A few days ago I mentioned how Seibu's Nishiguchi signed a 1-year, 300-million-yen contract for 2006, which is more than Matsuzaka's 250 million paid in 2005. Elsewhere, I was joking with a friend that "Does that mean Matsuzaka's gonna step up like 'If you want me to play, you have to pay me more than 300 million yen, suckers'?"
Sure enough, Matsuzaka re-signs with Seibu for 330 million yen salary. Heh.
The big news story in Japanese baseball today, though, is that Akira Ogi died of respiratory failure yesterday at the age of 70. He had a long and storied career both as a player and a manager, up until stepping down from managing the Orix Buffaloes three months ago, and the linked article lists a lot of the things he did, so you should read it. The relevance to Seattle is that this is the guy who's responsible for Ichiro using his first name on his uniform, and for making him a regular and getting his career started. Ogi also managed Nomo, Taguchi, and Shiggy during their careers in Japan.
Rest in peace, Ogi-sama.
(from the comments: Gary Garland has a much more indepth obituary on his site.)
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