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 [...]

The amateur draft took place last night, but the media only picked up the fact that Yomiuri landed a big-hitting kid by the name of Taishi Ota out of Tokaidai Sagami High School as their first pick. Anyway, while it may come as a surprise to the media that 11 other teams were present at [...]

For years now, fans, reporters, and officials of Japanese professional baseball have been fretting over the damage – real and potential – that the globalization of the sport is doing to Japan’s professional clubs. While fans on both sides of the Pacific have been pleased to see the success of Nomo, Ichiro, Matsui, Matsuzaka, Okajima, [...]