Matt Murton breaks the single-season hit record with number 211, a 2-RBI single to center off Masato Nakazawa. Of course, the record will undoubtedly be somewhat asterisked in that Ichiro did it in 130 games.
They did bother stopping the game to put up this sign and give him flowers and let him take a bow, at least.
A lesser-known milestone was also reached tonight when Takashi Toritani singled in the 3rd inning for his 1000th career hit. He also got flowers (I was too slow to take a picture of the board announcement).
Other than that, who cares? The Tigers killed the Swallows 17-4. Kanemoto hit a homer and Brazell hit two homers (up to 47 on the season). Nakazawa seriously gave up 9 runs in one inning -- poor kid.
Murton was the game hero. To his credit, his hero speech only had the word "God" once or twice, though he pointed up at the sky when he said "I'd like to thank the fans", which was kind of funny.
Actually, something kind of cool is that when Murton his position in right field again in the bottom of the 2nd, the Swallows fans ALSO gave him a big round of applause. He went on to hit #212 (4th inning single to right off Tatsuyoshi "Break Your Heart" Masubuchi) and #213 as well (9th inning RBI double to right off Koki Watanabe).
Also, for the record, when I got my token pinbadge before the game, which I joke is going to be "the player of the game", the badge that came out of the machine was Shigeru Takada #88. No joke. So if that's the player of the game, you could kind of write it all off to iffy managerial decisions, I suppose.
On another note, the Keio-Rikkio deathmatch finally ended when Keio beat Rikkio in 14 innings, and yet again delayed the Swallows game. I ran into a few of the Keio players when I arrived at Jingu at 5:45 for the Swallows game, who were probably more surprised to see me than I was to see them. I had no time to say anything beyond "Otsukaresama, that was a REALLY long game, good thing you won!", but it was still kind of bizarre. And now I can theoretically summarize Weeks 3 and 4. I can't believe the fall semester is already halfway over...
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