A baseball blog written by a Fighters fangirl who moved back to the US after several years in Japan. Probably likely to continue being about Japanese amateur baseball and bashing the Yomiuri Giants, but who knows what the future holds.
Nishioka ss Kawasaki ss Kiyota cf Honda 2b Iguchi 2b Ortiz dh Saburo rf Kokubo 1b Imae 3b Tamura rf Imaoka?! dh Matsunaka lf Taekyun 1b Matsuda 3b Ohmatsu lf Hasegawa cf Satozaki c Yamasaki c
Naruse Sugiuchi
Top of the first (M 0, H 0) Nishioka fly out to right field. Kiyota groundout to short. Iguchi strikes out swinging.
Bottom of the first (M 0, H 0) Kawasaki strkes out swinging. Honda grounds out to short. Ortiz grounds out to second.
Top of the second (M 0, H 0) Saburo hits a pop fly out to right. Imae hits a pop fly out to right as well. Imaoka grounds out to short.
Bottom of the second (M 0, H 0) Kokubo grounds out to second. Tamura strikes out swinging. Matsunaka hits a pop fly out to left.
(It's 6:30pm and the first two innings are done...)
Top of the third (M 0, H 0) Taekyun hits a LINER to short and Kawasaki jumps to catch it. Oops. Ohmatsu walks! First base-runner of the game! OMG! One on, one out. Satozaki singles through Sugiuchi's legs and up the middle. First HIT of the game! Two on, one out. Nishioka hits a pop fly to right. Two down, two on. Kiyota grounds out to second, force on Satozaki for the fielder's choice 6-4. Three down.
Bottom of the third (M 0, H 0) Matsuda hits a pop fly out to center. Hasegawa grounds out to short. Yamasaki strikes out stupid. Three down.
Top of the fourth (M 0, H 0) Iguchi hits a pop fly out to straight center. Saburo walks. Imae hits a fly ball into the gap... and Hasegawa makes the catch at the wall, two down, one on. Imaoka hits another pop fly out to right. Three down.
Bottom of the fourth (M 0, H 0) Kawasaki grounds out to first (3-1). Honda hits a fly ball to center, caught. Two down. Ortiz singles to left for the first Hawks runner of the game just as I was thinking "Wow, Naruse has a perfect game so far." He points to the sky when he gets to first base, if that matters. Kokubo hits a pop fly out to second, three down.
4 innings over and it's 7:06pm.
Top of the fifth (M 4, H 0) Taekyun strikes out swinging. Ohmatsu hits a pop fly out to left. Satozaki singles to left! That makes him 2-for-2 today... Nishioka singles all the way out to the left corner. Two on, two out. Kiyota walks -- so bases loaded, two out... that was apparently the 84th pitch of the night for Sugiuchi. Iguchi is apparently hit by a pitch, on his leg (it looked like a wild pitch at first to be honest). Satozaki scores, 1-0. Saburo ALSO walks. Oshidashi! Nishioka scores. 2-0. Imae hits a bouncing grounder that bounces over Sugiuchi, and past a diving Kawasaki. Kiyota and Iguchi score on the single. 4-0.
97 pitches and Sugiuchi is switched off the mound to Masahiko Morifuku. (Sugiuchi seriously looks like he's going to cry but he also seems quite aware that there must be tons of cameras on him so instead he's towelling off sweat and getting a drink.)
Imaoka hits a pop fly out to right and that ends the bleeding for now.
Bottom of the fifth (M 4, H 0) Tamura hits a pop fly out to right. Matsunaka... ?! grounds out to first but it goes through Taekyun into right field and is called an E3. (I could almost see calling it a single.) One on, one out. Matsuda hits a pop fly to right. One on, two down. Hasegawa hits a pop fly out to center. Three down.
Top of the sixth (M 4, H 0)
Morifuku is off the mound and TSUYOSHI WADA HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING. Holy carp. Well, he hasn't pitched in 4 days, but... we'll see. He was untouchable before...
Taekyun strikes out. Ohmatsu grounds out to second. Satozaki grounds back to the mound. Three down.
Bottom of the sixth (M 4, H 0) Tanoue pinch-hits for Yamasaki and grounds out to short. Kawasaki also grounds out to short. Honda hits a pop fly to left and it's the 7th inning... at 7:53pm...
Top of the seventh (M 4, H 0) Nishioka grounds out to short. Kiyota pops a fly out to right. Two down. Iguchi singles to right-center. One on, two out. Saburo hits a pop fly to right-center, caught by the rightfielder. Change.
Bottom of the seventh (M 4, H 0) Ortiz hits a pop fly to right. Kokubo strikes out swinging. Tamura singles to center. Matsunaka strikes out swinging.
Top of the eighth (M 7, H 0) Falkenborg on the mound in place of Wada.
Imae singles to short. Heiuchi pinch-hits for Imaoka comes up bunting and successfully bunts up Imae, 2-4. One down, runner at 2nd. Taekyun singles back to the right-field wall, driving in Imae. 5-0. Ohmatsu hits a HOME RUN TO RIGHT which brings in Taekyun as well. 7-0. Satozaki singles up the middle. That makes him 3-for-4, btw. One on, one out again. Nishioka grounds into a fielder's choice, 5-4. So still one on, but now two out. Kiyota strikes out.
Naruse is still in there -- only 89 pitches to this point. And the camera crew keeps showing very grumpy-looking Hawks players in the dugout.
Bottom of the eighth (M 7, H 0) Matsuda singles to center. One on, no out. Hasegawa grounds into a double play, 5-4-3. Two down. Tanoue singles to right... one on, two out. Kawasaki strikes out swinging. (I think that's 6 strikeouts for Naruse.)
Settsu in for the Hawks pitching now.
Top of the ninth (M 7, H 0) Iguchi grounds out to third. Saburo hits a pop fly out to left. Imae singles to left. One on, two out. Fukuura pinch-hits for Heiuchi and strikes out.
Last 3 outs for Softbank... and Naruse is still in there.
Bottom of the ninth (M 7, H 0) Honda hits a pop fly out to left. (2nd pitch.) Ortiz hits a pop fly out to right. (First pitch.) Kokubo swings at the first pitch, strike one. Fouls off the second pitch, strike two. Third pitch is in the dirt, ball one.
Kokubo breaks his bat hitting the ball to short. Nishioka, who started crying as Kokubo was at the plate, MAKES THE CATCH and then collapses on the ground crying.
The Marines are going to the Japan Series!
Um... some screenshots. I don't know, I feel weird about this entire thing. Like, I'm happy for the Marines players that I've been watching the last few years... but at the same time I feel kind of funny to see Bobby's guys up there going to the Japan Series without Bobby. (To be fair, Nishimura did say that "we couldn't have gotten here without the last manager, who I was a coach for in the 2005 Japan Series", but still.)
Heiuchi, because this is my blog and I can put him in here.
Nishioka before the final out.
Naruse before the final out.
Nishioka after the final out, crying.
Helping Nishioka up and off the field.
Grumpy Akiyama-manager in the Hawks dugout.
Doage (not of Nishimura, they only threw him twice. I didn't catch who this was.)
I got home from work just in time for the second at-bat of the game and realized I may fall asleep if I don't figure out a way to stay involved in the game, so I'm going to liveblog. (It's been a long week and I'm pretty tired.) Feel free to email/IM/comment if you're also watching.
(I don't know a feed online, I'm watching on BS1. I think there are several on justin.tv though.)
Nishioka ss Kawasaki ss Kiyota cf Honda 2b Iguchi 2b Matsunaka lf Saburo rf Kokubo 1b Imae 3b Tamura rf Imaoka?! dh Petagine! dh Taekyun 1b Hasegawa cf Ohmatsu lf Matsuda 3b Matoba c Tanoue c
Naruse Sugiuchi
Top of the first (M 0, H 0) Nishioka grounds out to second. Kiyota singles to center! One on, one out. Iguchi walks -- 1st and 2nd, one out. Saburo strikes out swinging. Imae hits a low fly ball to center and Hasegawa runs in for the catch. 3 out, change.
Bottom of the first (M 0, H 0) Kawasaki singles to left. Honda sac bunts right in front of the plate, 1-4 play. One out, runner at 2nd. Matsunaka walks. 1st and 2nd, one out. Kokubo strikes out swinging. 1st, 2nd, two out. Tamura walks, the 4th ball being a pitch aimed at Matoba's left foot pretty much and bounces in the dirt and gets away. (I suppose people can't advance more than one base on a wild pitch if the guy walks?). So, bases loaded, 2 out. Petagine strikes out swinging. Inning over.
Top of the second (M 3, H 0) Imaoka hits a ball way out to right for a double. 2nd, no out. Taekyun manages to catch one on the end of his bat and bloop it to right field for a single. 1st and 3rd, no out. Ohmatsu WALLOPS one to right field that sails up up and away for a home run. BOOM. Everyone scores. 3-0. Matoba grounds out to short as he is often wont to do. One out. Nishioka strikes out swinging. Two out. Kiyota walks. One on, two out. Kiyota steals second on the first pitch to Iguchi. 2nd, two out. Iguchi takes forever but finally strikes out. Change.
Bottom of the second (M 3, H 0) Hasegawa grounds out to first, Naruse covering the bag. One down. Matsuda grounds out to third. Tanoue strikes out swinging. Change.
I want to mention that they saw fit to put up on the screen during this inning an announcement that the dollar is the lowest against the yen that it has been in 15 years. Ugh.
Top of the third (M 3, H 0) Saburo strikes out swinging. Imae pops out to shallow left, Kawasaki making the catch. Imaoka hits one to shallow center and Hasegawa runs in and makes a diving sliding catch to get it. Change.
Bottom of the third (M 3, H 0) Kawasaki bunts up the left side but Imae is too quick for him. One down. Honda singles up the middle. One on, one out. Matsunaka walks -- two on, one out. Kokubo grounds into a 6-4-3 double play. Change!
For some reason you can't hear announcers on the BS1 broadcast but you CAN hear the vendors yelling "How about a beer?"
Top of the fourth (M 3, H 0) Taekyun singles to left. One on, no out. Ohmatsu walks on 5 pitches. Two on, no out. Matoba FAIL. Sac bunt, Tanoue scoops it up and fires to third, gets Taekyun and then Matsuda throws to first and barely doubles up Matoba as well, 2-5-3 double play. 2nd, two out. Nishioka grounds out to short. Change.
Bottom of the fourth (M 3, H 0) Tamura hits a pop fly out to left. One down. Petagine grounds out to first. Two down. Hasegawa grounds out to third. Change.
Top of the fifth (M 3, H 0) Kiyota grounds out to third. Iguchi singles to left. One on, one out. Saburo grounds back to the mound for a 1-4-3 double play. Change.
Bottom of the fifth (M 3, H 1) Matsuda... that was odd, he grounded to short, Nishioka moved over and got the ball, and when he transferred the ball from his glove to his hand and went to throw, the ball slipped out of Nishioka's hand and Matsuda was safe at first. They're calling it a hit, it seems. One on, no out. Tanoue comes up bunting and eventually bunts Matsuda over, SB3-4. 2nd, one out. Kawasaki singles to left, bringing home Matsuda for the first Hawks run. 3-1. Honda grounds to short. Kawasaki is out on the 6-4 force but Honda is safe at first. 1st, two out. Matsunaka is called out on strikes. Change.
Top of the sixth (M 3, H 1) Imae grounds out to third. Imaoka walks. Taekyun fails, fouls, and strikes out swinging. One on, two out. Ohmatsu is called out on strikes. Change.
Bottom of the sixth (M 3, H 1) Kokubo strikes out swinging. Tamura also strikes out swinging. Petagine ALSO strikes out swinging! Whoa!
Lucky 7 inning time.
Top of the seventh (M 3, H 1) Matoba hits a pop fly to right field. Nishioka walks.
That's it for Sugiuchi -- 121 pitches and 6.1 innings and he's out of the game. He's replaced on the mound by... TAKEHITO KANAZAWA!?!? WTF?
Nishioka steals 2nd on the 2-2 pitch. 2nd, one out. Kiyota grounds out to second. 3rd, two outs. Iguchi strikes out. Change.
The WTF on Kanazawa, btw, is that he was on the Fighters for a year or two. We got him in a trade with the Hanshin Tigers wherein both teams got rid of guys they couldn't release without feeling bad -- we gave them former ROY Itsuki Shoda, who they subsequently released and he's now playing in Taiwan. The Fighters released Kanazawa too, and he passed the 12-team tryouts and ended up playing for Orix, and then they traded him to the Hawks, and here he is pitching in the postseason. How WEIRD. I seriously rarely watch the Hawks and had no clue that Kanazawa was pitching well this year. Good for him, I suppose, but it's still freaking me out.
Lucky 7 for the Hawks, now. What's with all the red today? Red jerseys, red balloons... are any Hawks fans reading this and can clue me in? It's a bit odd for a team whose colors are black and yellow, y'know.
Bottom of the seventh (M 3, H 1) Hasegawa hits a pop fly out to left. Matsuda hits a pop fly to right. Tanoue hits a pop fly out to center. Whee.
Top of the eighth (M 3, H 1) Saburo hits one out to center. It... bounces on the centerfield wall and then back onto the field? Is it a home run or a ground rule double? It's unclear, and the umpires and Nishimura are going to have a little chat, and watch a little video, it seems...
It's called a ground-rule double. Okay.
Kanazawa leaves the mound, anyway, and is replaced by little lefty Masahiko "Monkeyboy" Morifuku.
Imae grounds out to third. Saburo still on 2nd, one out. Imaoka grounds out to short. Saburo to 3rd, two out. Taekyun is INTENTIONALLY WALKED (!?) to put runners at the corners, two out... Ohmatsu hits a pop fly up, caught just foul of first. Change.
Lucky for the Hawks that it wasn't a homer by Saburo, I guess.
Bottom of the eighth (M 3, H 1) Kawasaki hits a pop fly to right-center, Kiyota running out for the catch. One down. Honda is called out on strikes. Matsunaka grounds out to short, and... headslides into first?! Whoa. double play to shortstop, headslide to first
Bottom of the eighth (M 3, H 1) Keisuke Kattoh takes the mound for the Hawks.
Matoba pop fly to right. Nishioka strikes out swinging. Kiyota also strikes out.
Well... it comes down to the theoretical last three outs of the game...
Bottom of the ninth (M 3, H 1)
Naruse is still on the mound. Okada comes in to play center for the Marines. Kiyota moves to left.
Kokubo hits a pop fly out to left. One down. Two outs remaining... Tamura strikes out swinging. Ortiz pinch-hits for Petagine and hits a pop fly up, up, out to left, and CAUGHT! Three out!
Game over. Marines are now tied 1 and 1 game with the Hawks (thanks to the 1st-place team 1-game advantage).
The most notable thing about this game is that HICHORI MORIMOTO HIT A HOME RUN AND I FINALLY SAW IT IN PERSON!
A few weeks ago at my JHS, I was asked to write a "postcard from Deanna" for a midterm exam for our 9th-graders, something they would have to read and answer some questions about. So I wrote a postcard about a fictitious trip to Sapporo and included the following lines, as the major grammatical point this semester was the use of perfect tense ("Have you ever been.." "I have never seen..." "I have just eaten dinner" etc):
"Yesterday, I went to the Sapporo Dome to watch a baseball game. The Sapporo Dome was built in 2001. It is used for soccer games and baseball games. I have been to the Sapporo Dome many times. But I have never seen a soccer game there, only baseball.
The game was very exciting! The Fighters won the game. Hichori Morimoto hit a home run. I have never seen him hit a home run before, so I was very happy!"
A few days later, I'm chatting in the library with a few students. One of my students is pretty serious about his Little League team and wants to go to a big baseball highschool next year and is a Teikyo (and sadly Yomiuri) fan. We talk about baseball fairly often (in Japanese of course), so this time he said "Hey, did you really write that Sapporo postcard on our test?"
"Yeah, I did. Could you understand it?"
"...mostly. Hahahaha, you never saw Hichori hit a home run? Really? I saw him hit a home run... I think it was at the Tokyo Dome during interleague..."
"Wasn't this year or last year... and two years ago was when that jerk Kentaro Nishimura broke Hichori's hand with a pitch."
"Was Hichori pissed?"
"No, but the rest of us sure were. Lots of booing."
"I know I saw him hit a home run though. I don't like the Fighters but I like Hichori because he's from Arakawa and Teikyo."
"He hit one last year in Chiba in the first inning. I showed up in the second. Go figure."
Anyway, this became sort of a running joke for a bit, because we trash-talk all the time about the Fighters and Giants. He tends to remind me as often as possible that the Giants are in 1st place and the Fighters are (until recently) in last place.
So I'm at the Tokyo Dome on Thursday night watching the Fighters-Hawks game. Yoshio Itoi hits a 3-run homer in the first inning off Softbank starter J.D.Durbin to put the Fighters up 3-0. The Hawks manage to run themselves out of their half of the 5th inning, and then the Fighters get two guys on base as Kaneko and Kensuke both hit singles.
Hichori comes to the plate, two on, no out, and BLAM! He smacks the ball out to center. Out, out, and OVER the wall! 3-run homer, 6-0!
I go nuts because I'm half thinking "Dude! Hichori just hit a home run!" and also "Dude! I hope my students are watching this one!"
Even better, so Durbin comes out of the game after that, and Masahiko Monkeyboy Morifuku comes in to pitch to Inaba... and Inaba ALSO cranks a home run. 7-0.
So yeah, the Fighters won this game and took the series from the Hawks. The game heroes were Hichori, and Masaru Takeda, who pitched 8 scoreless innings. Kazunori Yamamoto, who was spending a brief few days up at ichi-gun, threw a scoreless 9th as well.
The women sitting next to me also double as Yakult fans, and know I'm a Mikinori Katoh fan, so they continued to update me on the Yakult game. "You're never going to believe this, but your beloved Mikinori is about to get his first career win... the Swallows are up 9-3 right now..."
So yeah, it was good. Although I am increasingly annoyed at how the Tokyo Dome big screen seems to only be willing to show me if I am NOT holding up signs or cheering or otherwise actually looking like I know what the hell I am doing, like they must keep up their stereotypes that white people are all tourists. I noticed, infact, that my group of friends ("Team 52") that all hold up matching towels and signs... we never got on the screen when I sat with them on Tuesday, but they were there several times on Wednesday and Thursday when I sat elsewhere. Coincidence? Maybe, but it's sure enough to make a gaijin paranoid.
Anyway, I come to school on Friday and tell my student about Hichori's homerun. His reaction? "His hand healed?"
"Eh?"
"From Nishimura's pitch."
"Dude, that was TWO YEARS AGO."
"It was?"
"Yeah."
"I thought you said..."
"I probably screwed up the Japanese. Anyway, Hichori! Yay!"
Well, maybe not match. Not quite yet. We'll leave that to Thursday's game.
So, this game went a LOT better than Tuesday's. Shinsuke Ogura started for Softbank, and I actually don't think I ever saw him before. Tomoya Yagi started for the Fighters.
Bizarrely, before the game when I did pinbadges, I got a Yanuki pinbadge -- "Ah, that's yesterday's starter!" and then the next one to come out was a Yagi pinbadge -- "Ah, that's tonight's starter! Is the next one going to be tomorrow's starter?" but it was Tadano, so obviously not.
Still, it seemed like a good omen. And well, the first three innings of the game went really quickly on both sides. I was sitting in the front row again with Ojisan's group, and a lot of our friends weren't coming until after 7pm, and we were like "They're going to miss half the game!"
The Fighters scored a run in the bottom of the 4th when Hichori singled and Itoi drove him in a little bit later. 1-0.
So that was good, except that Jose Ortiz hit a 2-run homer in the top of the 6th to make it 2-1.
That seemed kinda ominous, and it wasn't helped any by having them show Sadaharu Oh on the big screen during the Hawks' Lucky 7. (I couldn't find my camera. Argh.)
Tadashi Settsu came in to pitch the bottom of the 7th, and everyone groaned, since he usually kicks our butts.
But I guess something was different this time, because Yoshio Itoi led off against him with a single to center, and then Tomochika Tsuboi pinch-hit for Ugumori (which was very exciting, I hadn't seen Tsuboi in forever) and Settsu hit him in the shoulder with a pitch. Dai-kan Yoh struck out... and Masayoshi Katoh, who just got called up earlier in the day, pinch-hit for Shota Ohno and singled to center, a low fly ball that fell inbetween Kawasaki and Hasegawa, so it was too shallow for anyone to score, but the bases were loaded for Makoto Kaneko, who single to left, scoring Itoi. Tie game! 2-2.
Kensuke Tanaka came up and singled to right, the ball veering off into foul territory, so Kensuke tried to stretch things into a double and was thrown out at second. But in the meantime, Tsuboi and Masayoshi scored, so 4-2!
Hichori followed that up with a dramatic infield single where he headslid into first base to beat out the throw just barely, and Kaneko scored. 5-2.
Inaba grounded out to first after that, though the Hawks almost didn't make the play, some weird miscommunication between Petagine and Settsu.
Anyway, Keisuke Kattoh pitched the 8th for Softbank, and he gave up another run to the Fighters as Itoi led off with a double and then Tsuboi singled to left, reaching second as the Hawks tried to throw to the plate to get Itoi, but failed, so 6-2. Exciting!
(Actually, to me, the most exciting part of the 7th and 8th innings were that we finally did a whole bunch of other chance music other than freaking Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which I am sick of. We did the special Tokyo Dome theme a few times, and we finally did Kita no Kuni Kara for Inaba's at-bat, and we even did the Wasshoi one that I haven't heard in YEARS. Yay for variety. Now can we just get some ouenka for guys like Ohno and Yoh and Ugumori?)
Naoki Miyanishi and Hisashi Takeda pitched a scoreless 8th and 9th and that was the game.
Starter Tomoya Yagi and go-ahead-2-RBI-single-hitting Kensuke Tanaka were the game heroes.
So several players on the team came out and threw signed baseballs into the stands, and then later Yagi and Kensuke came out and threw a stuffed BB doll and some baseballs into the crowd, and then we had a long post-game cheering session where we did a whole bunch of themes and songs and whatnot, including even a song for Tanabata, which is the Star Festival celebrated on July 7th.
Afterwards, when things were winding down, my friend Tsuji came down to the front row and said, "Deanna, put out your hand."
"What?"
"Don't ask, just do it."
So I did, and you'd never believe what he gave me:
Yeah -- he was sitting about 4-5 rows behind me and he managed to catch a signed ball thrown by Shota Ohno. He was like "You like Ohno a hell of a lot more than I do, so here you are."
So cool!
I actually have one other ball like this -- I got it last year when the Hawks played the Fighters in the Tokyo Dome, a ball thrown by Kensuke. But I really do like Ohno, so this is pretty awesome. I totally freaked out and was basically like "OMG OMG OMG OMG YOU'RE KIDDING" for like 5 minutes.
Dude. My friends rock.
After the game I also met up with blog reader Hema for a bit and we walked to the station together. It was a good game.
(I've been meaning to post something about that other BCL game in Gunma, but I got totally swamped this last week and weekend due to taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test on Sunday. This week, I am attending the Fighters games at the Tokyo Dome on Tue/Wed/Thurs. This is about Tuesday's game.)
No, really. I mean, what else can be said about this?
Toshiya Sugiuchi pitched a complete-game shutout against the Fighters. The only time he even allowed two runners in one inning was in the 9th, when Koyano singled and Ugumori walked two batters later (the only walk of the game, against 9 strikeouts). It was pretty unreal. The only batting the Fighters accomplished at all was Atsunori Inaba hitting his career 350th double in the first inning, which they stopped the game for in order to give him flowers and recognize the achievement.
Toshiyuki Yanuki started for the Fighters, and let's just say that obviously the Hawks offense fared a lot better:
- Every starter got on base at least once. - Every starter got a hit except Nobuhiro Matsuda (he was hit by a pitch).
Some scary lines:
- Nobuhiko Matsunaka, DHing and batting 6th, walked twice, and hit a 3-run homer in the 6th. This is notable because his home run went 130 meters and LANDED IN THE UPPER DECK IN RIGHT FIELD. I've lost count, but I have seen Matsunaka hit at least 15 home runs in person over the last 3 years. This is not an exaggeration.
- Munenori Kawasaki went 4-for-5, had a walk too, and a stolen base, and one of his hits was a badass triple off the wall in the rightfield corner that probably missed being a home run by about 2 meters. He scored 3 of the 12 runs for his team, too.
- Hitoshi Tamura went 3-for-4 with 3 RBI, basically hitting in a run every time he got a hit. And he was taken out of the game in the 6th inning at that. He's scary when not injured.
- I gotta tell you that another thing I have lost count of is how many teams I have seen Roberto Petagine play for at this point, but I am fairly sure I have now seen him get a hit in at least 5 different uniforms.
Ah, whatever. The stupid thing is, the Fighters ouendan really wanted to do the Tokyo Dome chance theme, but the Fighters couldn't get anyone on base, so we basically just sang it through the entire 9th inning for the heck of it, despite the team being down 12-0.
The stadium was PACKED with Softbank employees. It seems that Softbank gave free tickets or discounted tickets to their Tokyo-area employees and also gave them a bag with a yellow Hawks flag and a black Hawks jersey and cheer sticks and whatnot in it -- so when I showed up, there were a ton of these Softbank people in their suits, carrying briefcases and the Hawks gear bags. It was nuts though, they filled up over half the stadium; even the 2nd floor was opened for the overflow of Softbank people. Enough of them sat on the 1st base side that several people remarked "This doesn't really feel like a Fighters home game, does it?"
(I later confirmed this with a friend who works at Softbank; he said he'll be at Wednesday's game.)
Apparently the Softbank CEO was there as well as Sadaharu Oh, but I think I got there too late to see either of them, and when I did arrive I was too busy trying to get food and pinbadges and everything done in time for the game to start. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I can get there before the start at all, really; a lot of the people I knew at the game had to show up late after their work shifts.
Speaking of errands before the game, when I was going to get food in the concourse near home plate, I saw a familiar woman walking by, she nodded and smiled at me so I said hi to her in Japanese, she said hi back, we both kept walking, and it wasn't until about two minutes later I realized HEY WAIT A MINUTE THAT WAS HICHORI MORIMOTO'S MOM. Hichori's parents run a yakiniku restaurant and I've been there a whole bunch of times, so it was kind of cool that she remembered me.
The crazy groundskeeper who used to do funny crap during YMCA wasn't there yet again, and infact I'm not sure he was there at all this year. I wonder if he either got fired or told to tone it down or what.
After the game, I headed outside and walked around to home plate since I usually see a bunch of people I know out there, and this time was no different. After catching up for a bit, the Fighters mascot BB came out... with both of the Hawks mascots as well! A huge line formed to get photos taken with them. I thought about it for a bit and realized this might be my only chance to get a photo with the Hawks mascots -- I'm not sure when I will get back to the Yahoo Dome again if ever to be honest, but I have a feeling I won't be back there this year just due to all the other stuff I want to do.
So I waited in line for about 10 minutes, and fortunately wasn't cut off! My biggest worry was that they'd just say "Okay, sorry, no more photos" and leave. But they didn't.
I actually had no clue that the female hawk was named Honey until just now when I looked it up. I knew Harry the Hawk, but I usually have trouble keeping track of auxiliary mascots, especially when teams like Rakuten add 10 mascots every year.
I almost missed the start of this game because of Koshien -- Tsuruga Kehi just beat Tenri after a pretty nailbiting end. I was cheering for Kehi because I've actually been to Tsuruga, plus I saw them play last year at Koshien. (Unfortunately, they played against Teikyo, so I was cheering against them then, but I really liked their ace Yamada, who now plays for Orix.)
BS1 came into this game late, so I'm starting from the bottom of the first. I'll fill in the plays before this and the lineups in a bit. Trying to do this in a slightly more "sokuhou" style and less of a liveblog this time.
As always, feel free to ping me on IM/email/comments. I'm also in the japanesebaseball.com Koshien chatroom today.
Honda 2b Kensuke 2b Kawasaki ss Nioka dh Ortiz lf Inaba rf Kokubo 1b Shinji 1b Tamura rf Itoi cf Lee Bum-ho dh Koyano 3b "Wall" Hasegawa cf NAKATA SHO OMG lf Matsuda 3b Ohno c Tanoue c Kaneko! ss
Top of the first (F 0, H 0) Groundout to third, single to right, 6-4-3 double play. I didn't see it.
Bottom of the first (F 0, H 0) Kensuke hits a pop fly to center. (empty, 1 out) Nioka grounds out to short. (empty, 2 out) Inaba singles to right! (1st, 2 out) Shinji strikes out. (3 out)
Top of the second (F 0, H 0) Kokubo grounds out to short. (empty, 1 out) Tamura also grounds out to short. (empty, 2 out) Lee strikes out swinging. (3 out)
Bottom of the second (F 0, H 0) Itoi strikes out. (empty, 1 out) Koyano hits a pop fly to right. (empty, 2 out) Nakata strikes out. (3 out)
Top of the third (F 0, H 0) Hasegawa grounds out to short. (empty, 1 out) Matsuda fouls off a ton before striking out. (empty, 2 out) Tanoue grounds out to short. (3 out)
Wow, this game is going really fast -- it's only 1:39pm. Second Koshien game hasn't even started yet.
Bottom of the third (F 1, H 0) Ohno hits a pop fly to center. (empty, 1 out) Kaneko HITS A HOME RUN INTO THE FIRST FEW ROWS OF THE LEFT-FIELD STANDS!!!!!! 1-0!!! (empty, 1 out) Kensuke grounds to second, but it's deep and the play isn't in time!!! SAFE! (1st, 1 out) Kensuke steals second during Nioka's at-bat when Tanoue drops the ball : (2nd, 1 out) Nioka hits a sharp liner to 1st, which Kokubo dives for and runs back to the bag in time. Kensuke to third. (3rd, 2 out) Inaba walks on four straight pitches!!! (1st and 3rd, 2 out) Shinji... unfortunately, pops out foul and Tanoue makes the catch. (3 out)
Still, Kaneko!!! Hooray!!!
Top of the fourth (F 1, H 0) Honda hits a low pop fly to center. (empty, 1 out) Kawasaki grounds out to second. (empty, 2 out) Ortiz grounds out to third. (3 out)
Bottom of the fourth (F 1, H 0) Itoi golfs one up to center. (empty, 1 out) Koyano singles to right!! (1st, 1 out) Nakata hits a pop fly out to second. (1st, 2 out) Ohno hits a pop fly to right. (3 out)
HEY OUENDAN, WHY DO WE NOT HAVE A SONG FOR OHNO? NO, REALLY?
Top of the fifth (F 1, H 0) Kokubo lines out to third, GREAT grab by Koyano! (empty, 1 out) Tamura hits a pop fly, caught by Kensuke. (empty, 2 out) Lee hits a pop fly out to Inaba. (3 out) (Lee first hit this one HUGE shot that fortunately was JUST foul. Whew.)
Bottom of the fifth (F 1, H 0) Kaneko strikes out :( (empty, 1 out) Kensuke hits a pop fly out to left. (empty, 2 out) Nioka hits a foul and... it's caught. (3 out)
Top of the sixth (F 1, H 0) Hasegawa grounds out to short. (empty, 1 out) Matsuda grounds out to short too. (empty, 2 out) Tanoue ALSO grounds out to short! (3 out)
Bottom of the sixth (F 1, H 0) Inaba hits a pop fly out to right. (empty, 1 out) Shinji hits a grounder to second and Honda makes a nice play on it. (empty, 2 out) Itoi hits a foul fly caught by Matsuda. (3 out)
Is it REALLY already time for Izayuke Wakataka Gundan? 2:34pm...
Top of the seventh (F 1, H 1) Honda ...bunts? to the pitcher and is out. (empty, 1 out) Kawasaki grounds right to first, unassisted. (empty, 2 out)
Pitcher switch: Shintaro Ejiri replaces Masaru Takeda on the mound. Not really sure why as Masaru only threw 74 pitches, but...
Ortiz... singles to left on a full count after Ejiri throws like 3 pitches way the hell outside. Doh. (1st, 2 out) Kokubo doubles to right and.... and... and Ortiz scores oh crap. 1-1. Tamura grounds out to Kaneko. (3 out)
Sigh. Ejiri, you make me sad. :( 8 groundouts to Kaneko today, pretty crazy.
Bottom of the seventh (F 1, H 1) Koyano hits a pop fly out to center. (empty, 1 out) Nakata strikes out swinging. (empty, 2 out) Ohno singles to left!!!! (1st, 2 out) Kaneko grounds out. Doh. (3 out)
Top of the eighth (F 1, H 1) HOORAY! YOSHINORI TATEYAMA TAKES THE MOUND FOR THE FIGHTERS! I WILL NOW PUT A TOWEL OVER MY HEAD.
Lee walks. (1st, no out) Pinch-runner - Kenji Akashi replaces Bum-Ho Lee at first. Hasegawa comes up bunting and is successful eventually, Tateyama making the play. (2nd, 1 out) Matsuda strikes out. (2nd, 2 out) Tanoue strikes out too! (3 out)
Thank you, Tateyama :) (Uh, why is the stadium organ playing "Do the Hustle"?)
Bottom of the eighth (F 1, H 1) Kensuke hits a pop fly out to left. (empty, 1 out) Nioka doubles into the gap in left-center!!!! (2nd, 1 out) Pinch-runner - Toshimasa Konta replaces Tomohiro Nioka at 2nd.
Pitching change: Tadashi Settsu replaces Kenji Ohtonari on the mound. "Kita no kuni kara" chance music for Inaba. Let's see what he can do with it...
Inaba strikes out :( (2nd, 2 out) Shinji grounds out to the mound. (3 out)
Grr. This is what I get for saying the game is fast. Koshien's second game finished, Hanasaki won 4-0. Next up is Nichidai-san...
Top of the ninth (F 1, H 1) Pitching change: Naoki Miyanishi replaces Tateyama on the mound.
Honda strikes out. (empty, 1 out) Kawasaki also strikes out! (empty, 2 out) Ortiz hits the ball to center and OMG ITOI ITOI ITOI AMAZING BUCKET CATCH!!!!! (3 out)
Come on Fighters -- let's end this game!
Bottom of the ninth (F 1, H 1) Player changes: Ryuma Kidokoro takes over in center and Hasegawa moves to left. Settsu is still pitching.
Itoi grounds out to second. (empty, 1 out) Koyano walks on four straight pitches. (1st, 1 out) Nakata gets up to a full count and walks on a pitch that nearly hits him in the head. (1st and 2nd, 1 out) Pinch-runner: Kazuya Murata runs at 1st for Sho Nakata. Tsuboi pinch-hits for Ohno... and gets hit in the leg! Runners advance! (Bases loaded, 1 out) Kaneko ... oh the suspense. Gets up to 2-0, then a few fouls later is 2-2, then a waaaay outside pitch for 3-2... come on!
....
...
4-2-3 DOUBLE PLAY. Inning over.
Oh geez. This SUCKS.
Top of the tenth (F 1, H 1) Player changes: Murata in left, Tsuruoka catching, and Brian Wolfe is going to pitch.
Kokubo hits a long fly ball to Itoi. (empty, 1 out) Tamura hits a fly ball to right. (empty, 2 out) Akashi grounds out to short. (3 out)
Brian Wolfe hit 151 km/h and they got excited about it. Also I am amused that Hitoshi Tamura changed his name spelling so now it's the same as Toshihisa Nishi's last name (仁志).
Bottom of the tenth (F 1, H 1) Brian Falkenborg takes over pitching for Tadashi Settsu.
Kensuke strikes out. (empty, 1 out) Konta singles to right!! (1st, 1 out) Konta steals second during Inaba's at-bat. (2nd, 1 out) Inaba hits a pop fly out to left. (2nd, 2 out) Shinji strikes out. (3 out)
Top of the eleventh (F 1, H 2) Pitching change: Hisashi Takeda takes over for Brian Wolfe.
Hasegawa hits a pop fly out to Itoi. (empty, 1 out) Matsuda hits a home run to straightaway centerfield, it goes "thunk" in the aisle between Fighters fans and bounces back onto the field. Argh, 2-0 Tanoue grounds out to second. (empty, 2 out) Honda grounds out too. Whatever.
Bottom of the eleventh (F 1, H 2) Uh, Mahara is in for the Hawks.
Itoi grounds out to second. (1 out) Koyano hits a pop fly to center. (2 out) Murata groundout to second, game over.
Screw this, I'm going to watch Koshien for a bit. No, that means I'm not watching the hero interview or anything else.
Feel free to ping me in comments or on email/IM if you want to chat about the game!
Wow, didn't realize Darvish and Sugiuchi had the same W/L record last year. It's funny given that Sugiuchi is barely bigger than me.
Weird to see an opening day lineup for the Hawks without Nobuhiko Matsunaka on it, but he's still recovering from knee surgery and working out in the minors. Poor guy.
Top of the first (F 0, H 0) Honda strikes out swinging. Kawasaki catches an outside pitch on his bat and lines out to short. Ortiz strikes out swinging too!
Nice start for Darvish!
Bottom of the first (F 0, H 0) Kensuke grounds out to second. Nioka hits a pop fly out to right (caught at second). Inaba fouls a few off before striking out.
(It's nice to see that the crowd still does the clapping to Sky High for Nioka.)
Top of the second (F 0, H 2) Kokubo leads off with a single to right... and Tamura follows it up with a single to center past a diving Kaneko, Kokubo going to second. Lee bunts up the right side, advancing the runners. Hasegawa grounds to first and... and Shinji can't get ahold of the ball, and by the time he's got it under control, all runners are safe, Kokubo scoring on the error. 1-0. Matsuda grounds to short -- Kaneko to Kensuke is an out at second but Matsuda slides in headfirst at first base ahead of the tag (ugh, I hate headfirst slides, though at least his, he slid onto his stomach instead of just reaching out with his fingers). Tamura scores, 2-0. Tanoue... well, the first pitch bounces in the dirt and Tsuruoka can't block it, so Matsuda is off to second base. Anyway, Tanoue eventually hits a high pop fly that is caught by Kensuke Tanaka to end the inning.
Ow.
It's 1:30pm and I just put in my laundry, so I have to remember to go add fabric softener at 2:10pm.
Bottom of the second (F 0, H 2) Shinji leads off with a single to center. Itoi grounds one up the middle, off Sugiuchi's glove, and Kawasaki dives to get it and, while still on the ground, without even transferring the ball out of his glove, flicks the ball to Honda at 2nd to get Shinji on a fielder's choice. Koyano... well, during Koyano's at-bat Sugiuchi makes a pickoff throw and totally catches Itoi with a huge lead, so a rundown ensues and Itoi is out. Anyway, Koyano eventually grounds out to second to end the inning.
Top of the third (F 0, H 3) Honda strikes out swinging, dropped third pitch thrown to first. Kawasaki singles to center. Ortiz... watches Kawasaki steal second, and then strikes out swinging. Kokubo singles to left and Nakata throws the ball in but it's way over the plate, so Kawasaki scores and Kokubo makes it to second. 3-0.Tamura strikes out swinging to end the inning.
I don't really blame Sho Nakata for that one -- Kawasaki was already off running on the hit, it would have probly been pretty hard for most people actually make that an out at the plate.
Wow, look at Kokubo strutting around with that big "C" on his uniform.
Bottom of the third (F 1, H 3) Sho Nakata strikes out swinging. Tsuruoka grounds out to third. Kaneko singles to center! Yay! Kensuke walks, so there are two on. Nioka singles to left! Kaneko scores!! 3-1 Two runners on still! Inaba JUMP! lines out to third :(
Still, we got a run! Hooray.
Top of the fourth (F 1, H 3) Lee got hit by a pitch but I was putting in fabric softener so I didn't see where. Hasegawa bunted him up. Matsuda strikes out. Tanoue hits a pop fly out to center.
They keep showing flashbacks to Akiyama and Nashida as players, it's kinda wacky.
Bottom of the fourth (F 1, H 3) Shinji strikes out. Itoi singles to right! Koyano doubles to center, and Itoi goes to third! Nakata Sho walks, and the bases are loaded! Tsuruoka strikes out, sadly. Kaneko... grounds out up the first-base line, Sugiuchi throwing the ball to first. Argh. :(
Top of the fifth (F 1, H 4) Honda hits a pop fly out to center, but Kawasaki singles to center. Kawasaki steals second AGAIN during Ortiz's atbat. Ortiz strikes out, whew. Kokubo doubles to center, over Itoi and hitting the back wall, and Kawasaki scores easily. 4-1. Tamura strikes out! Whew.
It has just been brought to my attention that the Giants are CLOBBERING the Baystars over at the Tokyo Dome right now -- it's the 6th inning and the Giants are already up 15-1 -- Daisuke "Hama no Bancho" Miura started for Yokohama and gave up 14 runs (9 earned) in 4 innings. Holy crap. That's two home runs apiece for Sakamoto and Ogasawara and Yoshinobu, as well as one each for Edgar Gonzalez and Shinnosuke Abe.
On the other hand, I will point out that Bancho has one terrible game EVERY pre-season IIRC -- I was there when he was down 10-1 after 4 innings at Jingu last year, but he came back to have a reasonable year. Good to get it out of his system before it counts, right?
Bottom of the fifth (F 1, H 4) Kensuke hits a pop fly out to center. Nioka singles to left! Inaba hits a pop fly out to left. Shinji grounds out to second to end the inning. Doh.
Time for YMCA! Hey, it's actually English words instead of Hideki Saijo's "Youngman"... wacky.
Top of the sixth (F 1, H 4) Lee strikes out. Hasegawa grounds out to third. Matsuda grounds out.
Great, it's time for La La La Fighters, the Fukuhara Miho pop song that was really grating on me last year, but after a winter of getting semi-decent at singing it at karaoke, I don't hate it nearly as much (but still vastly prefer Hayami Kentaro's "Fighters Spirits", the Kamagaya song). Fortunately, BS1 saves us from the song by showing highlights of the game.
Bottom of the sixth (F 3, H 4) Itoi walks and Koyano singles to center! Sho Nakata almost gets hit in the foot with a pitch, the pitch bounces in the dirt and both runners advance on it. Anyway, NAKATA SINGLES TO LEFT!!! and both runners score and the organ plays Popeye the Sailor Man for some reason and whatever, I'll take it. 4-3! Kazuya Murata pinch-runs for Sho Nakata at first base. Tsuruoka comes up bunting and is successful, Murata to second! And finally some Genghis Khan chance music! Hooray. Kaneko hits a grounder up the first-base line, and Kokubo makes a nice dive to get it and back to the base in time for the out, Murata advancing to third. Kensuke... grounds out to short :(
Time for Izayuke Wakataka Gundan, the Hawks theme, except again, BS1 cuts away from it. Teehee.
I would like to say right now that seriously -- you know how I spent two years making fun of Sho Nakata and all -- but if he's going to actually continue working his butt off and stop being such a jackass this year, I will support him. It's nice to see him grow up, basically.
Top of the seventh (F 3, H 4) Tanoue strikes out. Honda also strikes out. Kawasaki barely misses a grounder to right that goes just foul, and then hits a grounder to third instead that Koyano snags and gets to first just in time. Three down!
Bottom of the seventh (F 3, H 4) Pitching change: Sugiuchi out, Tadashi Settsu in.
Nioka singles to center! Inaba JUMP!!! shakes the centerfield cameras -- and Inaba himself strikes out :( Shinji sadly hits into a 4-6-3 double play and that ends the inning.
Oh, I forgot to mention this, but during the earlier innings, finalized plans to go to Koshien next week for Senbatsu! (with Shinigami from the japanesebaseball.com forums.) We'll be there on Tuesday and Wednesday and part of Thursday! If you're going or live in the Osaka area and want to hang out and chat baseball, drop me a line!
Top of the eighth (F 3, H 4) Darvish is up to 118 pitches but is apparently continuing to pitch... 11 strikeouts already!
Ortiz hits a pop fly out to right. Kokubo strikes out! That's 12! Tamura grounds to short, Kaneko throws the ball to first, but it bounces in the ground and Shinji can't get it and hold onto it for the out, so Tamura is safe. Not sure if that's a shortstop error or a first baseman error (probly the former). Lee hits a high pop fly and Kensuke makes the catch to end the inning.
Anyone want to take bets on when Tamura gets injured for the first time this season, by the way?
And the other PL games are OVER: Seibu beats Lotte 2-1. Naruse had a no-no into the 6th inning, lost it and lost the game (two solo homers by Hiroyuki Nakajima and Dee Brown, apparently), and even BETTER, Brian Sikorski made the save against his former team. Eat THAT, Lotte front office! The Buffaloes beat Rakuten 1-0. Man, that's harsh. Poor Iwakuma. He and Chihiro Kaneko both went the distance, Iwakuma throwing 107 pitches and Kaneko 106; the only RBI was on a Keiji Ohbiki hit. Hosei pride, yo.
Bottom of the eighth (F 3, H 4) Brian Falkenborg takes over on the mound for the Hawks.
Itoi hits a grounder up the first base line. Kokubo throws it to Falkenborg, but Falk and Itoi both reach the bag at the same time and the tie seems to go to Itoi for an infield hit. Koyano sadly strikes out. Kazuya Murata! comes up to bat and scoops one out of nowhere, loops it to third, where it JUST bounces out of Matsuda's glove, for a hit. And here's pinch-hitting Tsuboi, who we saw in the on-deck circle a bit ago!!! But rather than the Tsuboi fanfare they're playing the Kita no Kuni Kara chance theme. Anyway, Tsuboi... grounds up the right-field line. Kokubo gets the ball and throws to second in time to get Murata, but the relay back to first is not in time to catch Tsuboi (Falkenborg comes in to cover, and collides with Kokubo). So, runners at the corners for Kaneko... who unfortunately hits a pop fly out to right. Doh.
Top of the ninth (F 3, H 5) Darvish is still out there pitching. Shota Ohno has taken over the catching duties for the Fighters.
Hasegawa strikes out (there's number 13). Matsuda hits a biiiiiig one out there to the gap in right-center and makes it all the way around to third for a triple, yikes. Tanoue hits a pop fly to right but the relay is not in time... so it's a sacrifice and Matsuda scores, 5-3. Honda hits a fly out to left to end the inning.
Last chance... it'll be pretty sad if Darvish throws a complete game and strikes out 13 and still loses, really.
Bottom of the ninth (F 3, H 5) Closer Takahiro Mahara is in for the Hawks.
Kensuke hits a pop fly to short. Nioka grounds out to second. So it's down to Inaba... Inaba strikes out and that's the game, Hawks win it 5-3.
How sad.
Kokubo is the game hero. "How do you feel right now? Good opening game?" "Well... uhh... there are 143 more games after this, but sure, it's nice to win the opener. Getting 5 runs off of Darvish is pretty damn good for us, too."
Two screenshots (well, camera shots of the TV...)
Hello, Mr. Captain, sir.
Final score, with the Kokubo banner in the Hawks stands.
I would like to humbly submit that Kawasaki is equally responsible for Kokubo being game hero, as Kokubo doesn't get those RBIs if Kawasaki doesn't get on base, steal second, and run his butt off to home on the Kokubo hits. I mean, yeah, Kokubo did score the first Hawks run of the game, I'm just saying.
Tomorrow's game is on BS1 again, but I'm not sure whether I'll live blog or not.
After all of the ups and downs in the last week or two with the Pacific League race, with the Rakuten Eagles charging into the fray and the Fighters having their losing streak a few weeks ago, a lot of people were expecting the Fighters to finally clinch first place this weekend. (I had a bunch of friends who went to Fukuoka last weekend thinking they'd clinch there too, though.)
Thanks to the generosity of the Netsuenkai, a Fighters cheering group in Hokkaido, I got to go to both games over the weekend (October 3rd and 4th) and sit in the Fighters cheering section in left field. They buy a whole bunch of season passes all together and then switch them between people for different games and all just sit in the same general area, so they just lent me one of the passes for the two days.
UNFORTUNATELY, thanks to the Rakuten-Softbank game on Friday night getting cancelled due to rain, the Fighters COULDN'T possibly clinch 1st place on Sunday. After the wins on Saturday and Sunday, the "magic number" was reduced to 1, but no, I didn't get to see the victory doage (throwing people up in the air), which was really too bad.
So, one of my goals for the weekend was to get the rest of the Fighters metal pin set. I've talked about it on here a few times before as "collecting pinbadges" -- this year's set looks like this. Going into the weekend I was missing, of the normal regular players, Hayashi, Miyanishi, Masaru, Yamamoto, Nakajima, Oda, Satoh, Nakashima. Of the not-normal player pins I was missing Jimenez, Nashida, BB, and Cubby. However, the Jimenez pin is apparently super-rare (I never even saw one until this weekend), and Nashida and the mascots are also considered rare pins.
You may be wondering how one acquires these pins. Well, it happens in the following ways:
- (normal) When you come to a Fighters home game, you can present your fan club member card at a specific place and they give you a random pin just for coming to the game, for free. (It's called a 来場ピンバッジ.) - (normal) At a Fighters home game, if you are a fan club member, you can buy up to 5 gachapon (capsule machine) coins, for 200 yen each, and then you go to the capsule machines, where you put in your coin and turn the crank, and then a staff member takes out the capsule and opens it for you. (Not sure why, maybe just to make sure the capsules get recycled.) These are also random. - (kind of normal) Trading with your friends, if you have other friends who collect them. - (normal if you live in Sapporo) Trading with total strangers at the Trading Area in the Sapporo Dome before a Fighters game. - (not normal) Having people randomly give you a ton of their extra pinbadges.
In other words, I went to Sapporo with around 10 pins, wanted to come back with 8 different pins, ended up coming back with around 60 pins as a result of the above -- not only did people give me a ton of extra pins, but I also went around trading like a madman. I got my remaining normal pins pretty quickly -- then it took me forever to get Nashida and BB and Cubby, because people had written out complicated conditions for what they would trade various pins for. There seemed to be three categories: Rare pins, which they would only trade 1-for-1 for other rare pins, Popular pins, which they would trade mostly for each other or for several commons, and Common pins, which nobody seemed to really care that much about. Popular pins were basically most of the starting members and ichi-gun regulars, and commons were mostly ni-gun players that half the people in Hokkaido have never seen play anyway.
This area is pretty much in the lower floor, under the right-field stands, and at least before weekend games, it's insanely crowded. Some people sit there with their pins and other stuff out on display, and others walk around trying to haggle with these people. There's no money involved, it's all trading stuff for other stuff that people are collecting.
I don't even know if this area is official or not, but it's been there every time I have been, so at least this time I knew what to expect.
The traders might be young people or old people.
Some of them have very organized displays of what they have and what they want.
Some guys even have pins dating back to 2004 when the Fighters first moved to Sapporo. I got an Imanari 2006 from this particular guy... for a Sledge 2009.
People will also trade other things like baseball cards and other Fighters collectibles like figurines and the helmet keychains and whatnot.
I don't know which is worse: that I spent around a half an hour a day trading pins or looking at people's pins and other stuff, or that I'm actually good enough at Japanese now to hit the trading floor successfully.
It is also kind of interesting to see the obvious disparity in which fringe players are popular in Kanto vs. Sapporo. For example, for the most part, you will not see a lot of Naoto Inada jerseys in the Kanto area. Yuji Iiyama has much the same status, though with a few more fans only because he's been around with the team a bit longer. Toshimasa Konta, on the other hand, has a decent chunk of fans in both locales. And Tomochika Tsuboi might actually be more popular in Kanto than in Sapporo.
The way this becomes obvious is by which pins and collectibles are rated as more valuable than others. It surprised me quite a bit to see Inada pins considered valuable, while Ejiri pins weren't considered much at all. (Shintaro Ejiri has a lot of fans in Kanto, he goes back to the Tokyo Dome era plus a lot of us watched him rehab and retool himself at Kamagaya last year.)
And in Sapporo, pretty much nobody cares that much about players who have spent almost their entire career at ni-gun. I met another girl with an Imanari jersey with his name in kanji like mine, and we were both pretty shocked of the other's existence. (She gave me an Imanari pin just for the heck of it -- "No, I don't need anything in return, I have about ten of them, people always give me their pins too.") I got a Yohei Kaneko 2007 pin for free too -- I'm really, really bummed that he isn't going to be with the Fighters next year. REALLY bummed.
Oh yeah, this is some other thing that was going on -- you could get some kind of special stuff by aiming your cellphone cameras at barcodes all over the stadium, as part of the au/KDDI promotion going on, but I didn't have time to do it because I was so busy talking to people or trading things or whatever.
See, that was one of the really crazy things about going to the Sapporo Dome this time. The first time I went there was early in the 2008 season, and I knew nobody and ended up sitting in the infield for two games and mostly had people looking at me like "Why is there a white girl here?"
This time, almost anywhere I went in the stadium, I ran into people I know from my Fighters trips all over the country. I said hello to a few ouendan members, who are now so used to seeing me all over the country that it wasn't a huge surprise for me to be in Sapporo. The friends that arranged to lend me a season pass for two days introduced me to almost everybody in the vicinity of Aisle 99, several of whom said "Oh, I've seen you on TV before!" and seemed to regard me as some kind of minor celebrity, which was kind of odd.
Worse, people kept giving me presents. I got an Inaba flexboard, a bunch of chocolates, some oranges, some other snacks, some Fighters mini-helmet keychains, the aforementioned pinbadges, a red baseball cap that was part of the "hot final series" promotion, a Netsuenkai hand towel ("Now you're one of us"), etc. I felt terrible because all I had brought with me from Tokyo was a single box of Tokyo Banana cookies to give people. I did give some people pins of their favorite players if I had them, but considering I had received the pins as a present in the first place, I'm not sure that counts.
As for Saturday's game itself, the Fighters started tearing into Yuta Ohmine in the first inning. Sledge hit a 3-run homer to put the team up 3-0, and in the second inning, Makoto Kaneko hit a 2-run homer to go up 5-0. Ohmine came out of the game with the bases loaded after that, and Hiroki Ueno (!!!!!) took over on the mound for him. Ueno allowed all of Ohmine's runners to score, but none of his own scored, so it was 8-0 by the end of the 2nd inning.
The Marines got a run off of Fighters starter Tomoya Yagi in the 3rd inning; it was actually scored during a bases-loaded double play. But that was all they would score for the day, and Yagi eventually pitched a perfect game.
Shingo Ono threw 5 innings for the Marines, and Makoto Kaneko hit a 3-run homer off him, his second of the day, as the Fighters won the game 11-1.
Kaneko and Yagi were the game heroes.
Also, there was of course quite a bit of a post-game party on both sides of the field. Before the hero interviews, everyone yelled "BOBBY!!", and Bobby came out to bow to the Marines fans in the right-field stands... and then the Fighters fans also yelled to him so he walked towards us and also tipped his hat to the Fighters outfield. Nashida came out and they shook hands as well.
After the hero interviews (during which Kaneko even said, "You know, Sledge hit the go-ahead homer in the first inning, why am I out here instead of him?") we got to do the ouenka exchange again, just like in Chiba!
This time, I think the Fighters ouendan was a lot better prepared. Unfortunately, there was a stupid loudspeaker guy talking for half of it so the sound quality isn't really that great, but you can still see the wackiness of Fighters fans singing Marines songs, of course.
After the first round of "Let's go Marines" and "Ganbare Fighters", we started yelling "BOBBY! BOBBY!" They responded with a cheer of "NASHIDA! NASHIDA!" So we... started doing Fukuura's cheer song. From their side of the stands, we heard the strains of the Tsuboi fanfare ("PL.. Aogaku...") and the Tsuboi cheer song. So we responded in kind with Iwao Ohmura's call ("Old McDonald" but with a chorus of "I-WA-I-WA-OOHHHH"). They replied with the Inaba Jump.
So we were doing the Tsuyoshi Nishioka cheer song, and the responding tune from the right-field stands was the Yukio Tanaka cheer song. We came back with a "Let's go Marines", waited for a bit, and then they started playing our Fighters "sanka". And the space on my camera ran out, which is why it doesn't go that far into it. Oops.
Seriously, the Marines seem to be the only other team that we were doing that with this year. I was at the "last game" for the Hawks, Eagles, and Lions, and none of them did anything at all like this. Whether it's just because our fanbases are closer, or our ouendans are cooler, who knows, but either way, it was a lot of fun both times.
After the game I went to Hillman's Hangout with a few other fans. We ate nachos and drank beer and, well, hung out.
Onwards to Sunday...
I showed up at the Dome at around 11am, and spent a bit of time shopping for souvenirs and whatnot. Lined up with my friends a little before noon. We managed to be fairly far back in line, but we were right outside the indoor line waiting area, so when BB came by, one of my friends insisted on taking a photo of me with BB (I protested, saying I had several photos with him already, but I guess they didn't believe me.)
Then I went into the Dome and spent an hour or two doing the normal pre-game stuff like saying hello to people and trading pins and whatever. (This was the day I was given two huge bags of pins, and also the day I managed to do most of my better trades.)
I remembered that Inaba bento boxes actually sell out, so I also bought one early. It seems to have changed a bit from last year, but was still pretty good (especially the wide noodles, which were delicious).
A little bit before the game, we were, uh, "treated" to a pregame concert by Miho Fukuhara, the girl who sings "La La La Fighters". The song has really not grown on me at all this year, and I hope they go back to the Hayami Kentaro stuff next year, seriously.
Kensuke Tanaka went and gave her flowers afterwards. How cute.
Anyway, the Sunday game featured Kenji Ohtonari starting for the Hawks, and Masaru Takeda for the Fighters. While the Hawks scored the first run in the 3rd inning, the Fighters came back with a 4-run 4th inning, most of which were unearned. Sledge grounded to the mound with 2 outs and Kokubo dropped the ball at first so Sledge was safe on the error. Koyano singled, Nioka walked, and so the bases were loaded -- and Tsuruoka also walked, scoring Sledge for the tying 1-1 run. Kaneko hit a single to center which scored Koyano, 2-1, and then Kensuke Tanaka hit a single which scored Nioka and Tsuruoka, making it 4-1. Akio Mizuta came in to pitch and got a groundout to end it.
The Hawks would put one more run on in the 7th inning as Munenori Kawasaki (batting 9th?!) singled and then Matsuda hit a ball to left which went off Koyano's glove and ended up being a double, moving Kawasaki to third. Kawasaki scored on a squeeze bunt by Honda.
And that was it. The Fighters won the game 4-2, and Masaru Takeda was the game hero.
I ended up riding a bus to the airport with two other Kanto fans after that, since we were all flying back to Tokyo that evening.
In the airport, we got Jingisukan, or "Genghis Khan", another kind of Japanese food where you prepare raw meat at your table, but this is on a dome-shaped metal griddle instead of a normal grill or griddle. It's very popular in Hokkaido, enough so that the Hokkaido-only Fighters chance music is to the tune of that "Dschingis Khan" song, even.
It was really good, anyway, and a pretty sweet way to end the weekend.
Well, aside from us spending most of dinner lamenting that we came all the way to Hokkaido and didn't get to see them clinch 1st place, and whining about how hard it is to get tickets to the postseason. :)
But other than that...
No, it was a great weekend all around. I love Sapporo.
(Would you believe, I never actually finished/posted my entry about last year's japanesebaseball.com meetup at Chiba? I think I'm going to basically do that, backdate and all, and add a link here.)
Anyway, last year in mid-September, six of us took over a picnic table at Chiba Marine for an exciting long nailbiting Hawks-Marines game where the Hawks managed to tie the game in the later innings and then the Marines managed to squeak ahead 8-7 in the bottom of the 9th. It was Satoru Komiyama's birthday and he almost got a 4-pitch win. Alas.
This year, four of us took over a row in the upper deck and hung out for a similar Hawks-Marines game, only this time Naruse was awesome but the Marines couldn't score enough runs for him and the Hawks ended up tying the game 2-2 in the 9th and it stayed that way until the bitter end. We seem destined to have these long Hawks-Marines games for the JBC days for whatever reason.
Before the game, Michael Westbay (aka the Commish) showed up pretty early and was talking to players and hanging out on the field. I showed up at 5, around the same time as Steve from We Love Marines. We went into the stadium backstage as a gaijin brigade. I saw Jose Ortiz and said hello and told him I saw him hit the two home runs in Fukuoka. No, I didn't mention that I was in the Fighters cheering section.
Speaking of the gaijin brigade, by the way, when I woke up this morning and looked at Yahoo Sports, the big breaking news was that Jeff Williams has left Japan and the Tigers. I mention this only because one of my favorite moments at Chiba ever was getting to talk to Jeff last summer during interleague -- he's just an all-around nice guy who had a really good career here in Japan for a while. I wish the best of luck to him in whatever happens next, at any rate.
Back to the game at hand, half of the point of us being at Chiba for this game was for Westbay to get a last chance to chat with the Chiba crew like Paul Pupo and Frank Ramppen, and of course, with Bobby. He hadn't seen Bobby yet, so I suggested we just barge into Bobby's office, which worked wonderfully; we arrived at about the same time as one of his staff members who was carrying a ton of baseballs for Bobby to sign, so he had time to chat with us while signing the baseballs. One amusing thing that came out of the conversation was that apparently every time Westbay sees Tadahito Iguchi play, he's hitting doubles and RBIs, but Bobby knows the ACTUAL splits on Iguchi and gave Westbay some stats homework to do.
For the record, my question of the day for Bobby was: "It's my boyfriend Shunsuke Watanabe's birthday today, why isn't he starting?" (The answer, effectively: "I have a rotation, you know.")
We went back towards the dugout a bit, where we ran into Larry Rocca, and so Larry took Steve onto the field to say hi to people and whatnot. Westbay and I hung back in the hallway talking to a few people before heading to the upper deck, where Simon had already arrived and was saving seats for us. I kept an eye out for Shunsuke to wish him a happy birthday, but alas. I thought about taking a few photos of warmups, but then Takumi Kohbe stared right at me and I froze. Some things never change, I guess.
Oh, two notable things happened on my way up to the upper deck:
1) The Lotteria was out of Bobby Burgers. I was worried that they had simply stopped selling them, which would be a royal WTF, but the girls at the counter assured me that they had simply run out of pineapples for the day or something to that effect.
It has the information about the game and the inning and bats from every guy who scored. What a cool way to remember a totally crazy game.
Anyway, we got to the upper deck, and Simon had saved us a really good row of seats, about 4 rows from the edge of the deck, behind first base:
I haven't watched a game from the upper deck in Chiba since sometime in late 2007, but this was a perfectly fine one to start with. The weather was fantastic and the stands weren't crowded at all, so it was possible to just stretch out and enjoy the game. Westbay and Steve had their big cameras with zoom lenses, and for once I didn't; I just had my Marines towel and flag and Bobby 2010 t-shirt and was prepared to yell for the Marines. (It's a lot easier when they're playing Softbank instead of the Fighters, you know.) I spent a while catching up with Simon and sharing travel stories.
In the meantime, Yoshihisa Naruse started for the Marines, and Shota Ohba started for the Hawks. Naruse's been remarkably good recently, while Ohba's been somewhat inconsistent, so it seemed promising enough.
The Marines were victims of some ridiculously good fielding by the Hawks -- a liner into Kokubo's stomach, an impossible basket catch by Nakanishi, a running catch by Hasegawa, a diving snag of a liner by Honda. The last one particularly was painful for me since it robbed Takumi Kohbe, getting a rare ichi-gun start, of what should have been a single to right but turned into a double play instead. And even worse, Ohmatsu got himself caught napping off second base and was nailed on a pickoff by Hawks catcher Hidenori Tanoue.
But the Marines finally put some runs on the board in the 4th inning, with a double to left by Ohmatsu and then -- of all people -- a double to right by Tadahito Iguchi, thus proving that Iguchi hits doubles and drives in runs when Westbay is watching. That made it 1-0, and Iguchi advanced on a groundout by Hashimoto, scoring on a sac fly by Kazuya Fukuura. 2-0.
Naruse REALLY stepped up for a few innings there -- he struck out 7 batters between the 2nd and 5th innings, and the Marines went into the Fireworks Fifth with a 2-run lead.
(They look so much better from the upper deck than from anywhere in the stadium, I swear.)
Naruse had 6 shutout innings going, but in the "Lucky 7th", Hitoshi Tamura, always a power threat when not injured, slammed a home run that was so far gone that left fielder Ohmatsu didn't even bother turning around or running at all -- he just sort of watched it sail over the fence, where it landed about 20 rows back. 2-1.
Nobuhiko Matsunaka made a pinch-hit appearance in the 8th inning -- we'd seen him taking practice swings before the game -- and he grounded out to third. As he ran past first base he took a weird stretch out and hit the bag at a weird angle, and ended up limping down the right-field line, eventually being walked off the field partway by the first base coach. I guess his knees are still having trouble.
With Naruse's total strikeout count for the day at 9, he stayed out there to pitch the 9th inning -- and the first batter Kokubo got a pretty solid single to left, so Bobby pulled Naruse and put in Sikorski. Steve was remarking that Sikorski was the only Lotte bullpen member to pitch in the last few games -- and as he was saying that, Tamura grounded out to short, pinch-runner Kidokoro forced out at second, but the relay wasn't on for a double play.
I said, "I have a bad feeling about this." Keep in mind that the last two or three times I've seen Sikorski pitch in person, he's blown a save, though the rest of the time he's been fantastic.
Brian then walked Yuya Hasegawa.
I started trying to basically not watch the game, was looking through my meikan for information about the various players, trying to remember where Akashi went to high school since I knew he was born in Hokkaido, things like that. I figured if I watched, I'd be a jinx.
And naturally, Akashi chose that moment to hit the ball to right field, into the corner, and as Takumi Kohbe chased it into the right field corner, I realized there was no way in heck that at least one run wasn't coming in, maybe two. Fortunately, it was only one as Hasegawa held up at third. 2-2. Brian struck out Tanoue (4th K of the day, ouch) and Kosai after that, but the damage was done.
Tadashi Settsu pitched the bottom of the 9th and aside from Iguchi singling by a weird bounce off the mound that went deep to short, the other three batters struck out. So at 9:25pm we went sailing on into extra innings.
Sikorski kept things under control in the top of the 10th, and Settsu was still out there for the bottom of the 10th. Daisuke Hayakawa singled, Kohbe bunted him up to second ("Big man, little bunt!" I laughed, having never seen Kohbe bunt before), and so Settsu intentionally walked Nishioka. Keisuke Hayasaka then hit this bizarre bloop hit that bounced out to shortstop and Munenori Kawasaki simply didn't have a play on it at all, so with no throw, the bases were loaded, and one out. A chance for Lotte! UNFORTUNATELY, Imae grounded out to second, the throw going home to catch Hayakawa from scoring, and then Ohmatsu struck out on a 3-2 pitch -- worse, a 3-2 pitch that looked kind of high and might have been an oshidashi winning run. Ouch.
There's not a lot to say about the last two innings. Tatsuya Uchi struck out 2 guys in the top of the 11th, then Takahiro Mahara came out to pitch for the Hawks and did his typical thing of giving up two hits but also striking out two guys to keep the Marines out in the 11th, and Itoh pitched the top of the 12th flawlessly (Tanoue reached base on his FIFTH strikeout of the day, though it was dropped, only to be erased on a double play a bit later).
Imae singled on a broken-bat awkward angle grounder to short where the throw drew the first baseman off the bag. Takehara pinch-ran and advanced to second on a wild pitch, but that's all there was as Ohmatsu grounded out to short to end the game with the final 2-2 tie.
Amusingly, every inning Heiuchi would come play catch with Kohbe in right field, so as the Marines cheering group was yelling the pitcher's name (ie, "Naruse! Naruse!") I started yelling "HEIUCHI! HEIUCHI!" Sadly, he never entered the game.
It was good to spend the game with Westbay and Steve and Simon, though. We're going to try to do this again sometime next month when Jan Blurr, our crazy German Koshien fan friend, comes to Japan for a few weeks. This time hopefully we can organize a bit better and get the word out more; I shouldn't be travelling halfway across the country, at the very least.
Steve and Simon and I took the bus back to the station and then it was a long journey back to civilization -- I didn't even get home until around 1am. But it was worth it to hang out with everyone again!
All of the photos on this site are taken by me unless otherwise indicated. I would appreciate it if you at least email me before you steal them. Thanks.
