Yakyu All-Stars

Remember Kids, Tomochika Tsuboi says safety first when playing baseball.

Hello once again everyone. The thing about going to many games in a row is that you get tired after going to all of them and really don't want to do anything afterwards. Well, that is the case here and a lot has happened since this game. I've been in Hokkaido for almost a week, I've seen a ton of Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters games and they've won about 3/4 of them, and also too, about half of the team is thought to have contracted "New" Influenza with 5 confirmed cases so far. This is a serious blow to a streaking hot Fighters team and hopefully all the players that are sick can return to the field sometime soon fully recovered and be ready to help the Ham towards the Nippon Series this year. Get well soon guys!

So, for this game, the starting pitchers were Kazuhito Tadano for the Ham and John Wasdin for Seibu. These 2 teams are complete opposites when it comes to pitching in my opinion. Today, we saw another Nippon Ham starter throw no-hit ball through at least 5 innings while another another Seibu starter got hit hard but managed to keep his team in the game. It's my opinion that while Seibu starters don't give up a lot of runs, they do seem to give up a lot of hits which is bad.

Hello again everyone. So, before heading out on the second leg of my “Pro Yakyu Super Summer Extravaganza Tour”, I would like to pass along my thoughts on the recent “Lions Classic” series I attended against the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. As you all know, the Lions have been hosting games in which they have been wearing their 1980’s era throwback uniforms. But for this series against the Ham, things were a little different this time around. For this series, they played the first game of the series at Omiya Stadium in Saitama City which is located in the eastern part of Saitama Prefecture. The games in Omiya always draw really big crowds as the total attendance for the game was 20,473. That’s even more than Seibu Dome does for weeknight games. I applaud Seibu for reaching out to the other side of the prefecture and hosting games in Omiya as it is really smart business.



Seibu shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima showing the fans in attendance some love by throwing a ball in the stands during practice.

Unfortunately, the result of this game was not the one that I and the many other people jam packed into the seats on the 3^rd base side had expected because we ran into a brick wall named the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. You see, the Ham have been unstoppable this season as they just keep winning and winning without showing signs of slowing down. The Ham has “it” so to speak which in my book means that they have great pitching and a great offense. It’s what Seibu had last year (more so on the offensive side in my opinion) and despite the fact that I think Seibu is going to ride this magical cloud to a second championship this season, I have to be realistic and recognize that the Ham will probably end up in first place in the Pacific League and therefore will get home field advantage during the second stage of the Climax Series this year. Seriously folks, could you imagine a Ham/Giants Nippon Series? Just imagine how high the tension would be as both teams used to share Tokyo Dome for a number of years and the Ham was forced to live in the shadow of the Giants somewhat despite being in a totally different league.

But, onto the game in Omiya, shall we? The starters for the day were Seibu ace Hideaki Wakui and Tomoya Yagi for the Ham. So with Wakui being on the mound, I naturally had high hopes. But to the Ham, it really doesn’t matter who is on the mound as they started things off slowly and eventually nailed Wakui (with a little help from Karma too, I believe).

Nippon Ham Starter Tomoya Yagi warming up before the bottom of the 1st inning starts.

Yagi stretches on the mound before making his first pitch of the game.

Seibu ace Hideaki Wakui in the top of the 4th.

Wakui in the 6th. You can tell that he's pretty much out of it by this point.

Eichi Koyano started things off for the Ham with a solo home run to center in the top of the 2^nd to give make it an early 1-0 lead. After that, Kensuke Tanaka hit an RBI double with one on in the top of the 3^rd to make it 2-0 for the Fighters. But not to be outdone, Hiroyuki Nakajima clubbed his 15^th home run of the year to right center field in the bottom of the 4th which cut the Ham’s lead in half to 2-1.

I actually have slowly taken a liking to Nakajima ever since I went to my first Pacific League game at Seibu Dome nearly 2 years ago. Now that I live in Saitama where the Lions get more press coverage, I really have begun to see why Nakajima is so awesome. The energy he brings to the team is like nothing else and he seems to be a genuinely nice guy from what I’ve seen of him.


Nakajima crossing the home plate after hitting his solo home run in the bottom of the 4th.

But again, the Fighters were able to exploit Seibu’s main weakness which is pitching and eventually win the game. Again, I chalk up what happened during this inning to bad Karma. The top of the 6^th started off with Wakui drilling Atsunori Inaba in the left foot on a 1-1 count. Then, DH Shinji Takahashi singled to center which moved Inaba to 3^rd. After that, Termell Sledge walked to load the bases and then Eichi Koyano drew a bases loaded walk to bring in Inaba to make it 3-1. Yoshio Itoi then grounded out to 2^nd which brought in another run and made it 4-1. Then, Nippon Ham catcher Shinya Tsuruoka hit a sacrifice fly to right field which made it 5-1 and that was all the Ham needed as Seibu could do no more in terms of offense.

Wakui wasn’t his normal dominating self for this game despite throwing over 100 pitches (109 according to Seibu’s website) through 6 innings and striking out 4. Yagi on the other hand, had about the same number of pitches (91) but was more effective only allowing 3 hits and 2 strikeouts. He did walk 4 batters though so while that is a small concern, it didn’t really affect things as his only mistake was Nakajima’s home run. All in all, Seibu is going to have to do much better if they are going to defend their Nippon Championship title but as each game passes, the window gets smaller and smaller and I guess come October, I may have to head to Fukuoka this year for some playoff action.

Hello everyone. Hopefully, you are all doing well and staying cool in this hot weather or dry in this rainy weather for that matter. So, on Sunday June 28th, I went to my first Lions Classic game of 2009. Now for those of you who don't know what Lions Classic is, it's an event or rather sets of games where Seibu breaks out their uniforms from the past or throwbacks. This year Lions Classic runs from June 27th until August 27th during select games and you can purchase special goods in honor of the bygone eras. Also too, Seibu offers ticket packages in which you can get tickets for multiple Lions Classic games as well as a piece of special merchandise only exclusive to that particular ticket package.

For this game or rather series against the SoftBank Hawks, Seibu donned the uniforms they wore in the 1980s so many players like Kazuhiro Kiyohara and Koji Akiyama (who ironically is now the manager of the SoftBank Hawks) wore these jerseys during their time with Seibu. Also too, Seibu will wear the throwback uniforms against all the Pacific League teams so if you are in the area, you should check it out as it's a really neat experience. Information about Lions Classic can be found here (all in Japanese of course).



Saitama Seibu 3rd baseman Takeya "Okawari" Nakamura modeling Lions Classic.

I got to the stadium right when the gates opened and after buying my Lions Classic goods, I was extremely disappointed to learn that my seat was in probably one of the worst locations to take pictures in the entire stadium which was in the upper "B" seats right behind the net and right next to the press box. And to top it all off, I was in the highest possible row there was so I did the best I could with the pictures I took. So yeah, I'm giving a big "finger of shame" to Seibu's lousy online "play guide" ticket shop for reserving such a bad seat for me (and I'm a Platinum fan club member to boot so go figure). But despite that, it was half price because of my fan club membership so I guess it wasn't all bad. Another weird thing too, there were heaps of foreigners sitting in the same area as me and it's quite strange that whenever I go to see Seibu in the reserved seats area, all the foreigners I see at the Dome usually sit in that area which strikes me as odd. I have no idea why this is the case but it was a nice change to hear the very monotonous MLB style "Let's Go Wasdin" chants while SoftBank was batting. Not really though, as it distracted me from watching the game and it messed up the vibe that the SoftBank ouendan was creating. Oh yeah, I'm a Japanese baseball purist through and through HA HA!

As for the game itself, the starting pitchers for the day were John Wasdin (Seibu) against DJ Houlton (SoftBank). Now honestly, I haven’t been that high on Wasdin this year as I think he is more suited to be in the bullpen rather than a starter. He was strong for the first 2 innings but by the time the third inning rolled around, he started to lose his control and he proceeded to give up 3 runs in the following 2 innings. In the top of the4^th, Nobihiko Matsunaka walked to start things off for SoftBank. Then, Hiroki Kokubo singled to left which led to perhaps one of my most my favorite moments of the game. Now you see, once upon a time, I came across a team when I was starting to become a Pro Yakyu fan. I started to follow that team in 2006 and instantly became a fan of a certain player who I had only read about in a few online reports previous. At the end of the season, this player was traded to the Hawks for a young pitcher and I, like many others, were confused and kind of sad because the trade was so sudden and the player was a “native son” of sorts to the area in which the team was located. That player was none other than Hitoshi Tamura and of course the team was Yokohama. I still am a huge Tamura fan despite that fact that he is injury prone and has rotten luck with that over the course of his career. So naturally, I cheered when Tamura singled to right to make it 2-1 Seibu (Hiroyuki Nakajima had hit a 2 run homer to right center in the bottom of the 1^st to give Seibu the early 2-0 lead). A little while later, Nobuhiro Matsuda hit an RBI single to center to tie the game at 2 a piece. But, the tie wouldn’t last long as GG Sato would hit a 2 run homer to right to put Seibu back on top 4-2. Softbank would then answer in the top of the 5^th when Jose Ortiz hit a towering fly ball to left field which bounced off the foul pole and therefore was called a home run to make the score 4-3 Seibu. Softbank then took a 5-4 lead in the top of the 7^th on a 2 run home run by Matsunaka. But again, it wouldn’t last as Takumi Kuriyama would hit an RBI double in the bottom of the 8^th to tie the score yet again at 5-5. But, the game would ultimately be decided in what has been Seibu’s main weakness this year and that is pitching. Koji Mitsui came on to pitch in the top of the 9^th and gave up an RBI double to Jose Ortiz and which made it 6-5 SoftBank and after that, Seibu reliever Koji Onuma gave up another RBI single to Hiroki Kokubo which made it 7-5 SoftBank and that’s where the score ended up.

Saitama Seibu starter John Wasdin and his leg kick.

Wasdin again.

Wasdin holding the ball.

Wasdin sharing a laugh with catcher Ginjiro.


Overall, a great game by both teams that ultimately ended up spoiling the nostalgia of the day because it was Lions Classic after all. But besides Lions Classic, the story of the day was the SoftBank Hawks. Now seriously, did any of you out there think that the Hawks would be playing at this level right now in the season after they experienced a number of changes during last off-season? After having the best record in the 2009 Inter-League Series for the second consecutive year, SoftBank looks poised for a playoff run this season and they are indeed playing like they belong there in October. Once again, a great and exciting game by both teams that ended up with a loss for Seibu. Lions Classic is not off to a good start this year and hopefully it can improve over the next 2 months.

Also too, the ceremonial first pitch was thrown by none other than Lions manager Hisanobu Watanabe. The batter was current SoftBank manager Koji Akiyama who was a teammate with Nabe-Q for a number of years. Akiyama managed to foul off Watanabe's pitch to the delight of the crowd.




Nabe-Q winding up for the pitch.



Nabe-Q after throwing the pitch.