An in-depth look at the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Jingu Stadium, the Central League, and Japanese Pro Baseball
Team News No idea whether this is for real or not, but Ogawa has said that he likes having Yuhei around because he can be used in the outfield or as a pitcher (LHP). Yuhei was a top pitching prospect that never panned out for the Swallows. He started working on converting to the outfield [...]
Just a quick roundup of three recent news tidbits: 1. Rob Smaal, staff writer for the Asahi, recently wrote about the unlikely connection between former Swallows shortstop, Dave Hilton, and one of Japan’s best living authors, Haruki Murakami. Apparently Murakami, a Swallows fan, was at Jingu on Opening Day of the 1978 season, and Hilton’s [...]
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 [...]
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
October 19th, 2009 Tokyo Swallows 4 Chunichi Dragons 7 Series: Chunichi 2-1 Tokyo (Nagoya Dome) Chunichi was definitely the better team today, but they should never forget that they had the flu and a little bit of Takada on their side. Either way, the season came to an end for the Swallows while the Dragons [...]
October 17th, 2009 Tokyo Swallows 3 Chunichi Dragons 2 Series: Chunichi 0-1 Tokyo (Nagoya Dome) Game one of the 2009 Central League Climax Series kicked off in Nagoya with Chen on the mound for the home team, and Ishikawa taking the reigns for the visiting Tokyo Swallows. And Tokyo came up with the goods versus [...]
October 7th, 2009 Yokohama BayStars 4 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 5 Streak: Won 2 Last 5: LWLWW (Jingu Stadium) Aaron Guiel. Aaron Guiel. Aaron Guiel!!
October 6th, 2009 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 10 Yokohama BayStars 4 Streak: Won 1 Last 5: LLWLW (Yokohama Stadium) For quite a while, it looked as though Yokohama would frustrate Tokyo for the 14th time this year. But in the end, the Swallows extra class told as they put up eight runs in the 8th [...]
September 30th, 2009 Hanshin Tigers 7 Tokyo Yakult Swallows 1 Streak: Lost 2 Last 5: WWWLL (Jingu Stadium) The birds outhit the Tigers 12-10 but still got annihilated. Yuki pitched six rather solid innings but got roughed up a little in the seventh. Takada factored a bit in this one as well.
