Marinerds, etc.

Woohoo!


(Source photo here.)

Daisuke Miura is staying with the Yokohama Baystars!

It's not like I have as much emotionally invested in the Baystars like I do with the Fighters, but I did go to 14 Baystars games last year (and cheered for them at 11), and saw them play in every CL stadium in Japan. But after such a lousy season, and after they pretty much threw my favorite player Takuro Ishii out in the trash, and the idea of Miura leaving, I was beginning to wonder if I would ever come back to Yokohama to cheer. I like the stadium, and I'd miss Sign Guy and Westbay and Matt and all, but... no Takuro and no Bancho make Deanna something something.

But now, instead, I'm almost considering getting one of those newfangled Baystars jerseys with D. Miura 18 on the back, to replace my Takuro jersey.

I used to think Miura was just some wannabe ace who used way too much hair gel, but then I found out about all of the community service he does -- last year he even got a special service award for his work with sick kids in hospitals. There was one boy they showed on TV who was in a wheelchair and suffering from some terminal condition -- I forget what -- but Miura visited the boy many times in the hospital, even inviting him to come to Yokohama Stadium and play catch on the field before a game. He even went to the funeral when the boy died a few months later. Talk about a tearjerker.

And then seeing him work so hard this year despite how awful the Baystars were, you had to just feel for the guy.

He's always seemed to be so nice to fans, too. It's pretty much the exact opposite of what I expected the first time I saw him. Supposedly the main reason he stayed with Yokohama was the fan support, after spending all of the Fan Appreciation Day signing and chatting and taking photos and playing catch with the fans.

Besides, who else would post photos of the Baystars pitching staff in yukata on their blog? Just sayin'.

It's great that he'll finish out his career in Yokohama, or at least the next four years. They BETTER not just throw him away afterwards, though.

I am so totally going to get punched in the face for making this one, but I couldn't help it when I saw this photo on Sanspo...



I realize they're not exactly in the right positions for the joke. Whatever. The Dragons managed to actually beat the Tigers in the 3-game Central League first stage playoffs. The game was tied at 0-0 for what seemed like freaking forever until Kyuji accidentally gave Tyrone an offer he couldn't refuse, and BAM, 2-0. Crazy.

Also, the Rays and Phillies are playing in the World Series! Awesome! I am, of course, rooting for the Phillies. And in a weird twist of fate, at the new place I just moved into, I don't have internet, and I don't have very good reception for terrestrial TV stations, but I *do* have BS1 and BS2, which means I should actually be able to watch the World Series, assuming I wake up early enough, but I won't be able to blog it.

(Yeah, so I moved from the south butt-end of Saitama to the north butt-end of Tokyo; I'll be living there for the next month or so before I head back to America for 2-3 months for family reasons, and then I hope to return to Japan early next year for baseball season.)

It also means that my blog-updating is going to be even more sporadic over the next few weeks. Sorry. You should go read other blogs like the Tsubamegun, they've been on a mad updating rampage recently despite the Swallows crashing into a glass window this year.

I went to the Seibu Dome on Sunday and watched the Fighters win a game there for my first time EVER. Seriously. In 3 years of watching Fighters-Lions matches, I never managed to see the Fighters win. And boy, was this the right time for it. I do have an entry in the works about that game, hopefully I'll be able to finish it sometime, when I'm not going nuts finishing up my job or cleaning my old apartment or unpacking in my new place or trying to actually GO to more postseason games, like this coming Wednesday night at Seibu, when the Fighters will win the championship!

At the same time, on Wednesday night, the Dragons and Giants will start the Central League Second Stage. I wonder whether all those Tigers fans who bought up tickets will still go to the games, or whether there's suddenly going to be a whole bunch of tickets available at the resellers...

Pitch in for Pat.

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Regular content will resume here at 6pm EDT Thursday :)

I promise to write an actual coherent entry one of these days. Honest.

For now, I have another "hey, this picture I took kind of sucks, but let me add a caption to it" candidate for you all.

Third base coach Demarlo Hale, in the Red Sox dugout Tuesday night...



I really was trying to come up with an "invisible something" one, but nothing seemed quite right.

Hmm.

The Mariners swept the Red Sox today, winning this afternoon's game in eleven innings, and managing to screw up rush-hour traffic something awful. Ryan Feierabend ("Fear is the mind-killer. Feierabend is the rally-killer.") played to Safeco's strengths and pitched 5 scoreless innings; Matsuzaka pitched 8 innings of one-run ball, and a Sean Green throwing error is what caused the game to be tied at 1-1 for an eternity. In a somewhat appropriate outcome, Ichiro scored the winning run on an RBI double by Jose Lopez... hit off of former Mariners enigma Joel Pineiro.

On a mostly unrelated note, while looking for something else, I found this fantastic article by Michael Lewis about Mark Teahen and Steve Stanley, from two years ago, but still totally worth reading. I say mostly unrelated because the Royals also finished sweeping the Angels this afternoon, causing me to notice that John Buck has been raking lately, so now the question becomes, which Royal is going to be the token KC all-star? Will it be Mark "McDreamy" Teahen, or John "McSteamy" Buck, or Gil "McFourSeamy" Meche?

(don't blame me for those nicknames, blame Royals Review. I've never seen Grey's Anatomy or whatever. I do, however, think that Mark Teahen is dreamy.)

Okay, this is not my fault. Blame MetsGrrl for planting the idea in my head.

See, for the last two years I've been doing Friday Fotos by putting up random neat baseball pictures that I'd taken but that I hadn't had an excuse to put up before. NOW, I am armed with a mission of finding pictures that I hadn't put up before because I didn't think they were worth it... and adding silly internet meme captions to them. Ahh, Yuni and your invisible golf cart, you had no idea what you started.

This is a picture I took on May 1st when the White Sox were in town. It is Rob Mackowiak, which makes it even funnier, because it is a MACK-ro!

I have to admit I'm not entirely sure I get the meme, so I tried two separate tactics. Which do you think is better?





Yeah, so anyway, I'm heading to Pittsburgh later tonight, and I'll be back here on Sunday night. My trip is mostly for the purpose of watching my cousin get married. The Pirates are in town playing the White Sox, but my guess is that I'm not going to go to a game for two main reasons: one, some big golf event is going on right outside the city and it's supposedly sort of a mess around town, and two... the Pirates are coming to Seattle next week and I'm probably going to all three games of that series anyway. Three, I'm also betting my family will probably keep me pretty busy. Alas.