Semi-official injury count for the month of February at the Tokyo Swallows spring camp: 11 players missed all or part of at least one day of practice. In detail, that works out to six pitchers, four catchers, and one infielder. Go, go Swallows!
While the six injured pitchers may set off the loudest alarm for some [...]
Our beloved Hirotoshi Ishii, who many hope will experience a resurgence this season, hit a major stumbling block when he cut the hell out of the big toe on his right foot while working out in the pool.
As Dave recently noted, Ishii has been out of action for several years and will hopefully be enacting [...]
Robert Whiting wrote about the remarkable equalizing power of athletes such as Matsui, Ichiro, and Matsuzaka in the FCCJ.
A choice selection from the article:
Then there was also the fact that every year during spring training, Matsui took the Yankees-beat writers out to dinner, perhaps the only Yankee in the history of the franchise [...]
The fourth and final installment in a series of articles about Bobby Valentines’s rise and fall with the Chiba Lotte Marines baseball organization.
Robert Whiting, author of the irreplaceable You Gotta Have Wa, interviews players and personnel both in and outside the organization to present a rounded account of what went on behind the scenes.
It’s the first day of spring camp, and the birds have flown south to Okinawa to open a couple weeks of “no pain, no gain” training sessions.
After last year’s very lucky appearance in the postseason, the first ever for the Swallows I might add, all of the usual suspects are back for another go at [...]
Things finally got worked out behind the scenes, and thankfully D’Antona will be swinging the bat for the birds again in 2010.
He reportedly signed a two-year deal that will see him taking home 73 million yen this year (plus incentives).
The deal includes a club option for the second year.
Phew! Glad that’s settled.
Welcome back, Jamie!
Tsubamegun wishes [...]
The Tokyo Swallows reported that they have signed 26-year-old Tony Barnette, formerly of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization, to a one year deal worth four hundred thousand dollars plus incentives (just shy of forty million yen).
Barnette, a right-handed pitcher who will be wearing number 64, spent all of 2009 with Arizona’s triple-A outfit, the Reno Aces. [...]
Rumored to be able to throw 160 kph (100 mph), Eulogio De La Cruz was released by the San Diego Padres in the middle of last week, and has now signed for 15 million yen (plus incentives) with the Tokyo Swallows.
The 25-year-old RHP hails from the Dominican Republic and made his last major league appearance [...]
It was reported that Ryota Igarashi, long-time set-up and closer out of the Tokyo bullpen, will be spending the winter training in the United States as he works through the process of signing with a team there.
A couple of teams have apparently
The birds made a few new acquisitions back on the 29th of October, and at least one of those picks (a left-handed pitcher out of the industrial leagues) looks like he could make an immediate contribution to the team.
The Swallows were part of that huge scrum looking to snap up Yusei Kikuchi, but they lost [...]
