An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
While reading all the off-season and spring training news that can be found about NPB and MLB, I came across some tidbits on former Tokyo center fielder, Norichika Aoki. A tracking poll conducted last week over at Brew Crew Ball found that 94% of respondents were in favor of the contract that Aoki signed with [...]
Chunichi Dragons Sold backup catcher, Keiji Oyama (31) to Tohoku. 2011 was Oyama’s best season so far, offensively-speaking. He hit .280/.394/.390 in 102 plate appearances. It sounds like Araki and Ibata could be reverting to their old positions, second and short, respectively. Victor Diaz is all but certain to be wearing a Chunichi uniform this [...]
The team reported that it would likely use the US$2.5 million dollars if received from the Milwaukee Brewers to help improve the farm team facilities. It was not reported whether all or part of the posting fee would be put towards stadium improvements. There is also a rumor flying around that Hatakeyama has requested a [...]
Video: Balentien taking BP during the 2011 spring camp. The following players were invited to the first team spring training camp in Okinawa: Pitchers (21 players) Yoshinori, Chang-yong Lim, Yuya Ota (rookie), Kyohei Muranaka, Ryohei Kiya (rookie), Masanori Ishikawa, Tetsuya Yamamoto, Kenichi Matsuoka, Tatsuyoshi Masubuchi, Shohei Tateyama, Tony Barnette, Masato Furuno (rookie), Yasuhiro Ichiba, Ryo [...]
**The poll is now closed. Click here to see the results of the vote. Here’s a poll to keep your mind off of what you should actually be doing at work. You will be asked for your opinions on topics such as who should get the most starts at third, and whether or not the [...]
I’ve noticed it before, but lord it’s out of control right now. Reporters, announcers, newscaster, whatever you want to call them, are dropping like flies. For whatever reason they’re marrying baseball players. Here’s a list of recent developments: January – Anri Mitsube (NHK newscaster) and Kan Otake (Hiroshima); Saho Narushima (freelance reporter) and Kenta Maeda (Hiroshima) [...]
A lot has happened since we last offered up our insights on what’s happening with your Tokyo Swallows. Some of the major goings-on include: Norichika Aoki has joined the Milwaukee Brewers Lastings Milledge was snagged as a free agent before signing with another major league club Orlando Roman was lured away from the Brother Elephants [...]
On this day in 1980, Masanori Ishikawa was born in Akita Prefecture. He joined the Tokyo Swallows at the end of 2001 when he was selected in the first round by the Japan Series champion Tokyo Swallows. There was no delay in his introduction to top team baseball, and he quickly found himself a weekly [...]
We’ll do another ‘Opening Day Lineup’ post soon, especially now that Aoki has officially flown the coop, but let’s first take a moment to check in with the rest of the team. At least two Tokyo players have already contracted the flu. Awesome. I’m a bit confused because this is normally what happens to the [...]
As most of the baseball world has been made aware, the Texas Rangers won the exclusive rights to speak with Mr. Darvish in December 2011. Until this week, there really had not been much discussion about the discussions. Granted in the US, the sportsworld is fully engulfed by the NFL and college football. Now that all the [...]
