Marinerds, etc.

I have a new Baystars jersey!

Well, technically, I got this new Baystars jersey on November 7th, the week after the draft. But now it is in the form that I want it to be:




(If you can't read Japanese, the name is "Kagami Kisho". If you don't know why I spent 3000 yen getting his name and number put on a jersey, you should read back all posts on this blog labelled "Hosei".)


For the record, I got my jersey done at the Sports Authority near where I live in Akabane. I also got my Ryota Imanari jersey done there two years ago. As you can see, the Imanari jersey is signed at the bottom... I need to get that done to the Kagami jersey ASAP too!

As it is, the Baystars site finally put up their information on rookie training at Yokosuka Stadium, and even do say "Please come support us!", so I think I'll go down there later this week. Their off days are the 11th, 15th, 20th, and 25th, if you are thinking of going. (I'm only here until the 18th.)

I'm also thinking of going to try to stalk Tatsuya Ohishi since I couldn't do that for his time at Waseda. The Lions rookie training schedule has them off on the 11th, 15th, 19th, 23rd, and 27th, if you're curious.

I wish I could go stalk Shuhei Fujiya at Lotte Urawa but there just probably won't be time. Maybe in the spring. I know they're training up there, and I even have a friend who wants to stalk Shota Ishimine, but, timing.

I'll be at Kamagaya on the 16th for the unveiling of the new rookies there. I hear it's going to be insane, but my connections (read: Ojisan) should make it possible for me to get in regardless. I'm a little depressed about Saitoh-mania, to be honest... and here I'm just hoping to meet Masaru Saitoh, or Masahiro Inui or Yodai Enoshita or Haruki Nishikawa. It's bizarre, but I saw almost all of the Fighters draft picks play as amateurs.

Anyway.. this post is called "Things I have", so I wanted to mention something else.

I came back from my trip to Kyushu over the weekend, spending about 22-23 hours on local trains over the course of 2 days. I stopped along the way in illustrious places like Fukuyama (where I failed to see Taishi Ota.. no, just kidding) and Wakayama City (where I failed to see Tama the Stationmaster Cat because it turns out she doesn't "work" on Sundays, sheesh) and at the Osaka Dome, where I happened to be there the day after the Buffaloes unveiled their new uniform design.

(I'll post a few more pictures of the Buffaloes store and display soon, if you happen to check back.)

To be honest, the Buffaloes new design was not so intriguing to me, as they only had t-shirts with the logo on it, sweatshirts, towels, and cellphone straps. If they'd had t-shirts with player names/numbers I might have gone for one, either T-Okada or Ohbiki or someone. But, alas.

So instead, I got one of the T-Okada Home Run King foldout thingies they made. This is actually a pretty cool little contraption:


From the outside it almost just looks like an oversized baseball card.


But then you unfold it...


And it is a big series of photos of each of his home runs for the season! Except... you might notice it only goes up to 32... and he had 33 home runs...


...because the back side is a huge poster of home run 33.


Pretty neat, huh?