Tokyo players added to the roster by the managers:

Pitchers: Yoshinori, Tateyama
Catcher: Aikawa
Infielder: Miyamoto

So that’s a total of six on the final roster.

May also stop off to catch them against the Tigers at Koshien on the way back too but that’s as yet undecided.

I’ll be down there for the All-Star Game, after a stop by Nagoya (I’ve never been tot he Nagoya Dome even though I’m in the Nagoya area 3 or 4 times a year), Nishinomiya (to see Tokyo pound Hanshin in Koshien, to which I’ve also never been), then it’s back up here and a week at Jingu before I head North, maybe hitting the Sapporo Dome and/or the attractively-named Kleenex Miyagi Stadium.

The lifetime notches in my belt will be (barring calamity): 10 out of the 13 stadia in regular use, plus 3 smaller venues (Botchan, Kure, Sagamihara.)

We want Tokyo men in the All-Star series like a squirrel stores nuts.

Wait, no. There’s a point to storing nuts.

We want Tokyo men in the All-Star series like killer whales toss seals around and leave their carcasses on the rocks. As soon as you start thinking about reasons, you start to undermine the whole foundation of the thing. Are the ASG kind of silly? Yes, of course, but is it something at which we just beat Yokohama? Yes!

And if the Swallows there play well, we get more pointless bragging rights.

Think about it hard enough and every game becomes kind of like golf – if the winner is the person who hits the ball least, then the real winners are the people who never go out to the golf course in the first place.

Looking forward to seeing the Stadium myself later this month.

Of course, the less Tokyo men the better as they could do with the rest. But I also like to see them get some shine, as pointless as the whole All-Star thing is in the greater scheme of things.

One quibble – Giabbit’s Yamaguchi is the middle reliever, not the Yamaguchi for the other team TYS can’t beat.

I voted twice this year. At the same time, in the same place. I imagine some Carp fans are doing the same. I wonder if the Carp promote voting in any real way. The Swallows put a brief notice on the scoreboard between innings, but don’t do much else. I wouldn’t have voted except that I happened to be at Pia trying to get All-Star Game tix and the ballots were right there in front of me. I will confess that I voted straight Tokyo both times. (What’s the point of team sports without outright chauvinism? Why is Keizo a better shortstop than Sakamoto? Easy; because he plays for Tokyo and Sakamoto plays for Yomiuri, which makes him blow reagrdless of what his outstanding performance would lead you to believe.)

All of that said, come on, Carp fans! Give us a f#@’*! break! Ishihara? Have you seen your catcher play? Do you know how expensive ASG tickets are? Which leads me to the organizers. . .