Kazumi Saitoh, Yasuhiro Ichiba:


More Saitoh/Ichiba, and some cheerleaders:


The balloons go a-flying!


I dunno, seriously, there's a LOT of pictures there, as I was really in "wow! take pictures of EVERYTHING!" mode. I think I took too many of Julio Zuleta and Munenori Kawasaki. (No such thing as taking too many pictures of Kazumi Saitoh, of course.) I ended up with a lot of pictures where faces weren't clear though, due to the bright sun that day and the shade of baseball caps, or due to it just being too far to zoom; and of course, it was hard to get on-field shots from my seat because of all the damn fences, though I spent two innings standing up on the walkway.

Anyway, uh, hi! Hope you have fun looking through these! Next set will be Lions vs. Fighters at the Seibu Dome. It is a much much much smaller set. Stupid roofs with bad lighting and all.