daigo.org RSSA baseball year to remember – 2007
The Chunichi Dragons closer Hitoki Iwase gets Nippon-Ham Fighters’ (It’s “Fighters”, not “Ham Fighters” people! Company “Nippon-Ham” owns the team…) pinch-hitter, Eiichi Koyano into ground out at second, and something that had not happened in the last 53 years happened. Chucnichi Dragons won the Japan Series! Last time they won the Series was in 1954, and it was their only other time. Unbelievable. For me, this makes two home town championship within a week. I’ve lived in outskirts of Nagoya (home of the Dragons) for first 17 years of my life, then this is my 17th year since moved here in Boston area (or state of Massachusetts, anyway).
Another twist to this story was that the starting pitcher Daisuke Yamai pitched 8-innings of perfect game, but the manager Hiromitsu Ochiai, the only player to hit for triple crown for three seasons in Japan (second is two by Sadaharu Oh) pulled him at beginning of top 9th preventing the would-be history Japan Series perfect game. Closer Iwase came on to pitch perfect relief and accomplished the combined perfect game but there were many criticism on the managerial move. Ochiai, who’s managing style is to not reveal inside the club information (a la Bill Belichik), did reveal later that starter Yamai had blister in his finger that prevented him from throwing, and Yamai was asked if he can go and the pitcher allegedly replied “No”. The opposing pitcher, Nippon Ham’s ace Yu Darvish was pitching four-hit one-run game, so many feels that the move was justifiable. On the side note, Darvish also pitched another one-run complete game to win the first game of the series. Throwing 12 complete games this season, he won the Sawamura Award which is Japan’s own Cy Young this year, and is becoming one of the finest young pitcher in Japan (last pitcher to throw double digit complete game was Matsuzaka in 2001). Considering Nippon Ham will not likely to post him, he will be eligible for Free Agency after 2013 season, at age 27. He could be the next Daisuke Matsuzaka. I’ve often said there will be no “next Daisuke” in the near future but I stand corrected. Speaking of a future major league player, in the fore-mentioned game one, Chunichi ace Kenshin Kawakami also pitcher two-hit complete game, but one of the hit was three run home run to be the losing pitcher. He is eligible for FA. (More on this later)
People back at home are going nuts, as this English teacher in Nagoya posts clips on YouTube (clip 1, clip 2). Obviously I have never experienced that in Japan and my dad, who has been Dragons fan all his life, was a only toddler when this happened before. It is amazing. I wore my official Dragons jersey to work last Thursday, and after explaining to people what that was, received many congratulations. Omedeto, Dragons!
OF course the interesting thing is that three of Chunichi’s major players Iwase, Kawakami, and slugger Kosuke Fukudome, are all eligible to become free agency and all at some point or another have hinted that they were interested to come across the Pacific to join a major league club. So far there are at least 5 pitchers (Hiroki Kuroda, Yukinaga Maeda, Masahide Kobayashi, Kazuo Fukumori, and Yasuhiko Yabuta) and a hitter (IF Kazuya Fukuura), who expressed a interest in coming to US. Those does not even include the three Dragons stars. This could be the record year for the Japanese players, as last year was the current record with 5 rookies (Matsuzaka, Okajima, Igawa, Iwamura, and Kuwata). 2002 and 2004 was second with 4 rookies (02: Ishii, Komiyama, Nomura, and Taguchi. 2004 Otsuka, Takatsu, Tadano and Kazuo Matsui). Busy off season ahead for my website japaneseballplayers.com.
