Baseball season starts! It is Spring Training but it is nice to be able to listen to games on iPhone. It feels right. Ah, I missed this. There were 18 Japanese players who played for MLB in 2009, but 5 of them went back to Japan this off-season. Masahide Konbayashi (Yopmiuri Giants), Yasuhiko Yabuta (Chiba [...]
“You gotta have Wa” (one of my favorite book of all time) author Robert Whiting has just concluded crazy 4-part series about how once-super-popular Bobby Valentine was almost jettisoned from Chiba Lotte Marines, on Japan Times online. Part 1: Clandestine campaign led to Valentine’s demise Part 2: Valentine’s philosophy brought Marines glory, money Part 3: [...]
I was inspired by Boston Globe’s Chad Finn’s posting on Extra Bases blog called Some interesting numbers via Bill James , and decided to look up what the projections of Japanese players for the year 2010 from the 2010 edition of the Bill James Handbook. According to James and his company, Ichiro will make History [...]
Blog called Mets by the numbers had a kind of interesting post about significance of uniform numbers in Japanese culture: Why Igarashi Was Issued No. 18, following the news that Mets’ new reliever, Ryota Igarashi, picked the uniform number of 18 this year. Of course, our man Daisuke Matsuzaka wears number 18 for the Boston [...]
Whoa. I thought, by translating Daisuke Matsuzaka interview on the Magazine Friday, I was passing on a good news (Matsuzaka admits his wrong doing last year and will come back in 2010 with something to prove). But it turns out that it was first time the club lerned about the injury (yikes), and he may [...]
Daisuke Matsuzaka talked to the Japanese entertainment news and gossip weekly magazine “FRIDAY” in Japan. He talked about his difficult season and revealed that he actually hurt his right inner thigh before joining Japanese team for World Baseball Classic (which he was awarded his second MVP for winning all three games he started). It is [...]
One of the biggest news in Japanese baseball front in this MLB hot stove season is that Hideki Matsui left the New York Yankees and signed with Los Angeles Angels. Seeing him wear Angels uniform for the first time was as strange as when I saw Nomar Garciaparra in Cubs uniform for the first time. [...]
There is a story about free agent outfielder/designated hitter Hideki Matsui possibly targeted by the Boston Red Sox that ran in Sankei Sports in October 16th, 2009. Per request, I have translated it here. original story can be found here (broken link). “Red Sox targets Hideki Matsui as replacement for Bay” It is become known [...]
I’ve been collecting information off- and on-line about baseball players who made it to the Majors of Japanese ancestry background. It has been tough because there is no record for of half- or quarter- Japanese, but it has been a very interesting process. Recently at a convention, I met very knowledgeable sports reporter from Honolulu [...]
This is just too absolutely interesting… and too strange! From oniazuma blog’s Are the Japanese actually Jewish?. (Update) If you can’t see the video below, they are also on the YouTube in three parts. Part 1/3, Part 2/3, and Part 3/3. Nippon TV’s “Mino Monta’s Japanese Mystery” show had this very interesting (aside from the [...]
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