04/04 Nagoya Opening Weekend Day 2: The Good and the Bad

Hello once again everyone. I hope you are all enjoying the start of the 2009 baseball season here in Japan. After a really bad start to the season on Friday, I decided to branch out so to speak during my stay here in Nagoya. I had read on the Chunichi site that the minor league squad was hosting an exhibition match against the Toyota Motor Company. You can get more information about Toyota's team here if you are interested (web page is in Japanese only of course). But anyways, I decided to check it out as I had never been to Nagoya Kyujyo before. I've got to tell you that this was a great experience and going to Nagoya Kyujyo was easily the highlight of my trip. When I initially got to the stadium, I was amazed at it's location. Nagoya Kyujyo is located in a more residential area located near Otobashi station on the Tokaido Line (Jr Tokai) which is one stop from Nagoya station. I found it hard to believe that Chunichi played home games here for over 40 years.



Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) at the park across the street from the ballpark.



The field from behind the net.



View of the 3rd base side.



View of the 1st base side.

The game itself was very good despite rainy weather that started around the 5th inning or so. Most people expected Chunichi to win (and they did), but it wasn't as easy of a victory as most thought it would be as Toyota made Chunichi work to earn the victory. The starting pitchers for the day were Katsutoshi Satake for Toyota and Soma Yamauchi for Chunichi.



Toyota Starter Katsutoshi Satake



Chunichi Starter Soma Yamauchi warming up before the game.

Toyota wasted no time getting on the board in the top of the 1st when Toyota center fielder Sho Aranami (who is from Kanagawa and attended Yokohama High School yeah!!) doubled on the 2nd pitch he saw to lead off the game. After he advanced to third on a groundout, shortstop Takashi Ogino hit a sacrifice fly to center to make it 1-0 Toyota.

And after that Toyota held Chunichi scoreless for the next few innings by showing some great fundamental baseball. But alas, it didn't last as Chunichi scored their first run in the bottom of the 4th. Takehiro Donoue led off the bottom of the 4th with a double to center. Then, due to the miscalculation (bad timing) of shortstop Takashi Ogino, Byung-Gyu Lee hit a double to center to score Donoue and tie the game at 1 a piece. Ogino timed his jump wrong and as a result, the ball went over his head for a hit.

Oh yeah, it was in the bottom of the 3rd when this guy came over and sat right in front of me:



So, Lee was just sitting and watching the game and I was taking score when these 2 really attractive young women came and sat down right beside me. They were obviously drooling over Lee and eventually started whispering back to one another and giggling. They caught Lee's attention and he turned around and sort of chuckled. Then, one of the women turns to me while I was taking score and says: "Oh, that's so awesome. You know all this baseball stuff and you're writing it down in English." Lee then looks at me and points his head towards them as if to say: "Looks like you've got some fans of your own." The other women asked me why I was taking score. And I told here that this is what I like to do and that I was in town on vacation to support my baseball team (Yokohama) and that I write a blog as a hobby and whatnot. They thought that was neat and as the inning ended, the girls giggled again and went back to their seats as Lee went back into the dugout. And before anyone asks, NO, I did not get a picture of the women so don't ask.

Back to the game, Toyota charged back in the top of the 5th to take the lead again after an RBI single with one on by my new favorite Toyota player Sho Aranami. But Chunichi scored 1 in the bottom of the 7th when Naomichi Donoue singled and then Hiroki Nakagawa doubled to center to tie the game up at 2 a piece. And finally, Chunichi finally put Toyota away when Kyohei Iwasaki and Isei Nakamura singled and Takehiro Donoue walked to load the bases and Hidenori Kuramoto hit a sac fly to center to give the Dragons a 3-2 lead and that's where the game ended up.

Both teams played a great solid game game in rainy weather and it was well worth it and plus the game was also free admission so that's another plus as well. I thought Toyota had a decent chance of pulling off an upset but in the end Chunichi came back and won the game as most everyone expected. Also, during the game the resident Chunichi ouendan (cheer group) a.k.a. two guys who were singing Chunichi ouenka (cheer songs) for the entire game sang "Happy Birthday" to shortstop Kyohei Iwasaki as it was his birthday so that was a nice little treat too.

And as always when I go to a minor league stadium, I never come away empty handed. Before the game, I was able to ask Chunichi infielder Tomas De La Rosa if he could throw me a ball. I got a few blank stares from people also as I was talking to De La Rosa entirely in Spanish and I guess that people don't really hear Spanish that often so I kind of had to tell some people that I can speak Spanish in addition to English and Japanese to which I got a lot of "Sugoi" (wow or awesome) comments. He promised me he would and sure enough after the top of the 3rd was over, he threw a ball over the fence to me and I thanked him for it. A really great guy who is way over with the fans too by the way as he had A LOT of people that wanted his signature. This ball was also my first NPB ball I have ever recieved at a game.



My first official NPB game ball .



Chunichi infielders Tomas De La Rosa and birthday boy Kyohei Iwasaki warming up before the game.



Toyota lead off hitter and center fielder Sho Aranami laying down a sacrifice bunt.



Toyota DH Eisaku Hirose putting the ball into play.



Toyota thanking the fans after the game was over.



The final score of an excellent and well played game.


And now onto the bad of the good and the bad. I went to the Nagoya Dome for Game 2 of the opening weekend series between the Chunichi Dragons and the Yokohama BayStars and once again I felt let down and left the stadium with a bad taste in my mouth about Yokohama. The starters for the game were Ryan Glynn (making his first start for his new team) for Yokohama and Kazuki Yoshimi for Chunichi. Glynn got hammered in his first start going only 4 innings and giving up 5 runs while Yoshimi on the other hand utterly humiliated the Stars by going the distance and throwing a shut out. Yokohama's "ippatsu byo" continued as Chunichi rookie Kei Nomoto hit the first home run of his young career in the bottom of the second. It was a two run shot into the right field stands and the dome lit up after that. I even gave him a round of applause despite the fact that I was sitting in the Yokohama cheering section. And the following day, his image was plastered on the front page of every sports newspaper in Nagoya because of it. New Chunichi Dragon Tony Blanco added 2 more runs in the bottom of the 3rd with a double to center field with the bases loaded making it 4-0 Chunichi. After that, center fielder Atsushi Fuji hit a solo home run to right making it 5-0 Chunichi and Chunichi's final run came in the bottom of the eighth with the bases loaded and Yokohama reliever Takeharu Katoh throwing a wild pitch which allowed Masahiko Morino to score from third making it 6-0. Yoshimi picked up the win for Chunichi and Glynn took the loss for Yokohama in his first start for them.



The final score for the night game at the Nagoya Dome.

I know that this game was only the second game of the season but it's going to be a long season by the Bay as the suffering will continue so to speak. Seeing an Industrial League team (Toyota is an Industrial League team right?) play better ball than a pro team is utterly pathetic and Yokohama should be ashamed of themselves and how they played in this game. I'm going to stop here before I make this a 5 page rant on how bad Yokohama is as it will only infuriate me more.

Sorry for the lack of pictures at the Nagoya Dome in this post but my camera takes bad pictures inside all of the Domes here in Japan. So instead, I took 3 videos of some new Yokohama Ouenka (cheer songs) for the 2009 season and will upload those videos to my youtube account later this week. Interesting to note that Ryan Glynn has his own song this year and it is all in English. Now, I'm not talking about 1 line that's like "Let's Go Ryan" or something like that, the ENTIRE song is in English (with the exception of the last line of course which is always in Japanese no matter what) and the Yokohama ouendan (cheer group) actually wrote the song in English (with the exception of his name which was written in katakana) on the cards they were holding up. The point I'm trying to make is that even if you can't speak a lick of Japanese and are just in Japan visiting and going to a BayStars game or whatever, you too can now take part in the cheering by singing this song to support Ryan Glynn and Yokohama. Pretty cool in my opinion.

Anyways, that wraps it up for this post. The next post will be much much shorter and should be up in the next few days. Hopefully, everyone is enjoying the season so far regardless of which team you support and once again, good luck to all the teams this year.

04/03 Opening Day in Nagoya: More of the same from Yokohama.

Good morning everyone. I'm officially on the road in Nagoya for the 2009 opening series between the Yokohama BayStars and the Chunichi Dragons. The game last night went really fast as it went just a little over 2 hours and everyone was able to get home at a decent time. The story of the night for me was Yokohama's dismal pitching and missing chances at scoring runs. As the title says, it seems like they haven't changed a bit from last season. Chunichi used the long ball to put away Yokohama 4-1.

New Chunichi Dragon Tony Blanco homered to center in the second. Masahiko Morino and Kazuhiro Wada added 2 more runs via the longball to center in the 4th and Wada homered again in the 7th to left field and that's all that the Dragons needed for the night. Yokohama's only run came on a weak ground ball to short by Toshihisa Nishi in the top of the 3rd. Yokohama ace Daisuke Miura went 7 innings giving up 4 runs and striking out 5 while taking the loss for the Stars. Chunichi pitcher Takuya Asao on the other hand, almost went the distance but ended up going 8 innings striking out 4 and giving up a run. Hitoki Iwase also recored his first save of the seaon for the Dragons as well.

As I said earlier, Yokohama had a few chances to score but missed out. The biggest chance was in the top of the eighth with runners on first and third with one out. Nishi was up to bat and can you guess what he did? He grounds out into a double play to end the inning. That really hurt and I seem to remember him doing this on more than a few occasions last season as well. Anyways, it wasn't all bad for Yokohama as the biggest thing was new rookie Noriharu Yamazaki going 3 for 3 in the game. He really impressed me and I think he should be in the lineup even after Shuichi Murata comes back.

Oh yeah, I made a new friend also. So, I got to the stadium rather early and after a Miso Katsu don lunch at the next door AEON shopping mall, I sat down next to the stadium. Then, this kid walks by wearing a Yokohama cap and we start talking about the Stars and baseball in general. His name is Keita and he's from Shizuoka. He's a junior high school student and he's a quarter Japanese just like me (his dad is half just like my mom is). Turns out, he collects baseballs from games and has more than 50 of them. He told me that he collected 3 foul balls from a Western League game at Nagoya Kyujyo the previous day. It seems that all the people I meet at games are either younger or older than me but in the end, I guess we are all baseball fans.



Inside the Nagoya Dome. NO SMOKING!



The final score with Doala. Seriously, he scares the you know what out of me.



The Dragons taking the field to start the game.



New BayStars pitcher Les Walrond jogging in the outfield. He seems to be getting over with the fans.



And finally, Miso Katsu with some udon on the side! ￥890 at the local AEON shopping mall. Plus, you can get the bigger size (大盛り) for no extra charge. Great deal.

3/29 Seibu Vs Yakult: Seibu's Revenge

Hello again everyone. After a bad loss on Saturday the 28^th, the Lions rebounded with a victory on Sunday March 29^th The Seibu lineup was at “full strength” so to speak with Yasuyuki Kataoka and Hiroyuki Nakajima back in the lineup batting in their usual spots in the lineup (1^st and 3^rd respectively). The starting pitchers for the day were Fumiya Nishiguchi for the Lions and Lee, Hye Cheon for the Swallows. The crowd turnout was decent as there was about 12,000 or so people there for the game. The Swallows had a maybe 300 fans there which was a great and hopefully, the fans will come out and support the team more this year than in previous years.

The Lions got on the board first when Kataoka tripled to start off the game for Seibu in the bottom of the first and then Takumi Kuriyama hit a sacrifice fly to right to make it 1-0 Seibu. This took us to the top of the third where Yakult charged back when　Shinichi Takeuchi hit a home run with two on into the right field stands to make it 3-1 Yakult.

But, not to be outdone this time around, the Lions flexed their muscles and showed what their full lineup was capable of and made a bold statement to anyone watching.

Shogo Akada led off the bottom of the third with a walk. Yoshiyuki Kataoka then collected his second hit of the day with a double to left and after that, Takumi Kuriyama singled to right to drive in Akada to make it 3-2 Swallows. Seibu then blew the game open as the pride and joy of Seibu, Hiroyuki Nakajima, blasted a 3 run home run into a sea of Swallows fans (right field) to make it 5-3 Seibu. But the Lions were far from finished. After a flyout by Okawari Nakamura, G.G. Sato and Akira Eto singled to right and left respectively to put runners on first and second which brought up Hiram Bocachica, who promptly doubled to deep left to make it 6-3 Seibu. Seibu catcher Toru Hosokawa then singled to left to make it 7-3 Seibu. WOW! I mean seriously, even though I was in the right field stands, I gave the Lions a standing ovation after the inning was over. 11 batters, 6 runs, and 7 hits; those were the inning totals for Seibu. You can clearly see now that losing Nakajima and Kataoka to the WBC clearly hurt the Lions this spring. But, with them back in the lineup, they sky is the limit for this Seibu team and I look forward to a great year from them. Kataoka was 3-4 on the day and it just goes to show you that when you have a good leadoff hitter, things fall into place.

Yakult still managed to score with a sacrifice fly by Jamie D’Antona in the top of the 5^th to make it 7-4 Seibu. But, Seibu broke the game open in the bottom of the 5^th as Shogo Akada hit a home run with Hiram Bocachica on third to make it 9-4 Seibu, Yakult scored 2 more runs in the top of the eight on a Keizo Kawashima double but they could do no more as Seibu defeated the Swallows 9-6.

Nishiguchi got the win in a rather lackluster effort in my opinion. He went 5 innings while giving up 4 runs and 5 hits and striking out 1. He also walked 4 batters which was not good either in my opinion. Yakult starter Lee took the loss went 3 innings while giving up 8 hits and 7 runs and no strikeouts. He also walked 2 batters. Alex Grahman also picked up his second save of the preseason with a scoreless ninth inning.

All in all, it was a great warm-up for Seibu and I’m looking forward to many great games at the Seibu Dome this year. Seibu really impressed me in this game as it looked like they haven’t lost a step (at least when they are at “full strength” so to speak). Yakult showed that they can hit and there pitching was decent aside from Lee so I think I’m going to pay a little bit more attention to them this season and hopefully, they can move up in the Central League standings this year.

Newly acquired Swallows pitcher Yasuhiro Ichiba. He looked good in the game by throwing a scoreless inning.

Aaron Guiel. Come to think of it, my friend Deanna from Marinerds was right, he does look like someone. Can you guess who it is?

Swallows starter Lee, Hye Cheon practicing his bunting before the game.

Seibu Pitcher Takayuki Kishi and Yakult pitching coach Daisuke Araki. Looks like Kishi is asking him how to throw a forkball.

Morning workouts at the Seibu Dome for Yakult.



The final score for the day. Lots of hits on both sides.

3/28 Seibu vs Yakult: Yakult Strikes Again

Hello again everyone. So, on Saturday, I decided to stay “close to home” and go to a Lions pre-season game at the Seibu Dome. It wasn’t really that close to be honest as the Seibu Dome is about an hour and ten minutes from where I live but still, it’s the closest stadium to where I live so I was happy not to have to go that far. The Saitama Seibu Lions faced off against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in a brutal match up for the Lions as you will see in a minute. Last week on Thursday (March 26th) the Swallows made an example of the BayStars by pounding them 10-1 at Jingu Stadium and Yakult pretty much continued their dominating ways in this game as well.

But before I go on about the game, I’d like to point out that the Seibu Dome has a different look this year as the team (or whomever) has added some new seating areas to the stadium. This is a welcome change to the Seibu Dome in my opinion and was probably long overdue in the eyes of many.

The first area of seats are called the “Field View Seats”. Very catchy name I know but regardless, the seats are located right next to the bullpen area on each side of the stadium and are basically the same thing as the “Excite Seats” at the Tokyo Dome or better yet, they are the same thing as the "Field Reserved Seats" at Skymark Stadium in Kobe. They are ￥4000-￥4500 per ticket and will be hard to come by in my opinion as the Seibu Fan Club gets to buy tickets in advance and will probably purchase these seats almost always.

The second area of seats are the “Dugout Terrace” and are for groups of 5 people. They are pretty much the same thing as the "Picnic Boxes" at Chiba Marine Stadium but closer to the field. And also too, Seibu has added an area within the stadium itself too. This new area (1st and 3rd base side naturally) features new restaurants and daycare facilities among other things and it looks really awesome to be quite honest with you. Here's a link with some official photos courtesy of Seibu: Official Photos

Now, onto the game itself. The game was brutal for Seibu as they looked bad despite getting 7 hits in the game. Granted, Seibu didn't have Kataoka or Nakajima in the line up but still, they got beat really bad. The starting pitchers for the day were Takayuki Kishi for Seibu and Shohei Tateyama for Yakult. Tateyama pitched a great game for the Swallows whereas Kishi not so much. Ok, despite winning the MVP award in the Japan Series last year and probably putting on one of the best pitching displays I’ve ever seen, Kishi has looked not so good during the pre-season this year. He didn’t make the cut for “Samurai Japan” and has left me (and many others I assume) scratching their heads. The best way I can put it is that Takayuki Kishi is an enigma. Kishi ended up giving up 5 runs in the game yet somehow managed 8 strikeouts. I really just don't get it but that's Kishi for you.

Kishi managed to pitch the first 2 innings with ease but he ran into trouble in his next 2. New acquired Swallow Jamie D’Antona hit his 4^th home run of the preseason with a solo shot to right. D’Antona really impressed me during these 2 games at the Seibu Dome as he hit well and played all around great baseball. He should be a great player for Yakult this year.

Then, in the top of the 4^th with 2 men on, Aaron Guiel hit a 3 run home run to right to make it 4-0 Yakult and from there, the Swallows never looked back.

In the top of the 6^th, Yoshiyuki Noguchi hit a sacrifice fly to left and Yasushi Iihara came in to score from third to make it 5-0 Yakult. Seibu managed to score their only run of the game in the bottom of the 6^th when Taketoshi Gotoh singled to right to drive in Takumi Kuriyama from third to make it 5-1 Yakult.

Yakult, however, was not finished for the day as they added 3 more runs in the top of the 8^th. Yakult managed to load the bases on a walk, an error by Seibu third baseman Takeya “Okawari” Nakamura, and a failed double play attempt by Seibu first baseman Takayuki Shimizu. After that, Yakult scored a run on a passed ball by Seibu catcher Kousuke Noda and after that, Hiroyasu Tanaka singled to left to drive in the other 2 runners which made it 8-1 Yakult and that's where the game ended up.

Shohei Tateyama picked up the win for the Birds while Kishi was stuck with the loss despite almost getting into double digit strikeouts. All in all, it was a great first game at the Seibu Dome for the year and plus, I got to cheer for the Swallows which is something I never do. Perhaps, in my free time I'll work on practicing their cheer songs a little more. Oh and if you want to find out more about the Swallows, you can go visit my friends Garrett, Chris, and Dave over at Tsubamegun Central as I like to call it. They do a good job of covering the Birds and their blog is well worth a look in my opinion.

Seibu fans going crazy at the start of the game.

Yakult fans cheering their team while some fans prepare to cheer for their local celebrity right fielder by holding Canadian flags.

Former Yomiuri Giant now Saitama Seibu Lion Takayuki Shimizu. The crowd loves him despite his past and I think he will help the Lions out this year.

開幕戦 (Opening Day) and other notes.

Hello again all. I hope everyone is doing well and preparing for the upcoming season. Just a few little notes on my plans for opening day here in Japan.

I will be heading to Nagoya to see the BayStars open their season (as is my custom)against the Chunichi Dragons. Also, I will be attending some interesting games at Nagoya Kyujyo (not the Nagoya Dome where the top level games are at) as well during the day seeing as the Dragons games are all at night. The first game is on Saturday where the Chunichi Dragons farm team faces off against Toyota (the car company)in an amateur exhibition match. And the next day, we have Chunichi facing off against the Toyama Thunderbirds of the BCL League. This is my first time seeing a company baseball team (Toyota) and a BCL League team so it's going to be a whole new experience for me. Also, come to find out, there's a BC team in Gunma out near where I'm at called the Gunma Diamond Pegasus whose website can be found here: Gunma Diamond Pegasus Baseball Club

Their season however, is a short one, so the opportunity to see games is relatively short but I'm planning to go to 2 games in early June and possibly one during Golden Week in early May.


Again, it's going to be a long couple of days next week and I'll be bringing my computer along and will try to get some blogs posted up ASAP after the games.

And with that, it's only one more week until the Pro Season officially begins.

The Curse of Hiratsuka Continues

Hello again everyone. I hope everyone is doing great after a Japan victory at the WBC. I know I am and am looking forward to another great year of JAPANESE BASEBALL. Hopefully, people here in Japan will wake up and realize that maybe baseball in this country really isn't that bad and more people will come to the stadiums this season to support the teams and players. But, that's a rant for another time as I have a very interesting story on hand that I need to blog about.

日本代表本当におめでとうございます！！！

So, last Sunday, I decided to skip the game at Yokohama Stadium and I ended up giving my ticket away to a friend whom I met at Yokosuka Stadium the previous day. I decided to make the trek to Hiratsuka in Kanagawa for the finale of the opening series between the Shonan Searex and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in the Eastern League. Now, what is it about this place that has me spooked you might ask?

Well, Hiratsuka Kyujyo (Ballpark) is used mainly as an alternate home stadium for Shonan as they have a handful of home games here throughout the year. For 10 years from 1986 till 1996, it was their home stadium until they moved to Yokosuka in 1997. The Yokohama BayStars also host one regular season home game every year at Hiratsuka Kyujyo to give the local people a chance to see a game at the top league level as well as one preseason game as well. Before this, I've only been to this stadium once for a BayStars game against Chunichi 2 years ago. The weather was really bad and I got really sick afterwards so can you guess what happened this time around as well? The weather was really bad and I got really sick again. I have this really bad cold and killer sore throat that is drving me up the wall, but this is the price I have to pay for being a baseball fan and watching a game in the cold.

Which brings me to the summary of the day. I got to the stadium around 9am. My friend the "Searex Ojisan" was already in front of the gate waiting to get in and I said hello and chatted with him for a little bit. I met this guy last year at Lotte Urawa Kyujyo in Saitama during a weekday game and got to know him a little bit. He follows Searex almost everywhere and is a "godfather" of sorts. Almost everyone knows who he is and he knows the team from head to toe and can just rattle off stats like nobody's business. He also knows all of the cheer songs for Searex as well. Yes, the Shonan Searex have their own cheer group (they usually only play at games in Kanagawa and don't follow the team everywhere)and cheer songs for the players. It's almost like a seperate team from the Baystars to be quite honest with you. Now, I'm not talking about random fans getting together and doing cheers from the big league squad, this is a registered cheer group who can be found here (web page is in Japanese only of course): Official Searex Ouendan Site. Now, other teams may have their own cheer groups as well but I'm not to sure.

The game was played despite the fact that the winds were consistent and very strong and it was very rainy.

The starting pitchers for the day were Yuji Yoshimi for Shonan (didn’t I just see Yoshimi last week at Yokohama Stadium) and Kenji Tsuchiya for Nippon Ham.

Yoshimi got into a bit of trouble in the first as Kazuya Murata singled to center and right after, Ryuichi Wantanabe doubled to deep left to score Murata and put Nippon Ham on the board first. Sho Nakata then singled to center which allowed Wantanabe to go to third. And while the next batter Suguru Ichikawa was batting, Yoshimi threw a wild pitch and Wantanabe came in to score from third making it 2-0 Nippon Ham.

After this, Yoshimi settled down and pitched 5 more effective innings and ended up pitching 6 innings total for the day. Meanwhile, Nippon Ham starter, Kenji Tsuchiya looked flawless as Shonan could only manage 3 hits through 6 innings. I honestly thought that he had a shot at winning the game but Tsuchiya’s last inning of work in the 7^th would ultimately prove to be his undoing.

But before I get to the 7^th inning, I have to point out that by this time, I had left the ballpark because I couldn’t handle the cold weather any longer was coughing nonstop. So what follows is what I could piece together from the official stats on both teams websites (huge props to both their respective pages to btw).

In the top of the 7^th, Nippon Ham managed to score again after the last couple of innings were just “blah” so to speak. Yoshihiro Sato doubled to right to start things off. Then, after Sato advanced to third on a Takahiro Imanami groundout, Takuya Nakashima hit a sacrifice fly to left to give Nippon Ham a 3-0 lead.

But, Shonan decided they could no longer take this weather and being held down and exploded in the bottom of the 7^th. Right fielder Yoshiyuki Kuwahara (Kuwa-Chan) walked to start off the inning for Shonan. After Wang, Jing-Chao struck out looking Shigenori Kuremoto popped out to second, Takayuki Kajitani singled to right. Atsushi Kita then singled to left to bring Kuwahara in to score which made it 3-1. After that, Tatsuya Shimozono hit a 3 run home run to right making it 4-3 Shonan and that ended up being the final score and also gave Shonan a 3 game sweep of the Fighters in their first series in the Eastern League this year.

SeaRex pitcher Naoya Okamoto picked up the win in relief and Kenji Tsuchiya was tagged with the loss for the Fighters. Yasuhiro Oyamada also picked up his first save of the season for SeaRex as well. The game itself was great despite the weather and both teams played well. Nippon Ham had 2 errors in this game which wasn’t as much as the previous game on Saturday but still, defense is something they need to work on a little bit more on in my view.

My next 2 games will be at the Seibu Dome on Saturday March 28^th and Sunday March 29^th which will see the Saitama Seibu Lions the Tokyo Yakult Swallows do battle. But, due to my stupidity (and not reading the website and information when I should have), I bought tickets for the right field area. From this season, Seibu’s side is now the third base side and not the first base side anymore. Just a little reminder to those of you going to the Seibu Dome this year and wanting to cheer for Seibu. So, I will be cheering for the Swallows for 2 games this weekend but more importantly, I will be evaluating the Lions for the upcoming season as I will be seeing a lot more of them this year. The Lions have been not so good in the pre season so far going only 4-8-1. But to be fair, they have been on the road exclusively for all their games and have been missing Nakajima and Kataoka and Wakui who were off at the WBC for the past few weeks. So, I’m expecting big things this weekend from Nabe-Q and the guys as the regular season approaches quickly.

Hiratsuka Stadium. The infield kinda reminds you of a few other more famous ones here in Japan eh?


Hiratsuka Kyujyo Scoreboard



Nippon Ham's Ouendan for the day. Seriously, these 2 guys made it seem like there were at least 20 people near them.



Searex Starter Yuji Yoshimi



Nippon Ham Starter Kenji Tsuchiya



The official mascot of the Shonan SeaRex: Recks

Let's go Shonan Searex!!! Never a dull moment at Yokosuka Stadium.

Hello all. So, with the recent 3 day weekend here in Japan, I decided to go on an adventure. It was back to Kanagawa for me, more specifically I went to Yokosuka Stadium to catch the Shonan Searex vs. the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. This was a game between the minor league teams of the Yokohama Baystars and Nippon Ham Fighters (二軍 or ni-gun in Japanese) but ironically too, the top league teams (一軍 or ichi-gun in Japanese) also were playing at Yokohama Stadium on the same day. If you ever get the chance to attend a　二軍 Japanese Baseball game, I highly reccomend it. The atmosphere is much more laid back than that of a normal game and most often you can even get autographs and pictures of the players after the game. I've started quite a collection of signatures and today, I probably landed one of my biggest catches as I was able to get Sho Nakata of the Fighters to sign one of my sign boards (色紙 or Shikishi in Japanese).

As I said earlier, this game was and up and down game. The game probably went a little longer than it should've as it took 3 hours and 5 minutes to complete. But, again, it was well worth it as it was an exciting game. The starting pitchers were Toshiyuki Yanuki for the Fighters and Yoto Kosugi for Searex. The one thing that you should all know is that errors played a huge part in this game and ultimately decided the outcome of the game as well. Oh, and both starters today were rookies for each of their teams. So, who would come out on top? Let's find out, shall we?

Nippon Ham wasted no time getting on the board in the first as DH Tomoyuki Oda smashed a 2 run Home Run to right field driving in Toshimasa Konta as well who walked to start off the inning.

Searex struck back quickly in the bottom of the first as Takayuki Kajitani, Atsushi Kita, Tatsuya Shimozono all singled to load the bases. After that, Shigenori Kuremoto hit a Sacrifice Fly to deep left field to make it 2-1. Next, catcher Toshiki Kurobane tripled to deep right to give Searex a 3-2 lead.

Nippon Ham scored again in the top of the third. Takuya Nakashima singled to start things off while Toshimasa Konta struck out swinging. Yuji Iyama then sinlged to left. Tomoyuki Oda grounded into a force out at second and after that, Yohei Kaneko hit a double to deep left making it 4-3 Nippon Ham.

In the bottom of the fourth, Takuya Sakamoto doubled to left (and then was picked off at second by catcher Ryota Imanari, shame on you Sakamoto) and Takayuki Kajitani walked after that. Takayuki Kajintani then stole second while Atsushi Kida was batting and then, Tatsuya Shimozono hit and RBI double to left to tie it up 4-4.

Shonan would continue it's assault on the Fighters in the bottom of the 5th. Yuki Takamori grounded out to short to start things off. Kurobane then singled to center. It should be noted to that Kurobane was also setting himself up for a possible run at the cycle as he tripled and singled in his first 2 at bats, but he could get the double and home run that was needed. Next, Yuta Sekiguchi reached first due to an error by Fighters second baseman Kenshi Sugiya and then Toshiyuki Kitagawa tripled to deep right to make it 6-4 Searex. Strange actually, there was a lot of triples in this game.

But again, the Fighters started to make a comeback in the top of the 6th. Tomoyuki Oda doubled to left and then was lifted for pinch runner Seichi Ohira. Yohei Kaneko then reached first thanks to an error by Shonan first baseman Yuki Takamori. Atsushi Ugumori then grounded into a force out at second allowing Ohira to score and make it 6-5 Shonan.

Seriously, neither team wanted to lose this game. Shonan came right back in the bottom of the 6th inning to take the lead. Atsushi Kita walked to start off the inning. Shimozono then bunted Kita over to second and DH Kuremoto reached first thanks to yet another Fighters error, this time by third baseman Yuji Iyama. Takamori then doubled to left to make it 7-5 Shonan.

Heading to the top of the 7th, Fighters catcher Ryota Imanari walked to start things off. Then, Kenshi Sugiya reached first on an overthrow error by third baseman Atsushi Kita and Takuya Nagashima grounded out to first to make it 7-6. Then, Toshimasa Konta tripled to right to tie the game at 7 a piece.

This took us to the bottom of the 9th inning. Shingo Takeyama had come into the game to replace Kurobane as the catcher in the 7th inning (I can't remember exactly when because I was distracted by the Searex Ouendan when they announced it but pretty sure it was when Kosugi left the game) and singled to start off the inning. Then, in possibly the longest at bat I've ever seen at an eastern league baseball game, Yuta Sekiguchi laid down a sac bunt after about 10 minutes of pickoff attempts by Fighters pitcher Takayuki Kanamori. But, Kanamori went to the well once to often and botched a pickoff attempt by overthrowing the ball to Sho Nakata. This allowed Takeyama to go to second and of course advance to third on the bunt and the next batter Toshiyuki Kitagawa walked. Takuya Sakamoto then hit a sacrifice fly to left to end the game with a score of 8-7 Shonan. やった！！

The winning pitcher was Teruaki Yoshikawa who pitcher 2 solid innings of relief starting in the 8th and the losing pitcher was Takayuki Kanamori. As I said earlier, errors were ultimately the undoing of the Fighters but regardless, I felt that the 2 teams played strong and exciting baseball as I enjoyed the game very much. Eastern League Games ROCK!!!!!!

So, after the game I stayed around the stadium like I always do. I waited by the Fighters exit for the players to exit. And finally they all did. Fighters pitchers Suguru Matsuyama and Yanuki stopped by and actually chatted with the fans for a little bit while signing things. But when Nakata came out he seemed like he wanted to get on the bus ASAP despite the huge number of people calling to him. Finally, I just said "Mr. Nakata, could you please come over and sign my board". I wasn't yelling or anything or going hysterical like the 10 Japanese women behind me I just asked him to sign my thing in a polite normal manner. Needless to say, he turned around took one look at me and came over. He signed my board but instead of giving me the pen back, he just kinda flipped it to me and the pen landed on my board and almost rolled off. He didn't even smile or look at me or nothing it was like someone was forcing him to do it. Even when he started to sign for the elementary school kids, he was the same. I thanked him and walked off but the encounter left me with a bad impression of him being a jerk. But, I'm not going to say anything more about it or Sho Nakata.

After that, I wandered over to the Searex bus and waited for a few minutes and caught Sekiguchi as he was going into the bus. I asked him to sign my board. He looked at me and said yes and started to walk over. Then, some Japanese lady shoved her little ticket holder in front of me and insisted that he sign her thing first. Sekiguchi was right in front of me and he kinda looked at me like "what do you want me to do" and to top it all off, some old Japanese guy that she was with said in English "Ladies First" and thought it was cute so I let him sign it. I swear, many people nowadays have zero manners and lack common courtesy. It took him like 3 minutes to sign the thing as she had him write his real name in Kanji I believe then a message or something and they couldn't figure out which Kanji were the correct ones to use. So, he signed my thing and after that I caught our new Chinese players Chen Wai and Wang Jing Chao and they signed my Team China WBC hat. All the while, Suzuki Takanori was next to his car looking cool in a leather jacket and sunglasses. I missed the chance to get my picture with him but next time Suzuki-coach. I also caught Shingo Takeyama and Toshiyuki Kitagawa and got their signatures too.

All in all a fun day at Yokosuka Stadium, but the next day wouldn't be so fun as I'll tell you about in my next report.



Yokosuka Stadium field. The entire infield is brand new and is the same turf as Jingu Stadium I believe. At least that's what it reminded me of at first glance.

Nippon Ham Fighters First Baseman Sho Nakata (#6) doing who knows what. Any ideas anyone?


The Searex Crew promoting "team togetherness" or something like that after warmups.

I absolutely LOVE the Konta chant!!! The melody just draws you in and before you know it you're also cheering for Konta. It's my new favorite Fighters cheer second only to Jason Bott's first cheer song with the Fighters (which is now no longer in use. -sad face-)


Searex Starter Yota Kosugi



Nippon Ham Starter Toshiyuki Yanuki


Former pitcher now infielder Atsushi Kida. He wasn't that bad in the game actually.

The Final Score

My good friend the Yokosuka Panther. The unofficial mascot of the Shonan Searex.

2 of my 色紙 I managed to get signed. The one on the right is Sho Nakata and the one on the left is Yuta Sekiguchi of Shonan. Seriousuly, I'm not making this up as his signature is a picture of a cat. A FREAKING CAT!!! How funny is that eh? I also managed to get Shingo Takeyama's and Toshiyuki Kitagawa's of Shonan signatures as well.

AND FINALLY


My Team China WBC cap signed by Wang, Jing Chao(#55) and Chen, Wei(#42)of Shonan who also played for the team. The numbers on the cap are their Team China numbers and not their Searex ones. I wasn't really sure if they could speak Japanese and since my Chinese or "普通话" doesn't go beyond "What's your name" and "My name is Matt" and "I like American food" and "Where's the restroom", I decided to try and speak English with them and it turns out they can speak a little English. I both think they were a bit surprised that someone asked them to sign something and weren't expecting it to be honest.