An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
Welcome to the start of the 2013 Tokyo Swallows season! Spring Camp is already well under way, and Dave and Christopher invite a special guest onto the show to talk about the following Swallows-related news (in no particular order): Hatakeyama’s facial hair Iwamura’s return to the nest New uniforms! Last year’s battle with Chunichi in [...]
We still have a lot (hopefully) of playoff baseball left ahead of us, but it’s never too early to start thinking about how to improve the team moving ahead. One of the most obvious points of interest is the list of players that have recently been granted their outright release by the teams that they [...]
Something to read while remembering to keep your hands in your pockets. Swallows of the Week Week 3 Last week’s vote saw the strong performances by Hiroyasu Tanaka (2B), Lastings Milledge (LF), Katsuki Akagawa (P), and Kyohei Muranaka (P). 28 people cast their vote this week, and here’s what they decided: Congratulations to Beavis, a [...]
Tsubamegun got one hell of a shout out from fellow Japanese baseball watcher, NPB Tracker. Thanks, Patrick! Tokyo batting coach, Takao Ise, has been selected as one of the six coaches representing the nation as part of this year’s Samurai Japan team. One coach was selected from each of the top three teams in the Central [...]
Well, the festive season is over and the 2010 baseball season can be spotted lurking on the horizon, just waiting to take over our lives again. Here’s a round up of what’s been going on in SwallowsLand so far this offseason that hasn’t been covered elsewhere on the site: The Swallows made only their second ever [...]
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
Japan are the 2009 WBC Champions. But unlike 2006, there will be no disputing their right to call themselves such this time. A clutch two out two RBI single from Ichiro in the top of the 10th inning was enough to break a 3-3 tie and win the game for team Japan. Their thrilling victory [...]
The 2009 WBC final will be between Japan and Korea after Japan rolled over a lackluster USA team in the second semi-final at Dodger Stadium. A five run 4th inning did the bulk of the damage for the Japanese, damage from which the USA never recovered despite a late attempt at a comeback. Daisuke Matsuzaka [...]
A quartet of singles in the top of the 8th inning yielded three runs and broke a 2-2 tie to help Japan overcome Korea and claim the top seed’s position in Pool 1 of Round 2 of the WBC. Given that both teams were going to the semi-finals in Los Angeles regardless of today’s result, [...]
A day after being brushed aside so easily by Korea, Japan had to pick themselves up to face the Cubans for the second time in four days. This time however, there were no second chances, the loser would be heading home. Japan rode to victory three days earlier on the back of six innings of five hit [...]
