World Cup Roster
The Japanese roster for the 38th IBAF World Cup has been announced. The schedule overlaps with the college baseball fall league, so the 24 players on the roster are all from the industrial leagues.
Pitchers
- RHP Hirofumi Yamanaka (Honda Kumamoto) Video Clip
- LHP Atsushi Tanaka (Panasonic)
- LHP Takashi Saitoh (JR East)
- LHP Tetsu Anan (Nippon Tsuun) Video Clip
- RHP Rikiya Chikugawa (Honda)
- RHPÂ Â Hirotoshi Masui (Toshiba)
- RHP Tomohisa Ohtani (Toyota) Video Clip
- LHP  Hiroyuki Kamekawa (Mitsubushi Jyukou-Yokohama)
- RHP Eiichi Hirai (Fuji Jyukou)
- RHP Motoki Higa (Hitachi Seisakusho) Video Clip
Catchers
- Ryo Saeki (Honda)
- Kenji Suzuki (Nihon Tsuun)
- Go Yamaoka (Shinnihon Sekiyu ENEOS)
Infielders
- Ken Kume (Mitsubishi Jyukou-Nagasaki)
- Yoshiaki Sawamura (Nihon Tsuun)
- Shiro Mori (Panasonic) Video Clip
- Kentaro Miyazawa (Shinnihon Sekiyu ENEOS)
- Tsutomu Sasaki (Mitsubushi Jyukou- Yokohama)
- Kenichi Yokoyama (Mitsubushi Jyukou- Kobe)
Outfielders
- Hisayoshi Chono (Honda) Video Clip
- Yoshinobu Kotegawa (Honda)
- Keiji Ikebe (Shinnihon Sekiyu ENEOS)
- Ikuhiro Kiyota (NTT East Nippon)
- Sho Aranami (Toyota) Video Clip
31/08/2009 at 7:36 am Permalink
Oh, wow, I saw a bunch of those guys play today. Even got my photo with Chikugawa after the Honda-NTT game totally randomly, he was a really nice guy. I like Honda’s team (I also like Kotegawa and Saeki), but I despise Hisayoshi Chono with all of my soul, which makes it hard to root for them. They’ll be facing Toyota in the finals tomorrow though.
Speaking of which, Ohtani (from Waseda) is playing for Toyota, not Toshiba. (Not that it’s relevant, since he’s not on this roster, but so is Yukinaga Tanaka, if you remember him… I forget if it was Patrick or someone else who had been wondering why he didn’t get drafted back in the day.)
31/08/2009 at 8:07 am Permalink
> “but I despise Hisayoshi Chono with all of my soul”
Here you kinda ask to be asked why?
WHY?
31/08/2009 at 8:28 am Permalink
Thanks for the catch Deanna — I’ve made the correction. Gah.
I know why Deanna dislikes Chono, but I’ll let her speak for herself.
31/08/2009 at 3:10 pm Permalink
I’m not sure there’s a succinct way to put it, besides “jackass who refuses to play for any team other than the Giants”. The Fighters drafted him out of Nihon Univ in 2006 after we won the Japan Series, and he said “you guys suck, I’ll only play for the Giants”. He went to Honda… and then, two years later when he was eligible again, the Marines drafted him (the Giants didn’t take him with their first or second picks as they’d claimed they might do), and he basically told Bobby Valentine personally, “screw you, I’ll only play for the Giants”. Essentially, he seems to have decided to make a hobby of pissing off every baseball person in the country except those affiliated with or fans of the Giants, but apparently that is a large enough percentage of the country that it doesn’t worry anybody. By the time he ever starts a career with the Giants, at this rate, he’ll be like 26 or 27 years old… if ever, of course.
31/08/2009 at 3:57 pm Permalink
Chono also intimated that he’d consider playing for another team after Hanshin mentioned they might be interested, but then changed his mind.
I don’t think this guy is really worth despising though — he looks to me like Daisuke Motoki 2.0 rather than a legitimate future star.
31/08/2009 at 10:57 pm Permalink
Deanna, thanks for the story.
But, quite naturally, I’ll side with the guy. 🙂
First, he musta known something about the Fighters and ‘their bottomline.’
Hokkaido economy relies on fish-factories. And the fact is that those fish-factories, to a degree of 95%, depend on BOOTLEG russian crab!
Hokkaido mafia/business circles are also directly responsible for Japan’s refusal to sign anti-bootleg pact with Russia on sea goods.
Besides, the Fighters have assymetrical unis – one arm is white, another is black – which is certainly against traditional japanese aesthetics 🙂
And maybe the guy just has been rooting for the Giants his whole life. Does it make him jackass then?
Also a question, no offence, but what makes a guy nice in your definition: that he says hello to you? Waves you a hand?
I coudn’t resist asking this because that’s the impression I get reading your blog.
No need to really answer this, I wrote this just for fun … :)))
31/08/2009 at 11:59 pm Permalink
You must know that the Fighters are owned by a meat company that are based out of Tokyo I believe right? You can talk about all the Russian bootleg crab you want but it has nothing to do with the Fighters who are actually doing great things in Hokkaido and contribute to the well-being of the actual prefecture itself with things such as “Hichori’s Green Project”. Fan attendance is still growing even after they moved to Hokkaido a few years back with them drawing between 20,000 and 30,000 fans a night (usually in the middle). And with the recent “We love Hokkaido” series of games taking shape, the Fighters are branching out more into the rural areas of Hokkaido which were once considered “Yomiuri Land” in terms of fanbase therefore expanding their business. So for all the negative things you spew out about Hokkaido, please realize that the Fighters are doing great things for a prefecture that almost never had any pro sports on a regular basis. Again, I don’t live in Hokkaido and am not a regular Fighters fan so maybe someone else with more knowledge of the team can refute or add to my claims here as I report things as I see them from a distance. Bottom line is that the fans in Hokkaido love their Fighters.
As for Chono, I seem to remember another player by the name of Kazuhiro Kiyohara who was a life-long Giants fan who openly wept on draft day because he wasn’t drafted by his favorite team. But, Kiyohara was part of many championship teams with Seibu, put in his time and eventually, used his right of free agency to accomplish his dream of joining the Giants. He did things the right way and I respect him for that in that regard unlike people like Chono, who think that it’s their given right to choose which team to play for when people toiling in the independent and industrial leagues would kill for the chance to be drafted by ANY pro team. He is a jackass because of his attitude and I hope that he never gets his chance.
01/09/2009 at 1:33 am Permalink
Hi Matt,
I enjoyed you attempting to refure anything what I said
What else these blogs are else for? 🙂
Looks like your views got seriously affected but the ever present mlb propaganda, he-he.
>… unlike people like Chono, who think that it’s their given right to choose which team to play for …
Exactly, that’s his GIVEN RIGHT!
> please realize that the Fighters are doing great things for a prefecture that almost never had any pro sports on a regular basis.
The myth that pro sports teams do GREAT things has been one of the biggest parts of MLB and other prosport empires’ propoganda for years.
I would recommend you to read writings of the late John Brattain on the subject.
===
Besides, everyone knows that it’s the Ham, not crab.
I just wrote about Hokkaido economy (maybe it ewas not very clear).
Anyway, I can probably say that the Fighters are my most hated NPB team of the moment. Of the moment, I repeat.
Soulless, ugly black/gray, mean darvish-enhanced maschine.
Go Lions! Go Hawks! Go Kyojin! (The latter two if needed to beat NHF in playoffs)
Fun, fun, fun!
01/09/2009 at 7:41 am Permalink
Fortunately, most Japanese baseball players I have met have infact been much nicer than random internet trolls who don’t even know that the Giants and Fighters aren’t in the same league.
01/09/2009 at 8:50 am Permalink
Oh no, no, no (sobbing hard)!
She called me a troll (wiping my eyes)!
Why? Why? Why?
I’ll commit a suicide …
A-ha-ha-ha-ha!
01/09/2009 at 9:06 am Permalink
Okay guys, enough.
01/09/2009 at 9:21 am Permalink
Oh, Mr. Newman has removed my message.
You American guys have a very strange views on the freedom of speech and internet speech in particular. And you’re control freaks.
My sincere congratulations!
I’d like to inform you that the whole world have figured you out. Finally.
01/09/2009 at 9:37 am Permalink
Alright Sergei. Just out of a basic trust for people, I give commentors on this site a maximum amount of leeway in terms of having very light moderation in posting and minimal message removals. In the year+ that I’ve run this site, I’ve only had to remove a handful of comments. I felt your message went over the line with a personal attack. Way to much work goes into this site to have it devolve into something like that. If you want to debate Chono’s choices on his career, go ahead, but leave the personal criticisms out of it.
01/09/2009 at 9:57 am Permalink
> I felt your message went over the line with a personal attack.
Agreed. No problem.
Though I’d not rate this as an attack, rather just a caustic comment.
But don’t hold this my word – agreed – against me next time.
01/09/2009 at 12:50 pm Permalink
> but leave the personal criticisms out of it.
Wait, wait, wait.
How about calling Chono a jackass by two different people and calling me a random troll?
Doesn’t that constitute a personal criticism?
Hey, Mr. Newman. Can you hear me?
Oh, and I’m asking Americans to avoid double standards.
But you can’t ask Americans about that. It’s just impossible.
It’s in their blood 🙁
With very few exceptions.
No wonder very few people all over the world likes you, guys.
Think about that.
01/09/2009 at 2:34 pm Permalink
Chono is a public figure and I feel no need to protect him from criticism. In any event, I doubt he cares what people say about him here.
You didn’t seem to upset by Deanna’s comments earlier, but and am surprised you are bothered by it now. The difference that her comments were in response to your behaviour, whereas yours went a little beyond that. Let’s just chill out — this site is here for people to enjoy discussion about baseball, not bickering matches about some industrial league player, fishing in Hokkaido, or whatever.
I didn’t think I would a commenting policy for this site but I guess I do now.