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.
June 18th, 2009
Chiba Lotte Marines 5
Tokyo Yakult Swallows 6
Streak: Won 5 Last 5: WWWWW
(Jingu Stadium)
This was a strange one. The normally infallible Tateyama started and gave up five runs as Chiba took control of the game early on. Tokyo fought back and wasted numerous chances to take the victory in the regular nine innings. Lim had [...]
June 17th, 2009
Chiba Lotte Marines 1
Tokyo Yakult Swallows 10
Streak: Won 4 Last 5: LWWWW
(Jingu Stadium)
The two-run homer was the Swallows’ weapon of choice, with Aoki, D’Antona, Aikawa and Takeuchi all going deep as Tokyo rolled over the Marines at Jingu.
Yoshinori made his second start since rejoining the top team after a spell on [...]
May 31st, 2009
Tokyo Yakult Swallows 7
Chiba Lotte Marines 1
Streak: Won 1 Last 5: LWWLW
(Chiba Marine Stadium)
While the rain fell down over Tokyo, the skies remained sunny over Chiba Marine Stadium as Yakult coasted to a straightforward victory against the Marines.
Ryo Kawashima started for the birds and had one of his better days, going seven [...]
May 30th, 2009
Tokyo Yakult Swallows 3
Chiba Lotte Marines 6
Streak: Lost 1 Last 5: LLWWL
(Chiba Marine Stadium)
Yuki Tanaka struggled in his second start of the season, allowing Chiba a big early lead from which Yakult couldn’t recover.
Yuki lasted only three innings, giving up five runs off five hits and striking out three. He never really [...]
Trans-Pacific Radio has just posted a short podcast previewing a few of the ins and outs, at least where personnel changes are concerned, of the off-season for the six teams in the Pacific League.
You can listen to the podcast on your computer by going here.
Trans-Pacific Radio just published a
podcast which reviews the 2008 baseball
season all the way through the Japan Series which was eventually won by the Saitama Seibu Lions.
Click here to listen to the podcast.
The Japan Times‘ Jason Coskrey reported today that Chiba Manager Bobby Valentine, with whom we were lucky enough to have a chat back in July, told reporters on Tuesday that a Marines official asked him to resign back in late July.
Valentine broke the news while chatting with the reporters about the possibility of his managing [...]
So what happened last Thursday?
The Tsubamegun at Chiba Marine Stadium? Hostile territory, one might think.
Not when Mr. Larry Rocca is around.
First of all, Mr. Rocca wears nice suits. We were a bit taken aback when he appeared out of thin air in 90 degree sunlight wearing a blue and white striped three-button job with a [...]
The point of this post is really just to start an open thread and give our readers a chance to offer some input while it’ll still really make a difference.
Like Michael Westbay of Japanese Baseball.com and Deanna of Marinerds, etc. before us, we here at the Tsubamegun have been invited to spend a day at [...]
