I’m starting an irregular tradition, although there are better things, even on this site, I could be doing with my time. I’m giving our loyal and friendly readers, which would be you, something to talk about on a day with no game. I’m going to pathetically brag, in the hope that you will one up [...]
Ryozo Kato, NPB commissioner and former Japanese ambassador to the United States (2001-08), is thinking big about the future of Japanese baseball, the dominance of the US in the baseball world, and how to grow baseball as a worldwide sport. Japan Times sports writer, Jason Coskrey, fills us in on what was said at a recent [...]
Former Swallows reliever Ryota Igarashi is in Port St. Lucie with the Mets, where he was interviewed for a piece about him in the New York Daily News yesterday. Among the article’s gems: During his 11-year career with the Yakult Swallows, Igarashi would wear a WWE-style mask and take on the persona of “Swallows Man.” A photo [...]
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 [...]
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
Yes, dear reader, this has nothing to do with the Tokyo Swallows, or with NPB at all, other than to demonstrate that there are brief moments when even our oft-frustrating club can appear well-managed. What you’re seeing is apparently real – the photo having been picked up around the mainstream sports media in the US. [...]
Akinori Iwamura, second baseman for the Tampa Bay Rays (and former Tokyo Swallows third baseman), went three-for-four with an RBI double in the first game of the 2008 World Series. But it wasn’t enough as the visiting Phillies took the first game of the series, 3-2.
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, [...]
A brief article on the Washington University in Saint Louis website discusses how left-handed pitchers and hitters have a distinct advantage in the game of baseball. This is probably not surprising news to most readers of this site, but the math has been done, and despite roughly 90% of the adult population being right-handed, about [...]
Former Tokyo great Shingo Takatsu has picked up his first save for the Woori Heroes of the Korean Baseball Organization, making him the first player to notch saves in NPB, MLB, and KBO. (HT to NPB Tracker for being the first, that we’ve seen, to report it in English.)
