Waseda's Yuhei Takanashi pitches a perfect game

Kinda surprised I haven't seen ANY coverage of this in English, so as usual I guess it's my job to write about the Tokyo Big 6 happenings :)  Of course this had to happen right AFTER I came back to the US!

This past Sunday, in front of a relatively small crowd (reported as 2000), left-handed pitcher Yuhei Takanashi of Waseda University pitched the 3rd perfect game in Tokyo Big 6 history, against Tokyo University (not too surprising).  The game took slightly less than 2 hours and Waseda won 3-0.

What I find hilarious is that Waseda Sports has an article about the game with interviews with the players and all, but the only boxscore they attach is the WASEDA box, which is of course NOT the interesting one.  How annoying. I basically went and found someone's written box score on Twitter and transcribed it (the interesting half):

Waseda 3 - 0 Tokyo
Sunday, April 21, 2013

                      1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9   R  H  E
Tokyo                 0  0  0   0  0  0   0  0  0   0  0  0
Waseda                0  0  2   0  0  1   0  0  x   3  5  0

Tokyo               AB  R  H RB  K BB SH SB  E     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
Shimojima, 3b        3  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    G3 .. .. G3 .. .. G3 .. ..
Iida, 2b             3  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    f3 .. .. G3 .. .. G1 .. ..
Kurozawa, 1b         3  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    G3 .. .. F8 .. .. F9 .. ..
Arii, rf             3  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. KS .. .. F8 .. .. f5 ..
Kasahara, c          3  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. f5 .. .. L5 .. .. G4 ..
Agata, lf            3  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. F9 .. .. F7 .. .. KC ..
Sawada, cf           3  0  0  0  2  0  0  0  0    .. .. KS .. .. KC .. .. G6
Nakasugi, ss         2  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. G5 .. .. G5 .. .. ..
  Iijima, ph         1  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. F2
Tatsui, p            1  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. .. KS .. .. .. .. .. ..
  Nagafuji, ph       1  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. F4 .. .. ..
  Shirasago, p       0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
  Nishiki, ph        1  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. KS

Waseda              IP   NP  BF   H  HR   K  BBH  RA  ER
Takanashi (win)      9  109  27   0   0   6   0   0   0

There are various articles around with photos and whatnot: sponichi nikkan sports

The last guy to throw a perfect game in Tokyo Big 6 was Satoshi Kamishige, who threw one for Rikkio on October 22, 2000. He's now an announcer for NTV.

Brief Japan Interlude

So, I went to Tokyo for 2 weeks from March 30 to April 16.  Just got back to the US a few hours ago.

I went to a few games:

March 31: Lions vs. Fighters, Seibu Dome
April 3: Marines vs. Fighters, Chiba Marine Stadium
April 4: Waseda Univ vs. Saginomiya, Jingu (Industrial vs Big 6 tourney)
April 4: Meiji Univ vs. JX-ENEOS, Jingu (Industrial vs Big 6 tourney) 
April 4: Marines vs. Fighters, Chiba Marine Stadium
April 5: Swallows vs. Baystars, Jingu 
April 6: Swallows vs. Baystars, Jingu
April 7: Fighters vs. Eagles, Kamagaya (minor-league)
April 9: Swallows vs. Niigata Albirex, Toda (minor-league exhibition)
April 9: Fighters vs. Eagles, Tokyo Dome
April 10: Marines vs. Fighters, Lotte Urawa (minor-league) 
April 10: Fighters vs. Eagles, Tokyo Dome 
April 11: Fighters vs. Eagles, Tokyo Dome
April 13: Hosei vs. Todai, Jingu (Tokyo Big 6)
April 13: Rikkio vs. Keio, Jingu (Tokyo Big 6)
April 14: Buffaloes vs. Fighters, Hotto Motto Kobe  

I guess 16 games in 16 days isn't bad, especially given that some days I didn't go to games at all (either they didn't exist, or got rained out, or one day my best friend and I went to see The Sound of Music at the Shiki theater, which was a whole new experience for me)

Anyway, I dunno if I'll get around to posting entries about all of these (Kozo actually used some of my photos from the Swallows-Albirex game here since I also saw the craziness of utility man Masayoshi Miwa getting a ni-gun workout at catcher) but some highlights of things that happened:

- I got a new Fighters uniform made since my Imanari one is out of date thanks to him getting traded to Hanshin last year.  This time I got a home jersey of Yohei Kagiya, who just got drafted this year out of Chuo.  I was a fan of his in college AND high school, he's from Hokkaido, and he's awesome.  The uniform shop did a rush job and I had it ready to wear for the 3 games at Tokyo Dome.  Showed up expecting to be the only person with a custom Kagiya kanji uniform... and there was another person in my group with one.  Go figure.  So now we're BFFs, I made her a photo book of Kagiya photos from Chuo and she's sending me some newspapers from Sapporo.

- I got to see Kagiya's first pro win in Kobe on what was one of the most awesome roadtrips ever.  I went on a whim, took a night bus down, met up with some friends, it was Blue Wave throwback weekend, we took a ton of random photos, I said hi to Brian Wolfe, but even better I got a signed card from Hiroshi Kisanuki, who apparently gives them out at games, he personally signs and numbers each one, that's very cool of him.  Oh yeah, and the Fighters won after hitting like 5 home runs.

- Thanks to the throwback weekend, the Orix fans were doing old chants (like Ichiro's song for Itoi), so we did too.  Among the old songs we did were Yukio Tanaka, Atsushi Kataoka, Tatsuro Hirose, Tatsuya Ide, Yutaka Nakamura (that later was Keizo Kawashima), Jerry Brooks, and Tsutomu Ishimoto.  And those are just the ones I remember.  The stupid thing is that I could tell who the songs were for, but they were just old enough (the 1996-1997 period) that I didn't necessarily know the songs themselves, except maybe Yukio and Ide, since those guys were still around in 2003 for my first Fighters game.

- I also doctored my old Fighters Imanari #62 uniform by buying felt at the 100-yen shop and making a "MOLLEKEN" to put over it, since Dustin Molleken is wearing #62 for the Fighters now.  This amused the crap out of most of my friends.  But even crazier, when I went to the Kamagaya game on the 7th, not only was Molleken there and pitching (he did 1 inning, 3 batters, 3 K) but I ended up sitting with his girlfriend for half the game, she's here from Canada, and of course everyone's like "do you know the other white girl?" so I just went up and started talking to her, and she was like "nice uniform!"  After the game she introduced me to Dustin so I even got to show him the uniform and he thought it was cool too (like "I bet that's the only one out there")

- I got a bunch of the Fighters ni-gun guys to sign my new uniform at Urawa.  Yay.  Also some of my friends got interviewed by Fuji TV about "Ohtani Fever".  I did not.  Probably the TV people figure I can't speak Japanese.  Also Makoto Kaneko was batting 1st and playing 2nd base at ni-gun.  Kinda crazy.

- I MET SHINGO KAWABATA before the Swallows-Albirex game. My only vague regret is not having my jersey with me to get him to sign. I got to the game over an hour early, saw Shingo there talking to a coach and someone else, and I did a double-take, and walked by, and then did another double-take (he actually was looking at me kinda funny anyway), and realized I might not ever get another chance at this, so I got my courage up and went over like (in super-polite Japanese) "Mr. Kawabata, I know it might be rude of me, but I'm a huge huge huge fan, can I get a photo with you?" He smiled like "...sure?" and the coach took the picture and afterwards I talked to him a little, I asked if he was going to play in the game and he said no, but when I told him I was so worried when he got injured he said not to worry and that he's doing his best to heal up, and I told him I'll be waiting to see him play at ichi-gun again and he smiled and I thanked him again and went away. He's so tall and he really is as adorable and sweet as I thought he'd be in person. I wonder how he would have reacted if I *did* have my crazy custom Kawabata jersey with me :)  Either way, it was the highlight of my trip.

- I saw my Niigata Albirex buddies but didn't have time to talk to them since I had to bolt for the Fighters Tokyo Dome games. Alas. I did say hi to Tomoshi Aoki at least.

- The Baystars have keychains for Mishima and Kagami so now I have those. I didn't get to see either of them in person this trip though :(

- "My" Hosei pitcher this year is Kazuki Funamoto. I mean, I'd already told him last year that he was "the next Kagami" for me, but Mishima was still "mine" last year. Anyway, Funamoto pitched a good game against Todai and I talked to him after the game and gave him Easter candy and stuff, said I'll be cheering for him from afar this year. He's very sweet personality-wise and I also think his skin has cleared up a lot in the last year or two because I didn't remember him being quite as cute as he is now. Good for him :)

- Oh yeah, and I got a Hosei Fall 2012 championship towel. It came indirectly from Mishima, even, he gave it to my friend last fall and she gave it to me at the industrial league game this time. It's big and orange and awesome.

- Speaking of the industrial league games, so we got to see all our favorite recent grads play for ENEOS, like Ren Yamasaki and Masato Komuro, and Tomoya Mikami pitched too. Good times. Sachiya Yamasaki pitched 3 great innings for Meiji, too. He's getting better and better and better. As for the Waseda-Saginomiya game, the highlights for me were a freshman Waseda submarine pitcher named Kazuya Yoshino, and a goofball catcher for Saginomiya named Tomoya Okada.

- While I'm not part of "Ohtani Fever", I will note that I saw him make a few good plays in the outfield, and that thanks to him I had to pay 800 yen for the Fighters Rookie Edition card set. Grr :)

- OH! How can I forget that I saw Alex Ramirez's 2000th hit? That was super-exciting. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon at Jingu, we figured the game would get called after Rami's at-bat in the 6th, but then he lined a HR into the left-field stands and the game went on to have the Baystars win. Oops. Anyway, there was a bit of a to-do, they put up a thingy on the scoreboard about the 2000th hit, Miyamoto gave Rami-chan a bouquet, there was a plaque, lots of photo-taking, and then the game continued.

(and that evening we had a bloggers meetup which Westbay took a video interview during which was kind of embarrassing but whatever)

I think that's it for now.  I'll add to this if I think of anything more.

Nichidai Sanko, One Year Later

I've had this post sitting in the "draft" state for almost a year. How silly.

Anyway, I was a huge fan of the Nichidai San HS team that managed to win the Jingu Taikai in fall 2010 and the entirety of Koshien in the summer of 2011, as can be seen in back posts under the Sanko 畔上組 label on here. I first saw them play at said Jingu Taikai and fell in love, then went to Senbatsu in Spring 2011 and sat behind their dugout, and then cheered for them all the way through Koshien, from afar, while working in San Francisco.

So when I went back to Japan in the spring of 2012, of course I had to go hunt down as many of the Sanko boys as possible in their new college digs. Fortunately, most of them were at easily accessible colleges, so here's some photos/details about the Sanko Nine.  (Technically, this post should be called Two Years Later in terms of details, but the photos are all One Year Later, so...)

#1: Pitcher Kentaro Yoshinaga.  College: Waseda.



I was totally in love with Yoshinaga when he was pitching for Sanko, and it was pretty painful for me to watch him go to my least favorite college team, almost like watching a player I love get drafted by the Giants.  Even worse, they gave him Saitoh's old #16 and basically started calling him "the new Golden Boy".  And EVEN worse, he's living up to it -- his freshman year line is a gorgeous 7-2, 1.79 with 71 strikeouts in 70.1 innings.　(And batting .385 while doing so -- you'd think he was trying to outdo Sachiya Yamasaki at being the next Sanko Double Threat.)　He was the front cover of Shube's 大学野球 magazine for the Fall 2012 semester, and there was a 15-page article on "Sanko Boys: The Amazing Freshmen", with 8 pages on Yoshinaga alone, comparing him to Saitoh, among other things.

Anyway, his fans are nowhere near as annoying as Saitoh's fans were, and I think I'm finally feeling slightly less heartbroken about him being at Waseda.  Except when he pitches against Hosei, of course.

#2: Catcher Takahiro Suzuki.  College: Rikkio.



Suzuki's crowning moment in the Senbatsu 2011 was when he actually split his lip while making an amazing play at the plate, had a towel to his mouth to catch the blood... and was back in the game catching and kicking ass again a few minutes later.

Unfortunately, he hasn't had much of an impact at college yet, only appearing in 3 official games, and not even getting an at-bat in any of them.  I was even at one of the games, on October 7... of course, I was sitting in the Hosei cheering section.  Rikkio hasn't had a lot of luck with catchers in recent years since Yuki Maeda left, so hopefully Suzuki-kun will catch on soon enough.

#3 First Baseman Ryoya Kaneko.  College: Hosei.

Actually, so Kaneko was a year behind the rest of the Sanko Nine, and so he spent 2012 still in high school, as captain of this year's Sanko team, which didn't go to Senbatsu, did go to summer Koshien, and lost their first game to Seiko Gakuin (though Kaneko himself hit a solo homer in the 9th to bring a 2-0 game to a 2-1 game).  It will be super-interesting to have two consecutive Sanko captains at Hosei this year (with Azegami there as well), along with the fact that Hosei's captain this year is Kanji Kawai, who was on the 2009 champion Chukyodai Chukyo team.

#4: Second Baseman Kenichi Suganuma.  College: Asia... except he dropped out and is actually entering Nittaidai (Japan Sport Science) college in the fall.




I still have absolutely no idea what the hell happened here.  He made it onto the bench for Asia's team as a freshman, probly on his Sanko credentials, I saw him at a game and took this photo (he didn't play but was on the sidelines) and then never heard of him entering any of their games at all throughout the year, and in the fall he wasn't even listed as being in Asia's baseball club roster at all.  I asked Azegami about it when I had a chance to talk to him in the fall and he was like "I'm not sure, but I think he might have dropped out?"

Anyway, rumor is he's joining the Nittaidai team which has several of his former Sanko teammates, including Taniguchi, so maybe that will be good for him.

#5 Third Baseman Toshitake Yokoo.  College: Keio.



Yokoo was the cleanup batter for that Sanko team, and he did hit a pretty scary number of home runs in high school, and he idolized Seibu's Okawari-kun.

He hasn't been smashing the snot out of the ball quite as much in college -- to the tune of a .196/.316/.393 line for the year with only 2 homers -- but Keio's manager Etoh has been basically letting Yokoo go out there and bat 5th in the lineup for every game.  I guess we'll see how he fills out in college.  I didn't really see him play much, but his swing looked just like it did in high school, so I'm not sure what's up.

#6 Shortstop Koki Shimizu.  College: Nichidai.



Bizarrely the only one of the main 9 Nichidai Sanko boys to actually go to Nichidai (Nihon University).  Unfortunately for Shimizu, first Nichidai fell from the top Tohto League to 2nd League in the fall, and he didn't get enough playing time to end up on the league's stats site, so I'm not entirely sure how he did (though I should probably do more webstalking to figure it out sometime).

#7 Left Fielder Yuta Taniguchi.  College: Nittaidai.

Unfortunately, Nittai is in a league I just don't go to see, so I didn't stalk Taniguchi.  Maybe some other time.

#8 Center Fielder and Captain, Sho Azegami.  College: Hosei.



The great thing for Azegami going to Hosei is that he got to experience them winning the Big 6 League in the fall.  The bad thing is that he was going to a team that was fairly strong and so he barely got any playing time in the spring at all, though a decent amount in the fall.  Still, his attitude seemed to be pretty much "I'm a freshman, I know that if I work hard I'll get playing time and to contribute to the team later."

Fun fact: Azegami was 6-for-16 (.375) with 1 strikeout while I was in Japan for the first 3 series of the fall.  Then he was 0-for-8 with 4 strikeouts for the remainder of the semester after I went home.  Conclusion: for Azegami's sake, I should consider moving back to Tokyo.

#9 Right Fielder Shun Takayama.  College: Meiji.



I'm going to say something that might sound ridiculous, but I feel like Takayama could easily be the next version of Hayata Itoh (wrong HS/college, but whatever).  He's tall and built extremely well, can hit for power AND speed from the left side, is a decent outfielder, etc.  His first semester in Big 6 he hit .417 and the only reason he didn't get the batting title is because Keio's Agata went on a tear and hit .447.  His batting average went down a little bit in the fall but he hit his first college homer and also walked a bit more.

Seriously, I think Takayama might be the second-most likely to go pro after college out of these nine as of right now (Yoshinaga seems to be the most likely).  Though, Sanko doesn't usually produce that many pro players, oddly enough, so who knows.

Bonus pictures: I actually met some of these guys!



This was after an exhibition game of Keio vs. Sega Sammy.  Yokoo seemed sort of very WTF when I was like "can I get a photo with you please please please I'm a huge fan" but Daisuke Takeuchi (who, BTW, had been kinda picking on Yokoo in the dugout during the game -- bet it's some form of freshman hazing) was like "Sure, no problem, we can take a photo". And being a freshman, Yokoo had to listen to his senior. Ha! I am figuring that later on Daisuke explained to him "don't worry, the gaijin is harmless, she goes to a ton of our games". I gotta say, he won a bazillion "good guy" points with me that day.



Shun Takayama. This was after Opening Day vs. Todai.  I'd actually briefly met Takayama when he was still in high school, actually, when I recognized him outside Jingu and talked to him a little.  I asked for a photo then but he said "sorry, I'm not really supposed to".  This time he really had no excuse, especially after one of my Meiji superfan friends said "You have no idea how much this girl loved your Koshien team, she's going back to the US tomorrow" and so he was like "ok, fine, I guess". Hence the kind of grumpy look, but I was really happy to meet him.



So yeah, being as Hosei is my favorite college team and I have the most context and fan cred there, it was only a matter of time before I'd meet Sho Azegami.  While I was introduced to him briefly in the spring with several other Hosei freshmen, this picture was actually taken during the fall semester.  I told him what a huge fan I was and how happy I was he came to Hosei.  The other guy with his eyes closed is Akihiro Wakabayashi from Toin Gakuen.

A Picture Is Worth 2012 Words

I forgot to do this last year, didn't I. But you can go back and see 2010 and before...



Anyway, I was finally going through some stuff in my room and found my collection of tickets from last year (while the picture includes hockey games -- the San Francisco Bulls ECHL team that started up in town this year and has been distracting me this fall -- they are not in this list) and actually wasn't sure how many baseball games I went to, so I spent a while looking back through photos and other things and made a list.  It was both more and less than I thought:

April 2: Chuo vs. Toyo, Jingu, Tohto University League
April 2: Komazawa vs. Asia, Jingu, Tohto University League
April 4: Fighters vs. Swallows ni-gun, Kamagaya Stadium
April 4: Swallows vs. Tigers, Jingu
April 5: Swallows vs. Tigers, Jingu
April 6: Marines vs. Fighters, QVC Marine Stadium
April 7: Marines vs. Fighters, QVC Marine Stadium
April 8: Hosei Univ vs. JR Higashinihon, Jingu, Big6 vs Industrial Exhibitions
April 8: Keio Univ vs. Sega Sammy, Jingu, Big6 vs Industrial Exhibitions
April 9: Rikkio Univ vs. Honda, Jingu, Big6 vs Industrial Exhibitions
April 9: Waseda Univ vs. Subaru, Jingu, Big6 vs Industrial Exhibitions
April 10: Swallows vs. Baystars, Jingu
April 11: Giants vs. Dragons, Tokyo Dome
April 12: Chuo Univ vs. Nihon Univ, Jingu, Tohto University League
April 12: Komazawa vs. Aoyama Gakuin, Jingu, Tohto University League
April 12: Swallows vs. Baystars, Jingu
April 13: Marines vs. Baystars ni-gun, Lotte Urawa Stadium
April 16: Todai vs. Meiji, Jingu, Tokyo Big 6 University League
April 16: Lions vs. Fighters, Seibu Dome
April 29: Frederick Keys vs. Lynchburg Hillcats, Harry Grove Stadium (single-A)
June 7: Oakland A's vs. Texas Rangers, Oakland Coliseum
June 23: San Rafael Pacifics vs. Hawaii Stars, Albert Park (NABL)
July 4: Oakland A's vs. Boston Red Sox, Oakland Coliseum
July 6: San Rafael Pacifics vs. Maui Na Koa Ikaika (NABL)
July 15: Tacoma Rainiers vs. Colorado Springs Sky Sox, Cheney Stadium (triple-A)
July 31: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Arizona Diamondbacks, Dodger Stadium
August 26: San Rafael Pacifics vs. Maui Na Koa Ikaika (NABL)
Sept 7: Hosei vs. Meisei, Hosei ground (preseason game)
Sept 7: Swallows vs. Giants, Jingu
Sept 8: Buffaloes vs. Fighters, Osaka Dome
Sept 9: Buffaloes vs. Fighters, Osaka Dome
Sept 11: Marines vs. Fighters, QVC Marine Field
Sept 12: Giants vs. Carp, Tokyo Dome
Sept 13: Fighters vs. JX-ENEOS, Kamagaya (exhibition game)
Sept 13: Marines vs. Fighters, QVC Marine Field
Sept 14: Swallows vs. Baystars, Jingu
Sept 16: Hosei vs. Todai, Jingu, Tokyo Big 6 University League
Sept 16: Swallows vs. Baystars, Jingu
Sept 17: Niigata Albirex vs. Gunma Diamond Pegasus, Hokushinetsu League
Sept 18: Aoyama Gakuin vs. Chuo, Jingu, Tohto University League
Sept 19: Marines vs. Eagles, Tokyo Dome
Sept 20: Marines vs. Swallows ni-gun, Lotte Urawa Stadium
Sept 21: Lions vs. Fighters, Seibu Dome
Sept 22: Meiji vs. Waseda, Jingu, Tokyo Big 6 University League
Sept 22: Hosei vs. Keio, Jingu, Tokyo Big 6 University League
Sept 23: Lions vs. Fighters, Seibu Dome
Sept 24: Meiji vs. Waseda, Jingu, Tokyo Big 6 University League
Sept 24: Marines vs. Buffaloes, QVC Marine Field
Sept 25: Swallows vs. Tigers, Jingu
sept 26: Fighters vs. Baystars ni-gun, Kamagaya
Sept 26: Swallows vs. Tigers, Jingu
Sept 28: Yamato Samurai Reds vs. Kishu Rangers, Sato Yakuhin Stadium (KANDOK League)
Sept 30: Hawks vs. Fighters, Fukuoka Yahoo Dome
Oct 2: Baystars vs. Swallows, Yokohama
Oct 3: Fighters vs. Hawks, Sapporo Dome
Oct 6: Hosei vs. Rikkio, Jingu, Tokyo Big 6 University League
Oct 6: Meiji vs. Todai, Jingu, Tokyo Big 6 University League
Oct 6: Swallows vs. Carp, Jingu
Oct 7: Hosei vs. Rikkio, Jingu, Tokyo Big 6 University League
Oct 7: Swallows vs. Carp, Jingu

I guess it's not too surprising that I was in Japan for 6 weeks of the year and went to 52 games there, and only 8 in the US for the other entire part of the year, huh?

Though who knows, this year I may have to go try to stalk Kensuke Tanaka in the Giants' minors, or go cheer for Hiroyuki Nakajima over in Oakland now that he's not my mortal enemy anymore.

Also, let's see..
14 Fighters-related games
14 Swallows-related games
8 Marines-related games
6 Hosei-related games (technically 8 if you count that I went to watch Kagami pitch with the Baystars and Mikami pitch for ENEOS)

And uh... 28 games at Jingu.  There's a reason I call it "home", you know.

Also, if anyone would like me to maybe make some mini-posts about some of these games, I could probably do that.  I had some really epic stories in there, especially involving meeting Shingo Takatsu up in Niigata, or meeting most of the Kishu Rangers team when I was in Nara...

Draft 2012 Liveblogging!

Moving the "liveblog" to the bottom though I didn't comment THAT much -- just very tired from 1am-4am here, you know :)

I'll add in the ikusei players tomorrow morning.

Name                   Pos  HS/Univ/Company         T/B   DOB          Ht/Wt  
--------------------   ---  ---------------         ---   ----------   -------

Giants
1 Tomoyuki Sugano       P   Tokai University        R/R   10/11/1989   185/86
2 Susumi Ohrui          IF  Dohto Univ              R/R   08/31/1990   176/70
3 Harutomo Tsuji        IF  Komono HS               R/L   08/11/1994   180/80
4 Katsuhiko Kumon       P   Osaka Gas               L/L   03/04/1992   173/75
5 Masaki Sakaguchi      IF  Tokai Univ              R/R   09/29/1990   187/95

I1 Keigo Tahara         P   Yokohama HS             L/L   06/12/1994   182/88
I2 Rin Matsutomi        IF  Beppu Univ              R/R   04/26/1990   172/70

Dragons
1 Koji Fukutani         P   Keio University         R/R   01/09/1991   183/92
2 Tatsuro Hamada        P   Aikodai Meiden HS       L/L   08/04/1994   183/88
3 Takeru Furumoto       OF  Ryukoku Univ            R/L   12/04/1990   175/77
4 Shota Sugiyama        IF  Waseda Univ             R/R   02/10/1991   172/78
5 Hayato Mizowaki       IF  Kyushu Gakuin HS        R/L   05/17/1994   178/63
6 Koshi Inoue           P   City Light Okayama      R/R   08/21/1988   180/78
7 Shunta Wakamatsu      P   Yusei HS                R/R   02/28/1995   180/75      

Swallows
x Shintaro Fujinami 
1 Taichi Ishiyama       P   Yamaha                  R/R   09/01/1988   182/75
2 Yasuhiro Ogawa        P   Soka Univ               R/R   05/16/1990   170/74
3 Kengo Tagawa          P   Kochi Chuo HS           R/L   05/22/1994   187/77
4 Masaya Emura          P   Y-Tec                   L/L   07/05/1987   179/70
5 Yudai Hoshino         C   Kagawa Olive Guyners    R/R   10/19/1988   177/80
6 Ryota Yachi           IF  Kokugakuin Univ         R/R   02/03/1991   178/78
7 Tatsuya Ohba          P   Hitachi Seisakusho      R/R   03/10/1989   183/85

Carp
x Yudai Mori
x Tatsushi Masuda
1 Hiroki Takahashi      OF  Ryuukokudai Heian HS    R/R   05/11/1994   181/77
2 Seiya Suzuki          P   Nishogakusha HS         R/R   08/18/1994   180/80
3 Takashi Uemoto        IF  Meiji Univ              R/R   08/22/1990   170/70
4 Ko Shimozuru          OF  Honda                   R/R   04/23/1988   175/83
5 Yuuki Mima            P   Naruto Uzushio HS       R/R   05/26/1994   176/77

I1 Sora Tsuji           P   Gifu Johoku HS          R/R   04/24/1994   184/77
I2 Tsukasa Morishita    OF  Aikodai (Univ)          L/L   02/23/1991   176/76

Tigers
1 Shintaro Fujinami     P   Osaka Toin HS           R/R   04/12/1994   197/87
2 Fumiya Hojo           IF  Kosei Gakuin HS         R/R   07/29/1994   177/75
3 Kojiro Tanabo         P   JFE Higashinihon        R/R   12/09/1990   177/82
4 Shinya Azuhata        C   Seino Unyu              R/R   07/22/1988   181/85
5 Kazuyuki Kaneda       P   Osaka Gakuin Univ       R/R   09/18/1990   183/77
6 Ryosuke Ogata         OF  Toyo Univ               R/L   08/25/1990   176/75

Baystars
x Nao Higashihama 
1 Hiroyuki Shirasaki    IF  Komazawa University     R/R   08/20/1990   183/87
2 Kazuki Mishima        P   Hosei University        R/S   05/07/1990   176/75
3 Shoichi Inoh          P   NTT Higashinihon        R/R   05/01/1986   188/84
4 Daichi Akahori        OF  Sega Sammy              R/R   04/13/1987   188/90
5 Tateki Abe            P   NTT Nishinihon          R/R   09/03/1986   180/81
6 Toshiro Miyazaki      IF  Sega Sammy              R/R   12/12/1988   175/80

I1 Kinta Imai           P   Hiroshima Kokusai HS    R/R   06/19/1994   178/78

Fighters
1 Shohei Ohtani         P   Hanamaki Higashi HS     R/L   07/05/1994   193/85
2 Tatsuya Morimoto      IF  Takaoka Daiichi HS      R/R   06/12/1994   185/90
3 Yohei Kagiya          P   Chuo University         R/R   09/23/1990   177/80
4 Ruita Usami           IF  Hiroshima Kogyo HS      R/R   10/24/1994   177/82
5 Hayato Aragaki        P   Toshiba                 R/R   10/21/1985   183/84
6 Shogo Yagi            P   JX-ENEOS                R/L   03/29/1989   179/80
7 Hidekazu Kawano       P   Sumikin Hirohata        R/R   12/14/1987   173/75

Lions
x Nao Higashihama 
1 Tatsushi Masuda       P   NTT Nishinihon          R/R   04/23/1988   180/78
2 Makoto Aiuchi         P   Chiba Kokusai HS        R/R   07/23/1994   184/75
3 Yuji Kaneko           IF  Ritsumeikan University  R/S   04/24/1990   178/67
4 Tomomi Takahashi      P   Seino Unyu              L/L   11/16/1988   174/75
5 Isamu Satoh           P   Kohnan HS               L/L   09/18/1994   181/77

I1 Daichi Mizuguchi     IF  Kagawa Olive Guyners    R/L   06/28/1989   168/68

Hawks
1 Nao Higashihama       P   Asia University         R/R   06/20/1990   181/76 
2 Yusuke Itoh           P   Tohoku Gakuin Univ      L/L   10/20/1990   175/70
3 Tomoki Takata         IF  Asia University         R/L   05/06/1990   175/65
4 Yusuke Masago         OF  Nishijojo HS            R/R   05/04/1994   184/78
5 Taiga Kasahara        P   Fukuoka Kodai Joto HS   L/R   01/20/1995   185/77
6 Hirofumi Yamanaka     P   Honda Kumamoto          R/R   09/09/1985   175/78

I1 Takeshi Yagi         C   Gunma Diamond Pegasus   R/R   01/13/1990   184/81
I2 Yusuke Ohtaki        OF  Earth Environmental HS  R/R   04/05/1994   182/75
I3 Yuya Iida            P   Nodai Univ Okhotsk      L/L   11/27/1990   185/86
I4 Hayao Miyazaki       OF  Mie Chukyo Univ         R/L   11/27/1990   176/70

 
Eagles
1 Yudai Mori            P   Higashi Fukuoka HS      L/L   08/19/1994   184/76
2 Takahiro Norimoto     P   Mie Chukyo University   R/L   12/17/1990   178/80
3 Takahito Ohtsuka      P   Kyushu Gakuin HS        L/L   10/13/1994   174/70
4 Takahiro Shimotsuma   C   Sakata Minami HS        R/R   04/15/1994   186/85
5 Hirohito Shimai       OF  Kumamoto Golden Larks   R/R   06/19/1990   174/70
6 Takahiro Kakizawa     P   Kamimura Gakuen HS      R/L   07/30/1994   178/80

I1 Sho Miyagawa         P   Osaka Taiiku Univ       R/R   10/19/1990   184/87

Marines
x Shintaro Fujinami 
1 Takahiro Matsunaga    P   Osaka Gas               L/L   04/16/1988   175/76
2 Hiroya Kawamitsu      P   Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ    L/L   03/04/1991   186/80
3 Tatsuhiro Tamura      C   Kosei HS                R/R   05/13/1994   173/77
4 Shohei Katoh          OF  Jobu Univ               R/S   03/28/1991   183/83

Buffaloes
x Shintaro Fujinami
x Takahiro Matsunaga
1 Takahiro Matsuba      P   Osaka Taiiku Univ       L/L   08/14/1990   180/75 
2 Shunichi Satoh        P   Dohto Univ              R/R   01/08/1991   179/71
3 Torai Fushimi         C   Tokai Univ              R/R   05/12/1990   182/83
4 Kengo Takeda          OF  Jiyuugaoka HS           R/R   04/18/1994   183/73
5 Shota Morimoto        P   Fukui Miracle Elephants R/R   05/25/1992   174/70
6 Ryo Toda              P   JR Higashinihon         R/R   09/04/1988   181/75

I1 Daiki Hara           C   Shinano Grandserows     R/R   06/02/1988   174/76
I2 Hiroki Nishikawa     OF  Fukui Miracle Elephants R/L   08/15/1987   171/68

One more hour until the draft! OMG!

Since I'm not in Japan this year I'll be hoping to catch a justin.tv broadcast of the TV part, and I'll just be watching the picks come in on various news sources such as Nikkan Sports, Sponichi, Sanspo, etc.

Anyway... can't wait to see where everyone ends up!!

1am for me: It's on TV!  Why the hell is Tomoaki Kanemoto there??!  :)

Ok, stuff getting underway.   Seems like the order is CL first and by ranking, after the first round of course, so that's Yokohama -> Orix -> Hanshin -> Lotte -> Hiroshima -> Rakuten -> Yakult -> Softbank -> Chunichi -> Seibu -> Giants -> Fighters.

I'm betting 5 teams go for Fujinami...

AND THE FIRST ROUND PICKS ARE:
Yokohama: Nao Higashihama, Asia University
Orix: Shintaro Fujinami, Osaka Toin HS
Hanshin: Shintaro Fujinami
Lotte: Shintaro Fujinami
Hiroshima: Yudai Mori, Higashi Fukuoka HS
Rakuten: Yudai Mori
Yakult: Shintaro Fujinami
Softbank: Nao Higashihama
Chunichi: Koji Fukutani, Keio University
Seibu: Nao Higashihama
Giants: Tomoyuki Sugano, Tokai University (really a ronin this year)
Fighters: Shohei Ohtani, Hanamaki Higashi HS (sigh)

I'm so happy that Fukutani-kun went in the first round. I doubt I'll see him much with Chunichi but he has a great opportunity there, he's from Aichi, and he's just an awesome smart nice guy and I'm so happy for him!!

Not sure what I think of the Ohtani thing, before anyone asks me. The Fighters do some pretty crazy things in the drafts recently. If they can get him to stay, great, if not, oh well, we do a pretty great job of developing our pitchers anyway. Picking Ohtani and losing him to the MLB is not significantly different than picking Fujinami and losing the lottery for him.

So yeah, 4 for Fujinami, 3 for Higashihama, 2 for Mori... lotteries now:

1:21am: Looks like Nao Higashihama is going to the Softbank Hawks... Sadaharu Oh did the lottery pick for them and actually beat the super-lucky Nabe-Q from Seibu.  wow.

1:25am: and Shintaro Fujinami is going to the Hanshin Tigers?!  WTF :P

1:28am: Yudai Mori, who has the Marinerds Cute Seal of Approval, is going to...  Rakuten apparently.  Wheeee.

Okay, so what are the rest of you guys doing in the first round since you didn't get your first pick?

Yokohama:Hiroyuki Shirasaki, Komazawa University
Orix:Takahiro Matsunaga, Osaka Gas
Lotte:Takahiro Matsunaga
Hiroshima:Tatsushi Masuda, NTT Nishinihon
Yakult: Taichi Ishiyama, Yamaha
Seibu:Tatsushi Masuda

Wow so ANOTHER lottery...

1:36am: Lotte gets Matsunaga.
1:38am:Seibu gets Masuda.

So now it's just down to Orix and Hiroshima to settle out their first round... will someone freaking draft Mishima already?  :)

Orix: Takahiro Matsuba, Osaka Taiiku Univ
Hiroshima: Hiroki Takahashi, Ryuukokudai Heian HS

I guess that's it for the first round, whee.

Okay, here are the ACTUAL first round results:

Yokohama: Hiroyuki Shirasaki, IF, Komazawa University
Orix: Takahiro Matsuba, LHP, Osaka Taiiku Univ
Hanshin: Shintaro Fujinami, RHP, Osaka Toin HS
Lotte: Takahiro Matsunaga, LHP, Osaka Gas
Hiroshima: Hiroki Takahashi, OF, Ryuukokudai Heian HS
Rakuten: Yudai Mori, LHP, Higashi Fukuoka
Yakult: Taichi Ishiyama, RHP, Yamaha
Softbank: Nao Higashihama, RHP, Asia University
Chunichi: Koji Fukutani, RHP, Keio University
Seibu: Tatsushi Masuda, RHP, NTT Nishinihon
Giants: Tomoyuki Sugano, RHP, Tokai University
Fighters: Shohei Ohtani, RHP, Hanamaki Higashi HS

It's now 1:46am so I guess it's time for the next round soon?

OH YAY KAZUKI MISHIMA GOT PICKED BY THE BAYSTARS AS THE FIRST PICK OF THE 2ND ROUND!!!  JUST LIKE KAGAMI 2 YEARS AGO.  Also they can play together again, that'll be so funny if I go to visit both of them!! :)


I think I'm mostly giving up on liveblogging and just going to fill in names as they come in because I'm already getting tired... :(

OH but hey, Yohei Kagiya to the Fighters! AWESOME! That means I will meet him next year for sure :)

Takashi Uemoto to Hiroshima, thank god for that :)

I kinda want to note that I think this is the first NPB draft that has both players born after I graduated high school AND players I have actually been out drinking with. Pretty crazy, huh?

2012 Draft!

Hi everyone.  I AM planning to liveblog the draft this year, just as I have every year since 2006 or so. Yeah, I'm back in the US, but I'm planning to be up until at least 3am my time, which means I can catch the 5pm start of the draft in Japan which is 1am here, and hopefully most of it will be done by the time I crash.

I don't think I'm going to get out a pre-draft photo post this time around, since I've been completely swamped at work since coming back here.

Here are the lists of HS and College boys who are entering the draft:

High School Candidates
College Candidates


There are also several industrial league guys who are expected to go fairly high, like pitchers Motoshi Ohshiro from JX-ENEOS (I don't get this one as he's a little lefty, but at Kamagaya the rumors were high), Tatsushi Masuda from NTT Nishinihon, Takahiro Matsunaga from Osaka Gas, catcher Shinya Azuhata from Seino (which is totally fine with me as he'll open playing time for my Shuhei Ikenaga, heh heh).

I don't have a ton of insight into a lot of the high school players beyond things other sites have already said.  The giant 197-cm Shintaro Fujinami from Osaka Toin will certainly be a contested commodity, and it's unclear whether Shohei Ohtani from Hanamaki Higashi will really go to the MLB or not.  LHP Tatsuro Hamada from Aikodai Meiden seems to be high on several lists, infielder Fumiya Hojo from Kosei has been a big deal these last two years.

The college list is, of course, hard for me to be completely unbiased when talking about.  I could write an entire post about how Kazuki Mishima has grown over these last 4 years at Hosei and how he is the undisputed MVP for them winning the Big 6 championship this semester, but since he's also been my "birthday buddy" these last few years and we always chat and joke together outside Jingu after games, I really, really, really want him to get drafted and have a great and successful career.  I could also talk about how Hiroshi Taki decided NOT to enter the draft this year and go to Toyota instead, and how he managed to finish college with 106 career hits, but... yeah.

And of course I'm also biased when talking about the Keio boys; I knew Koji Fukutani was something special when I first saw him in the rookie tournament his freshman year, and I was lucky enough to talk to him several times during the run where Keio was just crushing everyone.  He's tall, built well, throws fast, throws hard, strikes out a ton of guys, and even better, he got into Keio on the actual entrance exam and THEN excelled in sports (AND is an engineering major, the only active baseball club member to do so).  I doubt Daisuke or Agata will get drafted, but they have still had respectable careers as well.

I doubt any of the Rikkio boys will get drafted. Shota Sugiyama from Waseda will probly get taken but I see his upside as Shinichi Takeuchi and his downside as out of baseball in 3-4 years. I guess we'll see. And Meiji's Takashi Uemoto better get drafted, I'm not sure he'll graduate :) He's a really fun guy and his brother plays for Hanshin, but he's never really had a spectacular season at bat during college so it's a little bit worrisome.

In the Tohto league I've become a Chuo fan over the last year or two, and I've grown increasingly fond of Yohei Kagiya.  He may not blow anyone away with his height or power, since he is neither tall nor overpowering, but he throws strikes consistently enough and attacks batters in the zone, which is more than I can say for a lot of other pitchers; I charted him a few times over the last year and he throws a lot more first-pitch strikes than many other college pitchers in Japan.  Nao Higashihama from Asia-dai has been a #1 draft pick since he entered college, pretty much, so it won't be too surprising to see him go somewhere fast.  Hiroyuki Shirasaki from Komazawa, I was surprised to see him on so many lists but watching him in Japan this year, he's a tall boy and he really has filled out a lot as a cleanup batter.  Tomoki Takata from Asia-dai is also a solid shortstop (and he threw me a ball at the US-Japan games, so he gets my vote).

Players in other leagues that I have some interest in include Torai Fushimi, the adorable catcher from Tokai University, who is also pretty solid and was chosen to Japan's national team as a sophomore (though he ducked out on going to North Carolina last summer because he had a bad spring semester).  And Ritsumeikan's switch-hitting shortstop Yuji Kaneko should hopefully get drafted as well, I was pretty impressed with him last summer as well.

Anyway, I'll see you all back here in about 24 hours!  Exciting!  God help me if any of the boys I've fallen for these last 4 years end up with teams I hate, by which I mostly mean Yomiuri...

Daily Reporter at Kamagaya -- Sept 26

I was actually somewhat specifically asked to blog about this experience, so I'm writing an entry.  I guess maybe there are still readers of this blog who don't know me in other channels, but I'm back in Japan for a month (have been from Sept 5 to Oct 8, basically).  I've already gone to around 25 games here, and have a few more to go.

Anyway, so I went to Kamagaya yesterday afternoon.  My intention for the day was to do absolutely nothing special -- I wasn't going to bring my huge camera and take photos, I wasn't even wearing a Fighters jersey (just a t-shirt), I wasn't going to spend time after the game getting photos or autographs, I was just going to go by myself and do nothing but watch the damn game for a change.

I should know by now that this sort of thing never works out, and adventure happens to me whether I like it or not.

Basically, the guy who used to be one of the interpreters for the team, Mr. Araki, works in the Kamagaya office now, which partially means he helps run all of the daily "events" at Kamagaya.  During the weekend these events can get pretty crazy -- like this upcoming weekend is the Hokkaido Festival, and holiday weekends also tend to have big things where they'll have food tents and rides for kids and a stage set up with singers and dancers and "talk shows" with the players, and autograph tables, and all kinds of crazy things.  During the weekdays, the events tend to be a lot more low-key, like a "special dessert" that might be on sale only in the 5th inning, or the pre-game ceremonial first pitch, or dancing on the field in the 7th inning, etc.

Anyway, one thing that I always saw at Kamagaya but never understood fully was a bunch of people who'd get introduced on the field before the game, just random fans.  And then another thing is that there's this huge book of daily reports from the Fighters Kamagaya games that sits on a table in the concourse, and you can look through it and see what people wrote about the games for the past 2 years or so.  Some are detailed, some are just a drawing and a sentence or two, it depends.

So Araki came up to me and said (in English) "Hey, long time no see.  Would you like to be a daily reporter today?  You get to go on the field before the game and be introduced, and then you write a report about the game that we put in our book.  Maybe you can write about it on your blog."

Well, I was super-nervous but it sure sounded like a new and interesting experience, so I said sure, and about 15 minutes later my name got called out with 5 other people and I reported to the stadium clubhouse entrance thingy.  We got a brief explanation of the Daily Report form and then were escorted into the stadium -- my first time there!  (I'd been on the field before once or twice for various post-game events, but we always entered from the outside of the stadium.)  We went through the lobby (where I saw former Fighter Komai and some other guys working on something) and down a hallway, past a bunch of rooms that had various people in them that looked like media or players getting set up to chart stuff, etc, and waited outside the Fighters dugout:



They told us a little bit about what would happen on the field... now the silly thing is, they specifically asked me if I could speak Japanese, and of course I'd been talking in Japanese up to that point.  But they thought it'd be funny if we did both languages... the suggestion was to do like a comedy routine where I'd say something in English, the announcer would look confused and call for the interpreter and then I'd just repeat myself in Japanese. 

But what actually happened is more like, we went out there, and when the guy got to me he just said in English "Oh hello how are you" and I'm thinking "wait WTF", so I just said something in English like "Hi I'm Deanna, I'm happy to be a daily reporter, I love the Fighters and Kamagaya!" and then he said "oh okay!!" and went on to the next person.

Then a friend of mine from the stands yelled down in Japanese "Oi Deanna, why didn't you say that in Japanese?" and I yelled back "He didn't ASK me in Japanese!" and then the announcer was like "Wait, you speak Japanese?  Then in Japanese please!" and so I repeated myself, kinda, like "let's have a great game today, go Fighters!"

And as a joke he asked the next guy to give his answer in English. 

The other funny thing is that the last guy in the group is actually one of my Kamagaya friends (and is one of the ouendan leaders), but he was wearing a Searex t-shirt, so they were giving him crap about that.

Anyway, that was quite a crazy experience, it was really weird looking out into the stands and realizing how many people I recognized out there -- it sounds crazy but in the last 5 years I've met a LOT of the Kanto-area Fighters fan regulars!

I made Araki-san take photos while I was on the field, so here, you can see that I'm not making this crazy thing up:

Here we are on the field, getting ready to be introduced as daily reporters.


I am looking around at all the people in the stands and definitely being like "WTF am I doing here!"


And here I am being interviewed myself.  How bizarre!  Apparently Nakahara-san didn't get the memo about the comedy thing but it sounds like it was still funny to everyone, so that's good.

Anyway, so after that we were led off the field, back through the clubhouse, back outdoors, and given clipboards with the Daily Report thingies on them, and then went back to our seats!  Lots of my friends were like "OMG I SAW YOU!  SO FUNNY!"

Oh yeah, also, before the game started I went and got a photo with Cubby.  I'd been told that the person inside the Cubby outfit has changed, and there's a new uniform too:

 

So yeah, there was a game.  Because I was a Daily Reporter, I took very careful notes all game!  (Just joking, I kept my normal scorecard, which was more than enough.)

Takayuki Makka started for the Baystars (you may or may not remember that he has my undying support since another craziest day ever of mine) and Tomoya Yagi started for the Fighters (you may remember him being our Rookie of the Year in 2006 and never being quite so awesome ever again.  Sigh, I still have home for him though.)  So two lefties, exciting.

Only thing is, Makka had a really tough time in the first inning, and so after getting two quick outs, he gave up two hits in a row to Shingo Ishikawa and Atsushi Ugumori, walked Takahiro Imanami to lead the bases, and then gave up a grand slam to Masaya Ozaki.  Don't get me wrong, I love my ni-gun Fighters, but I'm not sure the last time I ever saw anyone hit a grand slam in Kamagaya.  So this brought the Fighters out to a quick 4-0 lead.

Though Makka did go 5 innings and only give up those runs in the first inning.  In the meantime, Yagi didn't make it through 5; he came out in the top of the 5th, after giving up a run in the second inning (and then the Baystars ran themselves out of it) and then giving up 4 hits into the 5th inning... so when he left it was 4-3 and two runs had just come in on a Hyuma single that took an awkward bounce up the middle, and then runners were at the corners.  Masao Kida replaced Yagi, gave up a hit to Noriharu Yamasaki, and that made it 4-4.


Makka pitching to Masaya Ozaki.


Yes, Masao Kida turned 44 a week or two ago and actually IS still playing baseball, he hasn't retired.  My friend and I were just talking about that a few days ago.

So then both teams put out a whole bunch of relievers for the next few innings.  The Fighters put out Takahiro Matsuka (yay!!! Todai!!) and Ryuji Wakatake (booo!) and Yutaka Ohtsuka (yay!!! Soka!!) and the three of them kept the next 3 innings scoreless.  The Baystars put out Atori Ohta (yay!!!  Teikyo!!!) and Takehiro Fukuda and Shigeki Ushida (yay Meiji?) and they kept the next 3 innings scoreless.

Then we got Masahiro Inui pitching the 9th.  Look, I know Inui is doing very well on the farm even if he hasn't done a lot with the top team yet.  And I was a fan of his when he was a sophomore at Toyo University. It's just that ever since I saw Takahiro Fujioka pitch instead of him one fateful day in April 2009, I haven't been able to see Inui as anywhere near as awesome since because Fujioka is just that much better.

So when Inui pretty much immediately gave up a home run to Yuki Takamori (who I am also a big fan of), making it 5-4, I wasn't all that surprised.  He hasn't been great whenever I'm watching for quite some time now.

Tangent time!

In the 4th inning or so, my friends were all going back to get lottery cards for an end-of-game event.  Again, these are the things I think I've been aware of but just had never seen or never had anyone tell me what was going on when they happened.  So I went back and got a ticket too, and my friends explained, "At the end of the 8th inning they'll call out 5 or 6 numbers from the 100, and those people get to go on the field at the end of the game and have their photo taken with the game hero, if the Fighters win.  If the Fighters don't win, you can still go on the field but you get your photo with Cubby." 

Well, get this, it was apparently my doubly-lucky day, since my ticket number ALSO got called.

But at the time the game was tied, so everyone was joking how "you'll get to meet Cubby on the field later!"

Then Takamori hit that home run and they were like "Yeah... have fun with Cubby!"



Lottery ticket for the picture-taking at the end of the game.

Anyway.

So with that in mind, the Fighers came up in their half of the 9th, and of all of the people to pitch for the Baystars, they bring out former Fighter Masanori Hayashi, who gets a flyout from Ozaki, a strikeout from Sekiguchi, and then with a very full count and many foul balls, Yuji Arahari walked.  Konta pinch-ran for him, and then, out of absolutely nowhere, Suguru Ichikawa smacked a TRIPLE down the right-field line, scoring Konta and tying the game 5-5.  Go Matsumoto hit a pop fly out, but the game was going into extra innings!

Suddenly I had a lot more to write and no room left on my Daily Report form, oops :)

Ryo Sakakibara handled the Baystars in the top of the 10th and then the Stars sent Shintaro Ejiri to the mound for the bottom of the 10th.  Everyone loves Ejiri, he was with the Fighters for years, I was a huge fan of his then too, so we're all like "well, we want to win but does Ejiri have to lose?"

Unfortunately, yes, that's how it worked.  Murata led off with a double, moved to third on a groundout by Takumi Ohshima (whee!) and they intentionally walked a pinch-hitting Kenji Satoh, to change pitchers to Shoma Satoh.  Shoma pitched to Takahiro Imanami, who hit a single up the middle and Murata scored and that was it!  6-5!!

Apparently Imanami's parents were at the game, or at least several people told me that.


Final score.


Here I am posing with my Daily Report thingy.


And here's my Daily Report.  Fortunately, since I was a Junior High School teacher at some point, and had seen this at Kamagaya before too, I was vaguely familiar with what you were supposed to do for them.  I decided to go all out and write mine in both Japanese and English, which meant a bunch of people were staring over my shoulder like "OMG YOU CAN WRITE KANJI" and "Wow, you really took good notes today huh?"

So as I mentioned before, I won this lottery thing to go on the field.  I went down to the area by the door again and... ran into my friend Tomoko, who had another friend of hers there with her who was a big Imanami fan, and she's like "Deanna, you got a winning ticket?  Can my friend go with you?  He really wants to meet Imanami.  He made this banner and brought it today."  What was I supposed to say, no?  It's really awkward when people put me in those situations, but since I know I owe a lot to my friends here I generally go along with these kinds of things.  You know, like they do a lot of things for me like saving seats or taking photos or trading pinbadges or whatever, we all kind of look out for each other, that's how the whole group dynamic works here in Japan.  (Honestly, had it just been someone I actually knew, I would have been absolutely totally fine with it with no reservations whatsoever, but this was some random dude I had never ever seen before who had never spoken to me... and since almost everyone at Kamagaya has spoken to me at SOME point, I felt kind of weird.  It would have been a lot better if Tomoko came with us, but she wouldn't for some reason.)


On the other hand, I WAS GOING BACK ON THE FIELD!  WHEEE!  So I tried not to feel weird about the situation and just went with the other people, back through the clubhouse again, and back onto the field for the second time in a day.

We had to wait for the team meeting to be over first, so a bunch of us just went around the area behind home plate where we were waiting, taking pictures of ourselves with various things:


Tomoko's friend's Imanami banner that he made and brought that day, pretty lucky that Imanami was the game hero, right?


One of the other guys wanted to pose with the sweepermobile and I was like "OMG ME TOO!!!"  I tried to figure out how to drive it -- that looks hard, there are like 3 separate brushes on the back.


Anyway, after a while, Imanami came out, we lined up in our 6 groups/pairs, and each group took a photo with him as their group, and then all of us together took a photo with him (and the banner).  The only catch is, we weren't allowed to use our own cameras, the Fighters staff take the photo with their camera, and then they'll print out one print for you, that you can pick up at a later game.  Well, I won't *be* here for the final games this weekend, or even in Japan that much longer, so I just told the Imanami fan that he could have the photo print since it meant so much to him.

Plus, really, the nice thing was mostly just getting to say hi to Imanami, congratulate him on a good game, shake his hand, you know?  The entire experience is worth a lot more to me than the photo -- besides, I actually got a photo with Imanami once before, about four years ago, and I have met him and said hello to him after many games at Kamagaya, and even had him sign my uniform, so it's really not that big a deal to me.  Don't get me wrong, I like Imanami and hope he does well with the team someday, but since I'm also a big Haruki Nishikawa fan I'm not sure where Imanami fits in.

So, very very crazy day.  I got to go through the Fighters stadium building twice, I got to write a report thingy, I got to talk to someone at Kamagaya in actual English for a change, I got to see a lot of my friends, and then, even crazier, when I got on the bus to Nishi-funabashi afterwards, I ran into two MORE friends of mine from my normal Fighters cheering group, who had been sitting in the back and never came over to say hi, so we rode all the way back to town together. 

Unfortunately, when I went to the Tigers-Swallows game that evening, Ryota Imanari wasn't starting for the Tigers as he had been on Tuesday night.  Alas.  The Swallows beat the crap out of the Tigers and it was an all-around good evening with my Jingu friends too.

I should probably write some more about other games I've been to on this trip -- I wonder if maybe I'll have some time to write about them when I get back to the US instead, and whether I'll remember all the details by then.  At least I can post photos, maybe.

Photopost: Rainiers vs. Sky Sox - Cheney Field Trip!

Last weekend I was up in Seattle for the Microsoft Puzzle Safari, but I also had a side goal of trying to go stalk Brian Sweeney.  I'd noticed a few months ago that he and Luis Jimenez were on the Rainiers, and this particular weekend both the Rainiers and Mariners were in town, so I figured that one way or another I should be able to catch them.

(Brian and Luis both played for the Fighters when I lived in Japan, see.  Brian was there for several years, even, through two Japan Series runs, and I used to talk to him fairly often, and once his family even joined me and my friends in the outfield cheering section.  Brian is without a doubt the nicest guy I've ever met in baseball.  Luis was only around for half a season, but he was also really nice when I met him.)

Anyway, the last time I went to a game in Tacoma was at least 5 years ago, maybe 6.  I used to try to make it to a few games a year in both Tacoma (Rainiers, AAA) and Everett (Aquasox, short A) when I lived in Seattle, so I could see what the newest and oldest minor-leaguers in the Mariners system were up to.  At the time, Cheney Stadium was a fairly typical minor-league park: slightly run-down, full of a 1960's flair of sorts, kinda campy, but the kind of place you go to because watching minor-league ball is fun and cheap.  And who can beat Dollar Dog Thursdays and deals like that?

Well, about two years ago they renovated the crap out of the place, quite literally.  I showed up and even from the highway, I could tell that it had completely changed.  There's a whole new front facade, mostly because there's a whole structure full of luxury suites and apparently a restaurant seating area and all kinds of new stuff.  To be honest, I'd bought a ticket a few days before coming to Seattle, because it looked like the Sunday game was almost sold out at that point!  It's crazy, but between season tickets, the renovated stadium, fan-friendly events including an autograph booth before the game, and the way they're promoting, the Rainiers seem to be doing pretty good business for themselves.



However, thanks to all the new stuff, I wasn't entirely sure how the lines and entrances and such worked now.  My seat was on the 3rd base side, so I lined up at the 3rd base gate, around noon, for a 1:35 game, where the gates apparently would open at 12:30.  It was slightly rainy, and I was getting concerned by the fact that people kept lining up on the 1st base side, but not so much on the 3rd base side.  So finally I turned around and asked the older guy standing behind me in line, "Hey, what's the deal with the gates?  Am I in the wrong place?"

"Yeah," he told me, "This side is for season ticket holders.  The middle part there's for the dugout club and suites and all.  The other side is for general admission."

"Oh crap," I said, "I haven't been here in about 6 years, and there wasn't a system like that back then as far as I remember."

"Well, that's okay," he said and winked, "You're with us, right?"

He turned out to be a season ticket holder for many years with his kids, so when I started babbling about coming to watch Felix, and Hunter Brown and all, he started telling me about all the renovations to the stadium and so on.

Anyway, eventually we got into the stadium.  And my seat, which was in the front row of section D, a single seat available there, turned out to be between two season ticket holders.  (No wonder.  But the number of season ticket holders seems pretty impressive nonetheless.)  I went down to the dugout in the hopes of catching Luis or Brian, and I basically stayed there for an entire hour until game time.

See, it was Sunday, so there was no batting practice.  Some players were coming out to stretch or run or throw in the field, but it wasn't mandatory.  A little boy down the row from me got several of the players to sign his ball, and then the guy standing next to me asked, "Do you have any idea what Stephen Pryor looks like?"

"Not really, why?" I replied.

"Well," he explained, "I was at the combined no-hitter game, and then went to the game where they gave out posters commemorating the game.  And then a week or so ago Tom Wilhelmsen was doing a signing at Fred Meyer, so I went there and got him to sign the poster.  And I saw Stephen Pryor got sent down to AAA so I thought maybe I could catch him here.  And then after that... well, maybe if I'm lucky sometime I can catch the other guys in the bullpen.  I'm pretty sure I can recognize Brandon League, and maybe if he saw what I was doing he'd help me get Furbush and Luetge.  The problem is going to be Kevin Millwood."

"Yeah," I agreed, "Millwood's tough.  I mean, I still remember seeing him throw a no-hitter for the Phillies like ten years ago too.  Guys like that are hard to catch... but I don't think it's impossible, there's always spring training, or minor-league rehabs, or maybe he'll be a coach someday?  Alternately you could try going to one of the early opening days for season ticket holders, if you know anyone who's a season ticket holder?  I got half the bullpen to sign a poster for me at one of those several years ago..."

Anyway, I explained to him that I was there waiting for Brian or Luis, and we stood around by the dugout talking for a while.  I looked at his poster and kinda tried to memorize Pryor's face; I was pretty sure I hadn't seen him go by.  A photographer came by and saw this guy holding the poster and said he'd see if he could pass the message on to Pryor, and sure enough, around maybe 10 minutes before game time, Pryor came out and signed it for him! That was pretty cool.



I waited around some more, feeling kinda confused, like "Why haven't they come out yet?"  Other players came out; the starter Andrew Carraway walked by us, a bunch of infielders like Carlos Triunfel and Nick Franklin and Mike Carp went to warm up.  For the record, Carp didn't even turn his head at all when the little boy down the row for me asked for a signature, but Triunfel and Franklin both said they'd sign on their way back in, and did.  I prefer photos to signatures, honestly, and I had the sense to ask Nick Franklin if I could get a photo with him, which he was fine with and even smiled for.  What a nice guy!  I guess this is what happens when players are coming up through the system rather than going down.  Also, no, I didn't see Danny Hultzen anywhere.

Anyway, I finally did get to talk to Brian for all of 2 minutes before the game started.  It was a little weird because I wanted to tell him how I'd been following his games this year, and hope he'll get called up to Seattle at some point, and how the Rainiers came to Sacramento a few weeks ago and he was the starting pitcher on a Sunday afternoon then but it was 106 degrees out and I was kind of sick at the time.  And so many other things, like how I'm just happy he's still in baseball since so many guys come back from Japan and have nowhere to go, and I wondered how his family was doing and all.  But, our conversation was more like "OMG HOW ARE YOU I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER!"  At least I showed off how this time I wore a Fighters shirt -- last time I saw Brian was 2 years ago and I had a Marines shirt, and promised to wear a Fighters shirt next time I saw him.  Pretty crazy, really.  He said he'd be pitching on Tuesday, unfortunately, so I wouldn't get to see him pitch this time.

I got to talk to Luis a little bit too, congratulate him on being part of the Triple-A All-Star team, things like that.  At least Luis was in the starting lineup as DH, so I'd get to see him play.

And I got a photo with both of them.  It was kind of frantic, but it's so cool that they're both on the same team! I showed the photo to a bunch of my Fighters friends back in Japan, and they're all basically like "OMG SWEENEY AND HIME-CHAN! PLEASE CHEER FOR THEM FOR US!" Everyone was really excited to hear that they were still playing baseball and doing well and looking happy.



On my way to my seat, I passed by the guy who'd gotten the Pryor autograph, and he was like "I saw Brian and Luis come out and talk to you!  Awesome that you got to see them!"  So that was good.

I spent the first 2 innings in my actual seat, and then joined up with my friend Jeff (no, not the LL one) for the rest of the game.  We'd actually made plans to meet up at the game, but I was coming down from Seattle and he was coming from further out in Tacoma, so it just worked out this way.  Jeff and I used to go to Rainiers games waaaaay back in the day, and he hadn't been back there since the last time we went to a game together either (since I went to Japan for a few years and he moved to California for a few years).  So we got to sit together and reminisce and watch the game and all.

I also spent a half inning wandering through the stadium just taking photos of the various things there like the Tacoma Hall of Fame, the concession stands, the concourse, and so on.  It was nice to really appreciate how the stadium had been completely remodelled.  The concessions are really crazy, though I ended up just getting a hot dog because I was in a hurry.

Oh, and I did watch a game.  Rob Scahill started for the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, and Andrew Carraway for the Rainiers.  It was a fairly close game all the way, with each team scoring a point here or there, but no huge innings.  The Rainiers went up 1-0 in the 2nd when Nick Franklin walked and was singled around by Catricala and Triunfel.  Then the Sky Sox tied it up 1-1 in the top of the 4th as Andrew Brown singled, moved up on Matt McBride's single, moved to third on a bunt by Charlie Blackmon, and scored on a sac fly by Brendan Harris.  But Nick Franklin walked again in the bottom of the 4th, stole second on Vinnie Catricala's at bat, moved up on Catricala's fly to center, and then scored during a wild pitch to Carlos Triunfel, 2-1.  The Rainiers made it 3-1 in the bottom of the 5th when Darren Ford reached on a throwing error by short, stole second on Trayvon Robinson's at-bat and moved up on his groundout.  Then he scored when Luis Jimenez hit a single to left!  Yay!  The Sky Sox made it 3-2 in their half of the 6th, with McBride walking, moving up when Harris walked, then scoring on a hit by Chad Tracy.

I had to leave by around 5pm in order to get to the airport in time for my flight back to San Francisco, but everything seemed fine going into the 9th, at 4:15 or so.  Scott Patterson came out to pitch the top of the 9th, and the very first pitch he threw was sent over the left-field wall by Tommy Field, to make it 3-3.  Oops.

Sky Sox made it 4-3 in their top of the 10th on a double by Blackmon and another by Tracy.  But then the Rainiers tied it up 4-4 on a Luis Rodriguez pinch-hit homer over the right-field wall in the bottom of the 10th.

Normally I *hate* to leave a game early -- I'm always showing up to the park way before the game and leaving way after -- but missing my flight would really suck, so I packed up after the bottom of the 10th and left.  I stopped in the Rainiers Team Store on my way out of the stadium, to get a shirt, and while I was buying it, we saw on the TV screens in the shop that Charlie Blackmon had just hit a 3-run homer to make it 7-4 Sky Sox, which is what the final score was.

I shouldn't feel too bad, I guess -- I did watch 10 innings and 3.5 hours of the game, after all.

Anyway, here's my photo set from the day, of Cheney Stadium and many Rainiers. And as usual, a sampling in my post...



Nick Franklin!  1st-round pick in 2009 and already up with the Rainiers.


Tacoma Baseball Hall of Fame, featuring plaques for Gaylord Perry and such, and of course Ben Cheney, the businessman who brought baseball to Tacoma in the first place.


Look at this crazy treehouse... I mean grandstand full of suites and restaurants all.  Hard to believe this is Cheney Stadium.


Rainiers starter Andrew Carraway.


Mike Carp (check out that tattoo)


Sky Sox starter Rob Scahill.


Renovated scoreboard looks good, and looks better with Hime-chan on it!


Luis Jimenez at bat!


Nick Franklin slides into third base!


Score when I left the game.

I have no idea whether I'll make it to another Rainiers game at all this year -- maybe when they come to Fresno, we'll see.  The Mariners don't come back to Oakland until the end of September, and I may be in Japan then.