Marinerds, etc.

I've been a giant fan of Japanese college baseball since 2007, and when I was living in Japan I pretty much spent every weekend at the Tokyo Big 6 games, sitting in the front row taking photos with some friends, going outside and chatting up players after the games, getting photos with them and getting the photos I took of them autographed, and also bringing snacks for the players and jokingly offering to be everyone's English teacher.  This resulted in things like several years in a row, I had actually been out drinking with guys who got drafted, and other shenanigans.

Somewhere along the line I became somewhat obsessed with actually being there in person for a Tokyo University win again.  (I was there when they won a game in 2008, and I was there for a few ties.)  So I started prioritizing those games, and somehow my allegiance shifted from being well-known as a Hosei/Keio fangirl to a Todai fangirl.  It means I am not buddy-buddy with guys in the pros so much anymore, but the Todai guys are always the nicest, smartest, and most interesting ones anyway. Plus, since I've been working for Google for over seven years now, and we have a LOT of Todai grads, it has also been a running joke with a lot of my coworkers in the Tokyo office.

So a decade ago I wrote a post on here called The I-Lost-To-Todai Club pointing out that, since Todai basically can go whole years without winning a game, when they DO actually win, it's a big deal (the slogan on the Fall 2016 posters literally said "We make the news just by winning one game") -- but the pitchers who lose to them aren't generally crappy pitchers -- they're the ones who often end up going into the pros.

Kinda surprised I haven't seen ANY coverage of this in English, so as usual I guess it's my job to write about the Tokyo Big 6 happenings :)  Of course this had to happen right AFTER I came back to the US!

This past Sunday, in front of a relatively small crowd (reported as 2000), left-handed pitcher Yuhei Takanashi of Waseda University pitched the 3rd perfect game in Tokyo Big 6 history, against Tokyo University (not too surprising).  The game took slightly less than 2 hours and Waseda won 3-0.

What I find hilarious is that Waseda Sports has an article about the game with interviews with the players and all, but the only boxscore they attach is the WASEDA box, which is of course NOT the interesting one.  How annoying. I basically went and found someone's written box score on Twitter and transcribed it (the interesting half):

Waseda 3 - 0 Tokyo
Sunday, April 21, 2013

                      1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9   R  H  E
Tokyo                 0  0  0   0  0  0   0  0  0   0  0  0
Waseda                0  0  2   0  0  1   0  0  x   3  5  0

Tokyo               AB  R  H RB  K BB SH SB  E     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
Shimojima, 3b        3  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    G3 .. .. G3 .. .. G3 .. ..
Iida, 2b             3  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    f3 .. .. G3 .. .. G1 .. ..
Kurozawa, 1b         3  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    G3 .. .. F8 .. .. F9 .. ..
Arii, rf             3  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. KS .. .. F8 .. .. f5 ..
Kasahara, c          3  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. f5 .. .. L5 .. .. G4 ..
Agata, lf            3  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. F9 .. .. F7 .. .. KC ..
Sawada, cf           3  0  0  0  2  0  0  0  0    .. .. KS .. .. KC .. .. G6
Nakasugi, ss         2  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. G5 .. .. G5 .. .. ..
  Iijima, ph         1  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. F2
Tatsui, p            1  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. .. KS .. .. .. .. .. ..
  Nagafuji, ph       1  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. F4 .. .. ..
  Shirasago, p       0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
  Nishiki, ph        1  0  0  0  1  0  0  0  0    .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. KS

Waseda              IP   NP  BF   H  HR   K  BBH  RA  ER
Takanashi (win)      9  109  27   0   0   6   0   0   0

There are various articles around with photos and whatnot: sponichi nikkan sports

The last guy to throw a perfect game in Tokyo Big 6 was Satoshi Kamishige, who threw one for Rikkio on October 22, 2000. He's now an announcer for NTV.

I spent the entire week writing about the draft instead of about last Sunday's games at Jingu. Whoops. So this entry is about October 24. I really wanted to clear it out of my pile before starting on more Soukeisen stuff, because it was ALSO a very interesting day.

On that Sunday, I showed up at Jingu at 10:30am. On my way in a bunch of high school ballplayers were jogging past me... they were from NICHIDAI SANKO! I didn't take a photo, and now I am kicking myself, as they went on to beat the crap out of Kokugakuin Kugayama 4-0 and claim a Senbatsu berth. (Their game was at Jingu #2 stadium, which is used mostly for high school ball, lower college leagues, and doubles as a golf shooting range as well.) Sanko is one of THE powerhouse baseball high schools of the Tokyo area, they regularly go to Koshien and steamroll everyone for the first few rounds, though though they also rarely make it past Best 8 for some reason.

But, the reason I was there early was that a friend of mine was giving me a free ticket to the games, and I wanted to get a front-row seat because I'd promised Kazuki Mishima that I'd take some nice photos of him one of these days, and this was my last chance, since he was the starting pitcher and it was Hosei's last game. Mishima actually saw me in the front row and kept looking my way, which was both awesome and yet disconcerting. I saw his girlfriend there too, but she was sitting behind home plate for this game. (Instead, this time it was backup bullpen catcher Tomoaki Kuroda's girlfriend sitting a few seats down from me, also taking photos.)

On the other hand, it made for some nice shots. I rarely ever actually get any with the player facing my camera, but it wasn't a problem this time:




The starting pitcher for Todai was Shota Suzuki, the freshman who actually WON A GAME this semester. Suzuki went into this game with a 1-4 record and a 2.83 ERA, which is actually ridiculously good for a Todai pitcher. By comparison, captain and "ace" Yoshihiro Maeda went into the weekend 0-4 with a 5.48 ERA. Maeda, the true hero of Sunday's game, came out of the weekend 0-5 4.91, while Suzuki came out 1-5, 4.58.

Yes, you read that right. Suzuki's ERA went up almost 2 points in this one game, because he faced 9 batters, managed to record one out, which was a sac bunt, and gave up 8 runs, 7 of them earned, in that 1/3 of an inning. OUCH.

The top of the 1st inning lasted 33 minutes and took 13 batters and 2 pitchers to get through. I wish I was making that up, but I'm not:

Kawai singles to center. Runner at 1st.
Nanba sac bunts to 3rd. One out, runner at 2nd.
Hasegawa singles to left. One out, runners at 1st and 3rd.
Hasegawa steals second during Taki's AB.
Taki walks. Bases loaded.
Narita singles to right, Kawai and Hasegawa score, Taki to 3rd. 2-0.
Hiromoto singles to center, Taki scores, Narita to 3rd. 3-0.
Tatebe walks. Bases loaded.
Matsumoto doubles to left, Narita and Hiromoto score, Tatebe to 3rd. 5-0.
Mishima ALSO doubles, to right. Tatebe and Matsumoto score. 7-0.

Suzuki is "mercifully" relieved of his duties and captain Yoshihiro Maeda takes over on the mound, despite starting and losing Saturday's game too.

Kawai grounds out to second; Mishima moves to 3rd. Two down, runner at 3rd.
Nanba grounds to second but Utsumi boots the ball for an error; Mishima scores. Two down, runner at 1st. 8-0.
Nanba steals second during Hasegawa's at-bat.
Hasegawa doubles to left. Nanba scores. 9-0.
Taki grounds out to second for real to end the inning.


Shota Suzuki.


Yoshihiro Maeda.

I'm going to tell you something very funny: from that point in the game, Maeda actually allowed less baserunners (6) and earned runs (1) in his 8 2/3 innings pitched than Mishima did in his 7 innings pitched (10 baserunners, 2 earned runs).

Infact, if the Todai batters could run a little faster, or had a little more baseball sense for that kind of thing, I think they should have even gotten more than 2 runs off 10 hits!

Takashi Kihara led off the bottom of the 2nd with a single, was bunted up by Horiguchi. Shota Utsumi also singled cleanly to center, but rather than scoring from second, Kihara only made it to third. He finally scored when the next batter Atsushi Tanaka singled as well, making it 9-1.

The other Todai run came in the bottom of the 4th, when Horiguchi led off with a single, and two batters later advanced to second on another single by Tanaka. Then pitcher Maeda went to bunt up those runners... and laid down such a perfect bunt that he ended up being safe, loading the bases! Unfortunately, Yamakoshi grounded into a fielder's choice 6-2, getting the runner at home and keeping the bases loaded. But Hisanari Takayama singled to bring home Tanaka, making it 9-2.

That was all Todai could string together in the form of offense, though.

Hosei got two more runs in the top of the 8th; Tatebe got on base via a throwing error by Todai shortstop Iwasaki, and Matsumoto walked. (Tatebe stole second during Matsumoto's AB and then advanced to third on a pop fly out by Seiya Ohyagi.) Matsumoto also stole second during Kanji Kawai's at-bat, so Kawai's single to center brought home both Tatebe and Matsumoto to make it 11-2.

Hosei sidearmer Fumiya Kitayama pitched the 8th inning and lefty Ryoto Yoshikoshi pitched the 9th. I was originally going to go up to the Hosei cheering seats when Mishima left the mound, but Kitayama is way too interesting to take photos of, so I stayed up front for the entire game. (I had the same problem with sidearmer Kohei Nishi before he graduated last year. So WEIRD!)

I felt terrible for Maeda-kun though. I moved my stuff over to the 1st-base side after Game 1, and my friends were like "Maeda was crying and could barely address the fans -- it was his last game and he tried so hard," and I said "He DID. I was really impressed."

(The next day I saw this article in the paper, where Maeda's quoted as saying "I really wanted to win ONE game. Pitching from the mound at Jingu was the best and I don't want to ever forget the way this looked and felt." In his 3 years pitching for Todai, Maeda appeared in 38 games and his record was a whopping 0 wins and 23 losses. You have to feel bad for a guy like that. And here's another article about Maeda, as the "Akamon Ace". (Akamon is the red gate landmark in front of one of the Tokyo University campuses.) Since he's quitting baseball after college, it's just really a shame.


Teams line up to bow to each other.


Then they bow to their fans (and you can see the 11-2 scoreboard here). This was the last game for the 4th-year players. Even some guys who weren't officially on the active roster, like Yoh Sasaki, were still there in the dugout with the team.


Hosei captain Seiya Ohyagi gets interviewed.

And a few more shots from during the game...


Mishima on the mound.


Mishima at bat.


Todai's Maeda-captain at bat.


Shuhei Iwasaki, who I am betting will be captain next year.


Of course no day at Jingu is complete for me without stalking Kagami.


Sidearmer Fumiya Kitayama.


He not only holds the ball at a weird angle that makes you wonder why his wrist hasn't fallen off yet,


but also makes you wonder why his elbow hasn't fallen off yet either.


It's the last game of the semester for the ouendan too -- and the last game ever for the graduating seniors -- so they also addressed the fans after the game.


So, Game 2 was Meiji-Rikkio, starting 30 minutes after Game 1 ended. As I mentioned, I moved my stuff to the Meiji side where my friends were sitting, and then went outside for... I'm not sure what exactly. I guess I wanted to try to say goodbye to some of the Hosei players, and to some of my friends who cheer for them. A few people had mentioned to me that there would be a retirement ceremony outside Jingu for the graduating seniors, so I figured I should check that out too.

You'll never believe what happened, though -- on my way over to the Hosei gathering place, I saw a boy walk by in a Rikkio blazer and I'm thinking WAIT A MINUTE I KNOW THAT FACE HEY ISN'T THAT and before I was really aware of what I was doing, I said to him, "Hey, you're Hirahara-kun, aren't you? From Teikyo?"

He stopped, looked at me quizzically like "...yes, I am..."

My brain just spilled forth, the most surprising thing probably being that I didn't stutter but managed to get this all out in reasonable Japanese. "OMG I was a huge fan of yours in high school I went to Koshien last summer and saw you play I've cheered for Teikyo for a while I thought you were a great pitcher and 3rd baseman I saw you guys beat Tsuruga Kehi um, can I get a photo with you? Please?"

He seemed surprised, maybe confused, but flattered, and said sure. I ended up tagging a random Hosei-related friend of mine I saw go by at the moment to take the photo. It didn't come out so well, but I'm still really happy about it:



As usual, ballplayers don't smile in photos with fans usually... and also as usual I am totally on the wrong plane rather than standing next to him. Whoops. BUT... who cares! I mean, here is a kid I watched win a game at Koshien! For Teikyo! Seriously, I was just totally psyched to meet him, even if maybe I freaked him out a little. Really, I'm pretty proud of myself for actually recognizing him and tagging him -- that would have NEVER happened a year ago.

I showed him that I have a whole bunch of Teikyo charms on my cellphone, which I think led some credibility to my story... I said that I went to Koshien to cheer for Teikyo both last summer and this spring, and to the Tokyo regionals too. I asked if he'd be appearing in the rookie tournament, but he said it was pretty unlikely, there are a lot of really good freshmen at Rikkio this year and a LOT of strong sophomores, most of whom are regulars on the normal team anyway.

So after that excitement, I continued on to where a bunch of the Hosei baseball club guys who aren't on the active roster right now were hanging out, and asked them what was up. They basically told me that there'd be a ceremony but it wasn't likely to start for a while, until all the ouendan and brass band people got set up, and the seniors all assembled and came out, since some had been playing in the game and some were just at Jingu to cheer for the team and to be part of the retirement.

In the meantime, the guys were mostly hanging out and messing around, which was amusing. Some of them were being silly and dressing in Halloween costumes. The most ridiculous was this one:



That's sophomore Soma Uendo, from Chukyodai Chukyo (a year before they won it all at Koshien, he's Daisuke Takeuchi's classmate). He's a pretty crazy kid. And his name is spelled 上戸　which almost always gets misread either as Ueto or Joko. Even in a college ball magazine they mispelled the kana as Ueto. Oops. Either way, I guess he really likes taiyaki.

I hung out for a while either talking to people or just kind of watching people set up and whatever. Eventually the seniors and current players did come out; though a lot of them were looking for vantage points to either harrass the seniors or to take photos from. And last year's student 1st-base coach Kitao was also there; it took me forever to remember who he was since in my mind he was always just "not Abe-chan".

The gathering finally started around 2:45pm, about an hour after the first game ended. By this point I knew the second game was well underway, since we could hear the Rikkio marching band. But I also figured that by that point I was committed to the Hosei thing, plus I was genuinely curious about it anyway.

Eventually when the seniors got there, before the actual procession started, things started off with a BANG! Well... that is, the seniors yelled some stuff, the underclassmen yelled some stuff, and then two of them got into a fight:


"Oi! You seniors!"


"Yeah? What do YOU want? Especially the freaks in the back dressed like Spiderman?"


FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!


"You guys better cool down. Here's some Cold Spray to help."


A sign things were going to start was first that some cheerleader girls came around handing people confetti to throw on the seniors as they paraded by:



And then things calmed down for a minute or two...


Co-captain Yoh Sasaki on the left. And the 4th-years in the ouendan club also got prepared to go through the confetti parade, at right.


Here we go! Running! And confetti! The marching band played the Hosei fight song as this was all going on, too.


I can't help but stalk Kagami; here he is kind of heading up the back of the parading seniors.

Once all of the ouendan leaders and players got into the space under the Jingu arches, the ceremony started. I was way too far back and on the side to really hear everything that happened, though I could catch some of it. The Hosei club also has a page up about the retirement ceremony with a few photos.


First guy up was Kagami; the ouendan leader spent a while extolling the virtues of our ace, about how he was a Waseda-killer and had anchored the Hosei pitching and been a leader for everyone and a role model for the younger players with his work ethic and all. The ouendan yelled a cheer for him and one of the other players gave him flowers.

And well, that's about how it went for every guy. I stayed for about 10 of them, of whom I actually knew 5 for real. But even for the players who had never appeared in a league game, they still talked about what the guy had done for his 4 years in the club, and yelled a cheer for him.


Kento Kameda... who has at least appeared in enough games that I'm familiar with him.

Due to being so far back anyway, and having already seen Kagami, I ended up giving up after a bit and found one of the guys I knew in the crowd and asked if there would be anything else after this player-introduction part, and he said no, not really, and I said that I had friends waiting for me inside the stadium, so I really ought to go join them. So I did that.

On the way in, I saw some people coming out of the Sanko game, and found out that indeed, Nichidai San had just claimed a Senbatsu spot. Good for them.

When I got back into Jingu and to where my group was sitting on the Meiji side, it was already 0-0 in the 5th inning. Fast game! This was the view to my right:



Kazuki Nishijima had started for Meiji and was still pitching. Yuho Yabe started for Rikkio but came out of the game pretty much right around when I got there, and Kenya Okabe took over for him.

But it stayed tied 0-0 for quite some time.

Meiji loaded the bases in their half of the 7th when Okabe hit both Uemoto and Katsuya Kawashima, but they couldn't get a run in.

It started raining around 4:45pm, and lots of fans made an exodus to the covered area behind home plate... while the rest of us idiots got out plastic bags and raincoats.





The score was still 0-0 in the 9th, and Meiji couldn't put up a run in their half, and the rain was falling, and it went into extra innings, with Kazuki Nishijima STILL pitching for Meiji.

Rikkio's Ryuichi Maeda led off the top of the 10th with a single to left, and Sekine pinch-ran for him... and was immediately caught stealing second. One down.
Kitada struck out after that. Two down.
But then Yuki Maeda singled to center.
And pitcher Okabe... walked.
And Koichiro Matsumoto... ALSO walked. Bases loaded.
And would you believe it but Ryugoro Mogi ALSO walked. Oshidashi! 1-0.

At this point, having walked in a run, and having thrown 134 pitches, and being completely soaking wet, Nishijima came out of the game. Takayuki Morita took the mound...

...and promptly gave up a single to captain Soichiro Tanaka. Okabe and Matsumoto scored. 3-0.
Okazaki ALSO walked to load the bases again, but Fujita hit a fly out to second to end the inning.

Meiji, to their credit, also loaded the bases in the bottom of the 10th; Shimauchi got a hit, and Yajima reached base on an error, and Abe walked. So, bases loaded. But Kenji Kawabe pinch-hit, and while he isn't a bad hitter, he chose this moment to ground into a 4-6-3 double play. Game over, Rikkio wins 3-0.

As you can see, by the time it ended at almost 6pm, Jingu was quite cold and quite wet, and umbrellas were all over the parts of the stands that still had people:





Yeah.

I thought it might be neat to catch a final Meiji ceremony -- and Yusuke Nomura had promised a signature! But no, thanks to the rain and thanks to Meiji losing, there was pretty much no chance to stalk anyone, the players were in a sour mood and I didn't want my stuff getting wet anyway.

And then I found out that they don't have a final ceremony with the players and band and ouendan anyway, because they don't actually have a cohesive ouendan club, or something weird like that.

Hosei had won their series against Todai after those two games, but Meiji and Rikkio faced off a third time on Monday, where Meiji won 11-7 in what was a huge slugfest of sorts from what I heard, combined with a bunch of "must... play... seniors... and... freshmen..." All of Meiji's pitchers were either freshmen (Sekiya and Takayuki Oka, the first 7.2 innings) or seniors getting their last chance to appear in a game (Nakamichi, Kondoh, and Nagai, the last 1.2 innings). The game and series didn't actually matter for the standings at all, so. Fumiya Araki collected a double and two triples -- his only extra-base hits of the season, and raised his average to .302, though I doubt that actually had any effect on him getting drafted 4 days later.

Week 7 decided the standings for the bottom 3 teams, at least:

           G    W   L   T   SP   WP%
1  Waseda  10   8   2   0   4   .800
2  Hosei   13   8   4   1   3   .667
3  Keio    12   6   4   2   3   .600
4  Meiji   13   7   6   0   3   .538
5  Rikkio  15   4   8   3   1   .333
6  Tokyo   11   1  10   0   0   .091

Hosei was guaranteed a finish in the top half, at least. Yay!

And thus, we went into Week 8, Soukeisen/Keisousen, to determine the actual winner of the league. Waseda was favored to win, but Keio had a shot if they could win 2 games in a row against Waseda in Soukeisen to tie their W/L/SP record, and then win a forced playoff game as well... (and at the time of this finally being finished, that is EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID. I love this Keio team.)

Sometimes bizarre thoughts go through my head, but after Yuki Saitoh, poised to go pro, lost a game to Todai two weeks ago, everyone was thinking that was the most improbable thing that could ever happen this semester -- Tokyo winning a game, Saitoh losing it, the winning pitcher being a freshman, etc.

Well, I went back and looked at Todai's record over the last decade, which was a whopping 15 wins, 209 losses, and 2 ties. But perhaps more interesting is who the losing pitchers were in those 15 wins...

Here are the records of Todai's 15 wins in the past decade. In 2002 they even took a series point from Rikkio! (That's the only one they got in the entire decade, though.)

            Win  Loss  Tie   Opponent   WP               LP
2000 Spring  1    10    0    Meiji      Inoue 井上       Ohsuka 大須賀
2000 Fall    0    10    0                                          
2001 Spring  0    10    0                                          
2001 Fall    1    10    0    Rikkio     Koyano 児矢野    Hayamizu 速水
2002 Spring  0    10    0                                          
2002 Fall    2    9     0    Rikkio     Asaoka 浅岡      Tadano 多田野
                             Rikkio     Asaoka 浅岡      Tadano 多田野
2003 Spring  0    10    0                                          
2003 Fall    1    10    0    Keio       Masuoka 升岡     Kobayashi  小林康
2004 Spring  3    10    0    Waseda     Kimura 木村      Satake  佐竹
                             Hosei      Matsuka 松家     Tsuruoka 鶴岡
                             Rikkio     Matsuka 松家     Kobayashi 小林太志
2004 Fall    2    10    0    Meiji      Matsuka 松家     Tanno 丹野
                             Rikkio     Kimura 木村      Kobayashi 小林太志 
2005 Spring  1    10    0    Hosei      Kusui 楠井       Shimoshikiryo 下敷領
2005 Fall    1    10    0    Waseda     Matsuoka 松岡    Miyamoto 宮本
2006 Spring  0    10    0                                          
2006 Fall    0    10    0                                          
2007 Spring  0    10    1                                          
2007 Fall    1    10    0    Rikkio     Shigenobu 重信   Nihira 仁平
2008 Spring  0    10    0                            
2008 Fall    2    10    1    Keio       Y.Suzuki 鈴木優  Aizawa 相澤
                             Hosei      Y.Suzuki 鈴木優  Komatsu 小松
2009 Spring  0    10    0 
2009 Fall    0    10    0 
2010 Spring  0    10    0 

13 pitchers were charged with losses to Todai in the last decade before this semester. (And two more, Futagami and Kagami, could have ended up with losses had their teams not tied the game up and stayed there.)

Look at these losing pitcher names, though! Almost half of them went pro. Kazuhito Tadano, Futoshi Kobayashi, Yuta Shimoshikiryo, Ken Miyamoto, Takeshi Komatsu...

And after all, Takahiro Matsuka ALSO went pro, the 5th one in history from Todai to ever do so, after coming out of college with a stellar 3-17 record.

I guess my point here is that Saitoh is in better company than one would think, is all.

This is a massive post detailing the entirety of Week 2. I was only at one out of the five games, but was doing my best to follow the games all weekend...

Day 1, Game 1: Todai vs. Meiji - The Freshman Continues To Be Fresh

Meiji 5, Todai 2

Unfortunately, I had to work on Saturday morning, so I missed the first game. 3rd-year ace Yusuke Nomura started for Meiji, and freshman apparently-new-ace Shota Suzuki started for Todai. I've talked about Nomura extensively on here; he came within 2 innings of winning Koshien 2007 with Koryo HS, was already a regular starting pitcher as a freshman at Meiji, and in his sophomore year became the anchor of their rotation. Suzuki, I just saw him for the first time last week, but he doesn't entirely suck, and has a lot of guts for a freshman. Also, apparently, they had him wearing #18 this time (not the #11 he wore opening weekend nor the #34 that he's listed with in the player book).

My friends that attended the first game were glowing about Suzuki during the second game, like "Tokyo really tried their best in that game, and it was a 1-0 score for the first 6 innings while Yusuke and Suzuki were pitching against each other!" Of course, Todai's offense is still fairly unlikely to get much off of Nomura when he's on, and he struck out 10 of them over those first 6 innings, only giving up 3 hits. It sounds like Suzuki came out of the game due to the manager worrying about his stamina more than anything else, which may actually be a good sign that they aren't going to kill him before he even turns 20 years old.

Naturally after Suzuki came out, Meiji scored 4 runs (only 2 earned) in the top of the 7th to make it 5-0. But it took 5 Meiji pitchers to get through the last 3 innings, and of them, only Gota Nanba had actually logged significant innings in league games before; Mizuno and Mochizuki were making their league debuts, freshman Sekiya pitched one game in the spring, and Shogo Shibata pitched once at Jingu back in spring 2009. So, Todai managed to get 2 runs off those guys, but still not really come anywhere close to winning.

Day 1, Game 2: Hosei vs. Rikkio - Hosei's Offense Shows Up, and Kagami Changes Up

Hosei 6, Rikkio 2

I got to Jingu just in time for the start of the second game. A friend of mine left me a free ticket with the Hosei cheerleading girls, so after a little bit of confusion finding the person with the ticket, I came in and sat with the Hosei ouendan for the first 7 innings of the game (which is why I have no photos; you're not allowed to take photos in the ouendan area and I didn't bring my big camera anyway). I spent the last 2 innings in the front row with my usual group of friends, and by dumb luck ended up meeting a guy who was the Hosei ouendan leader in 1959.

Anyway, this is, infact, the only photo I took while sitting in the ouendan area, because the cheer girls in front of me weren't looking:



Kenya Okabe started for Rikkio, and Kisho Kagami started for Hosei (he is the reason I spend every Saturday at Jingu).

I was super-worried that the actual problem would be no run support for Kagami, being as Hosei's offense has been HORRIBLE this year, but in the 2nd inning, the Hosei batters Kyosuke Narita, Shohei Doi, Kota Imamura, and captain Seiya Ohyagi hit 4 consecutive singles to bring in a run. 1-0. (It's like the Kansas City Royals joke from a few years back of "Four hits equals a run!", but worse). With the bases still loaded, Kagami himself hit a sac fly and brought in Doi; 2-0.

Rikkio's Yuki Maeda hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 3rd to make it 2-1. I hate to say this, but Kagami's biggest weakness is that he always seems to give up one home run per game.

But in this game it was irrelevant as Hosei added 4 more runs in the top of the 4th. Shohei Doi led off with a single, and stole second two batters later as Seiya Ohyagi struck out. So with two outs, Kagami came to the plate, and singled to center, bringing in Doi! 3-1. Yusuke Hasegawa was hit by a pitch after that, on his left side, and then Kento Tatebe slammed this ball to centerfield, all the way back to the wall, and by the time the Rikkio outfielders recovered it, Tatebe was standing on 3rd base for a triple and Hasegawa and Kagami had scored. 5-1.

Rikkio changed pitchers from Okabe to former ace Masahito Nihira after that... and Kanji Kawai followed it up with a single to bring in Tatebe. 6-1. Taki grounded out after that.

Rikkio's next pitcher was a freshman named Yuho Yabe ("Yabe!" being a male-speech phrase that is generally uttered to mean "Oh crap!"), who made one appearance in the spring, gave up 4 runs to Waseda in less than an inning, and was never heard from again. This time he fared much better, going 3 scoreless innings, striking out 4, and only walking 3. Hayato Saitoh (the pitcher, 斎藤隼, not to be confused with the outfielder, 西藤勇人, who batted 2nd and played right field in this game) finished out the last inning for Rikkio.

In the meantime, Rikkio managed another run in the 6th when Koichiro Matsumoto led off with a single, moved up on a groundout, and scored on a single by Keisuke Okazaki, which is what made it 6-2 -- and that would be the final score:





Kisho Kagami was, of course, the game hero, being as he pitched a complete-game win over Rikkio on 132 pitches, striking out 8... AND he also batted in two runs!

Since I could see but couldn't hear his real interview, here I'll translate his interview on the Nikkan Sports Hosei Blog:

- Let's look back at today's game.
It's good to win on a Saturday one way or another.

- You pitched a complete game win...
Well, because a starter should always be aiming for a complete game shutout, that was good. With that in mind, you try to pitch each inning without giving up hits.

- What's your impression of Rikkio's lineup?
There are a lot of power batters. So I was trying to be careful because a bunch of those guys can knock one out of the park at any moment... and one guy unfortunately did.

- Which batters were you most cautious of?
Koichiro Matsumoto, Soichiro Tanaka, and Keisuke Okazaki.

- What was your best pitch today?
My changeup.

- You also had a few RBIs as a batter...
It was after I gave up a run, so I was happy that I could get us back one or two runs on my own too.

- How are you looking ahead to your next start?
It could be tomorrow or the next day but I'll be ready whenever!


Now see, there was a Yakult-Chunichi game at Jingu in the evening, which I wasn't attending (quite frankly, after getting up at 6:30am for work, and then doing that plus 7 innings of yelling and clapping with the Hosei ouendan, I was completely zonked). But it meant that Jingu was really crowded outside after the game with people arriving for the pro game, as well as the college game fans filtering out as well.

Still, my friends and I waited for the players to come out, and they still did schmooze with people a bit.

I had some new photos from opening weekend that I wanted to get signed (most of the ones from this post). I got new autographs from Taki and Mishima (Taki with his new uniform number, and Mishima actually changed his signature!) since I know them well enough to bother them. I also tagged Kyosuke Narita and Ryoto Yoshikoshi, who were both like "...you want ME to sign something...? Really?" I was asked if I had photos of Kitayama the sidearmer and Shoya Yamamoto the senior lefty, but I hadn't printed those. Whoops. (They actually wanted to see; apparently my camera has a reputation among Hosei pitchers now.)

I also chatted up Kota Imamura and Naoki Harada for information on some current/former teammates, because we've been wondering what happened to former student coach Naoki Satoh (sounds like he's busy trying to graduate and start a job next year) and to former outfielder Shingo Kamegai, now with Toyota, who apparently broke his arm while in practice during the Toshitaiko. Whoops.)

And... having not actually heard any of Kagami's interviews, and not realizing he'd actually been saying his changeup was working for him recently and all, I went up to Kagami with this photo in hand, and said, "Because your changeup has been so awesome, can I get you to sign a photo of you throwing a changeup?" He laughed and said thanks, said it was a nice photo, and signed it.

Unfortunately after that I tried to actually ask him about some other stuff and he suddenly pretty much just excused himself and ran off. I don't really know if it was that he didn't want to talk to me, or what. I was a little freaked out at the time, wondering if I annoyed him, but I've been trying to remind myself that first, it was CROWDED out there, and second, he is very much in demand these days being as he's a likely high draft pick next month, and probably doesn't have time to just chat. One of my friends said to me, "I saw you get him to sign something and you must have said something really nice because he had a huge smile on his face... I don't think he's angry at you. I bet he's just busy."

If only I hadn't been terrified to talk to college ball players two years ago when I adored him and he was just some lanky sophomore kid who was striking out Waseda batters left and right. These days I have a lot more confidence in my ability to not sound like a complete moron in Japanese, at least. I'm not sure people realize how much nerve it takes me to go up to these baseball players and talk to them.

Day 2, Game 1: Rikkio vs. Hosei - Sophomore Deathmatch Ends in a Tie

Rikkio 1, Hosei 1

I wasn't at Day 2 at all, because I was at Olympic Stadium in Nagano watching the Shinano Grandserows beat the Niigata Albirex instead.

Sophomore righty Kazuki Mishima did get the start for Hosei after all (he'd mentioned it was a possibility on Saturday, that it would be either him or Mikami). Rikkio's starting pitcher was sophomore lefty Masato Komuro.

And it ended up being a pitcher's duel, basically. Mishima pitched 8 innings, striking out 8 and only giving up one run, a solo home run to Ryuichi Maeda, and giving up 5 hits total. But Komuro did even better, giving up exactly one hit and one walk in 7 innings. And they were both to Shohei Doi.

The scoring went as such: Maeda's homerun made it 1-0 in the 2nd inning. In the 5th inning, Doi led off with that walk. Sasaki grounded into a fielder's choice but both runners were safe as Doi reached second. Matsumoto then bunted up the runners, and captain Seiya Ohyagi hit a sac fly to centerfield that scored Doi, 1-1. And that is it. Literally.

Actually, Rikkio's Kazuki Utsui pitched the last 2 innings, and he walked the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th but then struck out Doi and Sasaki to end the game in a tie after 9 innings according to league regulations; the rules of the Tokyo Big 6 League are such that on a game day where Yakult is using Jingu in the evening, the morning game starts at 10:30 and games end in 9 innings regardless of whether they're tied.

(According to Wikipedia, the tie rules for normal days without pro games afterwards are such that a game is called a tie in 12 innings if it's the 1st or 2nd game in a series, but at the 3rd game and later, it won't be called a tie until 15 innings. Which explains travesties like this.)

So the Hosei-Rikkio series would go on to a 3rd game on Monday.

Day 2, Game 2: Meiji vs. Todai, More of the Same

Meiji 7, Todai 2

One of my friends who is a Meiji fan actually texted me the game events as they progressed, so I was following this one slightly more closely. Tokyo captain Yoshihiro Maeda started for them, and tall lefty vaguely-draft-hopeful Kazuki Nishijima started for Meiji.

Things sailed along at 0-0 until the Tokyo infield fell apart in the bottom of the 3rd inning. Katsuya Kawashima led off for Meiji with a walk, and Uemoto bunted him up to second. Masataka Nakamura grounded to third, but third baseman Yamamoto booted the ball and so both runners were safe. Yajima hit a pop out, and then Sho Nishi came to the plate and launched a 3-run homer that put Meiji ahead 3-0. Fumiya Araki then got on base via another error, this time by shortstop Iwasaki, but the inning ended when Abe hit a pop fly out to first.

In the meantime, Nishijima sailed through the first 4 innings perfectly, and gave up one hit in the top of the 5th to Iwasaki that was immediately erased on a double play.

However, in the top of the 6th, Shota Utsumi led off for Tokyo with an infield single to short, and one out later, pitcher Yoshihiro Maeda followed that with a single to left. Hiromasa Horiguchi also hit an infield single and that loaded the bases for Takashi Kihara, who grounded out to second base, Utsumi scoring on the play. 3-1.

Meiji took back a point in the bottom of the 6th; Kenji Kawabe led off with a double to left, Nishijima bunted him up, and then Kawashima hit a double to center to score Kawabe, 4-1. Maeda came out of the game at this point and Todai's freshman sidearmer Shunsuke Kimura took over and got through the next two innings unscathed.

Gosuke Hiraizumi would not have the same luck, and Meiji hit him up for 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th to make it 7-1, on an RBI double by Yuma Miyatake and a 2-RBI double by Masataka Nakamura.

It took Meiji 3 pitchers to get through the top of the 9th (Morita, Serizawa, and Oka) and Tokyo managed to get one run off of them, on an RBI double by Atsushi Tanaka. The game ended at 7-2.

Meiji took the series point for this as expected, and Todai still has no wins to their name, but aside from the slaughter during the very first game on Opening Day, they have actually been putting up a relatively good fight.

Day 3: Hosei vs. Rikkio, Kagami Leads The Way Again

Hosei 2, Rikkio 1

I wasn't at this game either because I was at the Kamagaya Festival watching the Fighters ni-gun beat the Swallows ni-gun. It was a pretty difficult decision for me, but Kamagaya would most likely be the last Fighters event for me in 2010 (It'd be nice if they made the playoffs, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much). Plus, I sat in the front row at Kamagaya with Ojisan, who happens to be a Hosei alum, so during the Fighters ni-gun game, he kept checking the Fighters ichi-gun game score and telling me, and I kept checking the Hosei-Rikkio game score and telling him.

Hosei's Kisho Kagami and Rikkio's Kenya Okabe were the starting pitchers for this game again, just like Saturday. Hosei got a run off Okabe right away when leadoff man Nakao doubled, Nanba followed it with a single to put runners at the corners, and Tatebe hit a sac fly to left to bring in Nakao, 1-0. Taki also got a hit, but Narita grounded into a double play to end the inning.

Hayato Saitoh (西藤勇人) hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 3rd to make it 1-1. It worries me that Kagami gives up one home run pretty much every game.

On the other hand, Kagami actually HIT A HOME RUN HIMSELF to lead off the 7th inning and make it a 2-1 game. I nearly dropped my phone when I read that update! (The home run was off Masato Komuro, for the record.)

So yeah, he not only pitched ANOTHER complete-game win, he also hit the game-winning home run. How cool is that?

His interview on the Nikkan Sports blog this time is a little more sparse, but they have a picture of him receiving his home run ball, at least...

- Let's look back on today's game.
It's great that we won the series point!

- How was your condition today?
Relatively good.

- What was your best pitch today?
My fastball.

- Which Rikkio batters were you most cautious of?
Matsumoto, Tanaka, Okazaki.

- In the 8th inning, Hayato Saitoh, who'd hit the earlier home run, came up to bat with runners on and a very good chance to tie up the game. How did you feel when you pitched to him?
I absolutely did not want to give up a run at that time, so I had to really give it my all, I thought.

- Your fastball was clocked at a personal best of 153 km/h, how does that feel?
Honestly, I feel happy.

- How are you looking forward to your next start?
I want to win another series no matter what it takes!


And that's how Hosei managed to get their first Series Point of the season.

I want to point out something that's somewhat frightening, and that would be the league pitching stats for this semester so far. We're only two weeks in, but Kagami's already had 4 starts and pitched 3 complete games -- his 31 innings and 3 wins is already more than some guys had all SEASON in the spring. And he's also pretty much putting up the exact same rates he did last semester -- walking 5% of the batters he faces, striking out 20%. I just hope his home run rates go down from here on in. (That is, home runs given up. I wouldn't mind getting to see him hit another one in person someday!)

But last fall, when the draft was looming, Kazuhito Futagami went from being Hosei's Saturday-Monday pitcher to being the Sunday-only pitcher. I kind of hoped/expected they would do that for Kagami this year too, but apparently not. I wonder whose choice it was in both cases...

Game 1: Waseda vs. Hosei

After losing the home opener, and after getting lit up in his hometown of Ehime at the Matsuyama All-Star Game, Yuya Fukui manages to throw a complete-game win against Hosei, striking out 11.



I thought it was rather appropriate as both starters were wearing #11 that he got 11 strikeouts. It would only have been better had the game been on the 11th instead of the 12th, but what can you do.


Waseda starter Yuya Fukui.


Hosei starter Tomoya Mikami.

This game started off kind of slow; it was hot and both starters seemed to be taking their time out there. Both teams scattered a few runners in the first two innings, and in the 3rd inning, Waseda pushed ahead a run. Yuya Watanabe walked to lead off, and Daisuke Ichimaru bunted, with the force throw to second failing and both runners being safe. Hiroki Matsunaga grounded into a double play, moving Watanabe to 3rd, and Shohei Habu's single to center brought him in. 1-0.

They added another run in the 4th inning, Toshiki Yamada leading off with a single to short. Keisuke Kawanishi bunted him up, and two batters later Yuya Watanabe came through with a single to left to bring Yamada home, 2-0.

Tomoya Mikami came out of the game and was replaced by Ryoto Yoshikoshi, a 3rd-year lefty pitcher making his second-ever appearance at Jingu. Yoshikoshi got out of the 4th inning but then hit Matsunaga to start off the next inning, and was the victim of another failed attempt to get the leader on a bunt, so he came out in the next inning and freshman Kazuki Funamoto came in to get a 4-3-2 double play out of Yamada to end the inning.

Hosei finally added a run of their own in the bottom of the 5th when Kento Tatebe singled to lead off, moved up on a bunt and moved up on a wild pitch to captain Ohyagi. Kyosuke Narita came in to pinch-hit in the 9-spot and singled to right to bring Tatebe home and make it a closer game, 2-1.

Kazuki Mishima took the mound for Hosei after that. Mishima was the Big 6 ERA title winner last semester; he's a little guy (5'9") who throws a big fastball (95mph or so). His control is only so-so though, and so he ended up walking Ichimaru, and then Shohei Habu hit a 2-run homer to left to make it 4-1. Bizarrely, that means that Mishima gave up more earned runs in this game (2) than he did all last semester (1).

Fumiya Kitayama and Shoya Yamamoto pitched the last two innings for Hosei, and Yuya Fukui finished out his complete game on 152 pitches, and that brought the series to an equal 1 game each Waseda won 4-1.

The ouendan implored everybody to please take off work or skip classes on Monday and come to Jingu and cheer for the third game of the series. I, naturally, did not take off work, but I did follow the game between classes and whatnot. Kagami and Saitoh had a rematch. Once more, Saitoh only went 5 innings, but this time Kagami was knocked out after 4. Tatsuya Ohishi also gave up his first earned runs of the year. While Waseda took a lead early and Hosei slowly clawed their way in, they never QUITE caught up, and so Waseda won the third game 6-5 and took the Series Point. Bleh.

Anyway, here are a bunch of photos from Sunday's Hosei-Waseda game:






Some more Tomoya Mikami. Dear god he's tall.


Ayuki "Keijiro's little brother" Matsumoto trying to bunt.


Hosei second baseman Masashi Nanba.


Hosei catcher Shohei Doi.


One of the Hosei ouendan leaders, Takahashi. I met him in Matsuyama.




Ryoto Yoshikoshi.


Kyosuke Narita bats in the only Hosei run.


And the reaction back in the dugout.




Kazuki Mishima.


High-fives at the Waseda side after Habu's homerun.




Sidearmer Fumiya Kitayama.


4th-year lefty Shoya Yamamoto.


Hiroshi Taki playing first base for a change (he usually plays shortstop).

Game 2: Keio vs. Todai

Keio beat Todai 4-0 in the second game with Fukutani pitching a complete-game shutout. However, this game was closer than the normal Todai bloodlettings are, mostly due to reasonably strong pitching from Todai freshmen Shota Suzuki and Shunsuke Kimura.



It was really hot out this weekend and I'd picked up a pretty nasty sunburn during Saturday's games, so I was hiding in the concourse between the two games on Sunday, putting on more sunscreen and deodorant, buying the Big 6 baseball card set, getting another Coke, and basically avoiding the sun for the 20 minutes or so. As a result I had no clue who would be starting the game until I came out and saw the lineup.

Yes, somehow I managed to be sitting on the 1st-base side for 4 righty starters. Go figure. Keio's starter was the ever-solid sophomore Koji Fukutani, and Tokyo's starter was a freshman making his first ever appearance at Jingu named Shota Suzuki. Suzuki is majoring in Spanish, bizarrely, and says that his dream is to go back to his high school, Jishukan, and be the baseball club manager and take them to Koshien. (For the record, Jishukan hasn't gone to Koshien since 1953, and that was Senbatsu anyway, and being in Aichi they would have to go through a ton of powerhouses to get there.)


Keio starter Koji Fukutani.


Todai starter Shota Suzuki.

I am, of course, partial to Todai starters named Suzuki, after my former favorite player on the team, a tall lefty guy named Yuichi Suzuki who was a really good pitcher until he blew his arm out pretty much throwing EVERY day.

This Suzuki did not start off particularly well; he walked the Keio leadoff man Hitoshi Fuchigami, and then captain Tatsushi Yumoto singled to right. A fielder's choice by Hayata Itoh two batters later put runners at the corners with two outs; Itoh stole scond and Takao walked to load the bases for Takayuki Matsuo, who hit a bases-clearing triple to right to make it 3-0. To be fair, that "triple" would have been a single or maybe even an out with a competent right fielder, and Aoyama hit a pop fly out to end the inning.

Bizarrely, that was all Keio scored for quite a while, as Suzuki settled down. They had two runners on base in both of the 2nd and 3rd innings but didn't bring them in, and then the bottoms of the 4th and 5th innings were both 1-2-3, with Shuhei Iwasaki making some fine plays at shortstop.

In the 6th inning, Keio brought in another run on an RBI double by Masahiro Nagasaki to make it 4-0. Nagasaki was thrown out at home two batters later on a somewhat ridiculous play where first baseman Yohei Tachi booted a grounder and it went off him into right field. Understandably, Nagasaki took off from second base and was running on the play, and you can't blame anyone for running home on the Todai arms, but for once Hiromasa Horiguchi managed to actually fire the ball home in time to get Nagasaki at the plate and end the inning.

What was funny about this is that one inning later, Keio found themselves victims yet again of an unexpectedly good play by a Todai outfielder; with runners at first and second and one out, Yasuhiro Takao hit a pop fly to left, and Hisanari Takayama not only caught the ball but managed to throw it to second in time to double off the runner coming back, who had clearly not even expected a Todai fielder to be able to catch a fly ball in the first place.

So sidearming Shunsuke Kimura not only prevented two inherited runners from scoring in the 7th, but also pitched a scoreless 8th.

Of course, this is all somewhat irrelevant as you might notice I haven't mentioned the Todai offense at all. The reason for this is that there was none; they had exactly two baserunners the entire game, both on singles, and Horiguchi even got himself picked off first, so Keio's pitcher Fukutani faced only 28 batters total, one over the minimum, throwing his complete game on 103 pitches. The game lasted just under two hours.

Still, I have to wonder if maybe this semester we'll actually see Todai win a game? It's been two years, surely they must be due for one again sometime.

More photos from Game 2:






Some more of freshman Shota Suzuki.


Koji Fukutani, a little closer up.


Fukutani at bat, for a change. Although he didn't get a hit in this game, he actually looks like a pretty reasonable batter at the plate -- and he even hit a home run last semester off Rikkio's Okabe.


Takayuki Matsuo batting in the first few Keio runs.


Keio ouendan 2nd-in-command Kitada. I met him in Matsuyama too. But he didn't have this weirdo hairstyle then.


Masahiro Nagasaki reacting to striking out. (He wasn't happy about it!)




Nagasaki getting thrown out at the plate in the 6th inning.






Todai freshman pitcher Shunsuke Kimura.

Day 2: The after-game antics...

I went outside Jingu with two of my friends to wait for the players to come out. My friend Kobayashi wanted to get her Big 6 box set baseball cards signed, though I decided I would rather get photos of mine signed since they're bigger (and quite frankly, the photography isn't so great in this semester's card set, IMO). I was really shy about bugging the Keio guys at first so eventually Kobayashi was like "Let's go over there. I'm going to kick you into asking Fuchi for his signature." So we did. In the end I managed to get signatures from Hitoshi Fuchigami, Hayata Itoh, Kazuma Takeuchi, Daisuke Takeuchi, Masahiro Nagasaki, and Koji Fukutani, and got photos with a few players too. I'm actually astounded that I managed to get a signature and photo with Itoh. I love Itoh, he's an amazing ballplayer, easily the best pure hitter in the Big 6 league right now and also a solid outfielder as well with great range and a great arm. I'm kind of afraid of him because I don't think he seems like a particularly nice guy, but I think he's just really, really good at baseball and love watching him play.

I did not, however, get photos with Nagasaki or Daisuke, which is a little sad, maybe I will try to get the courage to bug them some other time. Daisuke is one of my favorite players these days even if I think he thinks I'm stalking him. I gave Nagasaki a photo of him that I took at Botchan Stadium, but couldn't tell if he liked it or not.

Oh, a funny thing, too. When I went to ask Koji Fukutani for his autograph, it went sort of like this, him first being surprised that I even knew who the hell he was, I think:

Me: Umm, Fukutani-kun...
Him: Err, yes?
Me: Would you sign something for me, please? (I'm not sure how to properly translate the polite way of asking for an autograph, which is really more like "Would it be okay for me to receive your signing this?")
Him: Whaaa? Me? Really?
Me: Yes, you.
Him: Are you sure you want MY signature?
Me: Please! You pitched a good game today.
Him: Thanks. [signs the photo]

You have to understand something about Fukutani. He is a freaking GOOD pitcher. The kid is like 6' tall, can hit 94-95mph on the Jingu gun, is a sophomore... he pitched a great game in the All-Japan tournament this summer and in Soukeisen last semester as well. I don't talk about him nearly enough, but that is not because he doesn't rock, trust me.

Well, maybe he will get an ego by the time he's a senior :) Daisuke's also a sophomore and already has a bit of an ego, but he's allowed.


With two of the tallest guys on the Keio team, Hitoshi Fuchigami and Kazumasa Matsumoto.


Keio's Hayata Itoh, aka Mister Clutchy McClutchitude. His arms are HUGE.


Tokyo University 3rd-year infielder Shuhei Iwasaki, who was hanging out with the Keio guys. He's probably one of the better players on their team, I'm betting he'll be the team captain next year; I remember seeing him play in the rookie tournament as a freshman.


This guy is Yoshihiro Maeda. He's the Tokyo University team captain and theoretical ace pitcher, by which I mean he's kind of okay at pitching but he wouldn't be starting games if he went to any OTHER university in Big 6. I think we're about the same height.


Now THIS older guy is Shozo Etoh. He's the Keio manager. And unlike the other current Big 6 managers, he actually played in the NPB for several years, for both the Yomiuri Giants and the Chunichi Dragons, before being a coach various places. He just came to Keio to manage this year and they won the spring championship, so I wasn't sure what to expect from him -- like would he be a "I am this great former big leaguer and championship manager" type, or what? But when I asked him for a photo together he basically said something to the effect of "Certainly, if you're willing to be seen in a photo with a crazy old man like me!" So the consensus was that he also seems like a nice guy.

(Honestly, I should probably find out sometime why Hosei's manager Koji Kanemitsu turned down Kintetsu when they drafted him out of college in the 1st round, besides just "they're not the Carp"...)

And one last story from Jingu...

On the train in the morning on my way there, I saw this guy on the same train as me and I could have SWORN he was Kitada, the Keio ouendan leader that I met in Matsuyama. But he had this CRAZY-ass hairstyle, like shaved on the side and wavy/permed on top, which he didn't have there. So I was like "hmm... maybe that's not him..."

Well, after Etoh-kantoku left, the Keio ouendan dude walked by us, and one of my friends says "otsukaresama!" to him, since she was in the Keio ouenseki. And he stops and chats with us a bit. My friends were joking about how funny his hair looked, like "WTF ouendan style is this, you can't dump water on your head and keep THAT style..." and he started going on about something like how he did his hair different ways for different ouendan occasions, like spiked hair during the All-Japan tournament.

And I'm like "Okay, dude... you WERE in Matsuyama, right? And we got a photo together in front of the castle?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"Were you on the same train as me this morning?"

"I was. I noticed you too but didn't say anything. Then I saw you in the stands during the game today."

"So it WAS you! But your hair was different and I was tired so I thought 'nah... that can't be the same guy...'"

"It's me. Will you come cheer with us in two weeks?"

"Uhh... sure!"

Well, at least it's nice to be remembered.

Anyway, it was a fun weekend at Jingu. I'll probably only be going to one day next weekend, but this semester is looking to be interesing, to be sure.