Japan Objects To Olympic Baseball Rule Change

[Behan]

This goes back again to Hoshino. He is such a raging racist against foreign baseball, it's really tough to listening to him doing color on a broadcast.

I did love it that during his rant against the new rule and how it was the US that was behind it, the other announcer interjected that it was "our" Japanese rep (on the International Baseball Association) that voted for this rule over other alternatives). Hoshino looked like he was hit with a shovel and then dropped the subject altogether (at least for that interview).

I wish I had seen that. I'd definitely contribute another shovel, too.

[canman]

I think this is a perfect example why baseball shouldn't be in the Olympics. If it cannot be played the same way it is at all other times, then why include it. It's kind of like hockey in the winter games. In the NHL, you play sudden death until a winner is decided. But they have introduced the shoot out in the Olympics for the same reason as baseball, time constraints, but in my opinion they have fundamentally changed the nature of the game.

[Charles]

I think this is a perfect example why baseball shouldn't be in the Olympics. If it cannot be played the same way it is at all other times, then why include it. It's kind of like hockey in the winter games. In the NHL, you play sudden death until a winner is decided. But they have introduced the shoot out in the Olympics for the same reason as baseball, time constraints, but in my opinion they have fundamentally changed the nature of the game.

Um.. you do realize that many Olympic sports have different rules? Like boxing, basketball, etc.

[canman]

But Charles, olympic boxing has been like that since the start of time, and don't most boxers start at the Olympics and then head onto a pro career. The point being, these games have their own showcase, either the NBA Finals, the World Series and now the WBC, the Stanley Cup, they don't need to be added to the Olympics. Then you go ahead and change the structure of the game, what is the point in having it. Its not like the rest of the world plays baseball anyway. Don't get me wrong, I love baseball, but just don't have it in the Olympics.

[Gilligan]

Um.. you do realize that many Olympic sports have different rules? Like boxing, basketball, etc.

With all due respect, Charles, at least for the two examples you cite, you're not actually correct.

The rules for Olympic boxing are the rules followed by amateur boxing. Yes, those rules are different from the rules for professional boxing, but not different from the rules followed by other amateur boxing tournaments.

The rules for Olympic basketball are the same as the rules used in what is commonly referred to (in the US) as international basketball. Yes those rules are different from the rules followed by the NBA, and different from the rules followed by the NCAA (which are also different from the rules followed by the NBA), but the rules for basketball in the Olympics are the same as the rules followed by most professional leagues in the US.

Now that's not to say there aren't other examples of sports that have rules which are changed specifically for the Olympic Games, but those aren't two of them.

[Gilligan]

The point being, these games have their own showcase, either the NBA Finals, the World Series and now the WBC, the Stanley Cup, they don't need to be added to the Olympics.

I think this is a better point, canman (although I totally agree with you about the changing the rules thing).

But I can understand having basketball in the Olympics, since the intent isn't so much to have a showcase of the sport as to see which country has the best players and all the best players are available to play for their countries.

Both hockey and soccer do that without the Olympics, so it seems less important to have those sports involved in the Olympics. As an aside, I wonder how soccer enthusiasts feel about soccer in the Olympics.

As for baseball in the Olympics, I found it comical that Hoshino said,

We're not playing exhibitions. We will be fighting all out to be the best in the world.

The best players in the world won't even be there! Outside of the Cubans, not one team will have all of their best players made available to them. And the Americans and Canadians are sending over teams made up of some good prospects (but no top prospects) and some ex-major leaguers finishing up their careers in the minors. What's the point of having it as an Olympic sport?

[AssKissinger]

I enjoy watching team sports in The Olympics. I know real sports fans tend to disagree but remember the Miracle On Ice?

[Mulboyne]

NYT: Angry Americans on brink after late loss to Cuba

...The game, tied at 3-3 after 10 innings, yielded to a quirky new tiebreaker system. It ultimately left a U.S. player hospitalized with an eye injury, managers sniping at each other and the U.S. (1-2) and Cuba (3-0) staring at vastly different fortunes. For several minutes afterward, the U.S. players lingered in their dugout, apparently too numb to move. They had sustained their second consecutive defeat in a final at-bat, cluttering their path to the four-team medal round, while losing their dynamic second baseman, Colorado Rockies prospect Jayson Nix, in a manner that infuriated manager Davey Johnson...more...

[Greji]

The IBAF laid a $1,000.00 fine on Japan's Manager Hoshino for getting the thumb from the game the other night against Cuba. They decided to sweeten the pot by another $1,000 for him not leaving the bench after he was given the gate in Japan's loss. That made it a cool two grand.

"According to IBAF technical commissioner Koji Aso, the commission confirmed at a meeting late Wednesday that the plate umpire had not invalidated the order and thereby decided to fine Hoshino $1,000. It also added another $1,000 in penalty charge against him for staying in the bench after being sent off, Aso said."More here.....

That most have really hurt given their loss tonight against the dreaded South Korea nine. Care for some kimchi Take?

[Behan]

The IBAF laid a $1,000.00 fine on Japan's Manager Hoshino for getting the thumb from the game the other night against Cuba. They decided to sweeten the pot by another $1,000 for him not leaving the bench after he was given the gate in Japan's loss. That made it a cool two grand.

"According to IBAF technical commissioner Koji Aso, the commission confirmed at a meeting late Wednesday that the plate umpire had not invalidated the order and thereby decided to fine Hoshino $1,000. It also added another $1,000 in penalty charge against him for staying in the bench after being sent off, Aso said."More here.....

That most have really hurt given their loss tonight against the dreaded South Korea nine. Care for some kimchi Take?

That sounds very un-Chrysanthemum-like, at least if you watch youth baseball here. The HS kids in the Koshien never argue anything. Elementary kids all tip their helmets to the umpires before batting. Pitchers tip their caps after beaning a batter. Coaches don't let kids get away with being rude at all.

Kids in the US could take lessons.

I've had Olympic and Koshien coverage on all day today and haven't heard a word about Hoshino. Bad news is no news?

[Greji]

I've had Olympic and Koshien coverage on all day today and haven't heard a word about Hoshino. Bad news is no news?

He's keeping a low profile for him, but after taking it in the shorts from Cuba and now Korea, and he's got Canada with a couple of MLB players and a bunch of minor leaguers coming up. China surprised the shit out of Taiwan, which Japan had to rally to beat, so Hoshino Japan better not take them for granted either. The US's all minor league team has been getting it together and Lord Hoshino faces them last. He's 2-2, so he's got some work to do to advance, or he might go the volleyball and football route. Pretty bad start for a guy who openly claimed he was going to show the world the superiority of "Nipponyakkyu"

It could be an interesting week.

[Behan]

He's keeping a low profile for him, but after taking it in the shorts from Cuba and now Korea, and he's got Canada with a couple of MLB players and a bunch of minor leaguers coming up. China surprised the shit out of Taiwan, which Japan had to rally to beat, so Hoshino Japan better not take them for granted either. The US's all minor league team has been getting it together and Lord Hoshino faces them last. He's 2-2, so he's got some work to do to advance, or he might go the volleyball and football route. Pretty bad start for a guy who openly claimed he was going to show the world the superiority of "Nipponyakkyu"

It could be an interesting week.

It would be a lot easier to like/support/watch Japan if they didn't have Hoshino as a manager.

[canman]

Fuck these Japanese announcers are annoying. OK, they guy hit a home run, but it's not like he won the world series or something. Come on Canada, get your ass in gear and whip these boys. I would be so happy. Any team with a player named Stubby deserves to win! Back to the announcers, they seem to be trying to play up the fact that these Canadian boys are and never will be major league players, and still their team is having trouble with them.

[Gilligan]

Fuck these Japanese announcers are annoying. OK, they guy hit a home run, but it's not like he won the world series or something. Come on Canada, get your ass in gear and whip these boys. I would be so happy. Any team with a player named Stubby deserves to win! Back to the announcers, they seem to be trying to play up the fact that these Canadian boys are and never will be major league players, and still their team is having trouble with them.

That's just it canman] Japan? Talk about ignoring the importance of the players. And in a sport like baseball, after the manager writes out the line-up his job is pretty much done, and when he does try to do something, as often as not it is counter-productive (a good example of that is Japan's 6th inning in today's game).

Seeing as the Japan team doesn't appear to be able to hit it's weight (or drive in a man on 3rd with no outs), there's hope after all that the US just may be able to beat them.

[Greji]

[quote="Gilligan"]That's just it canman]

I think there are only about two actually MLB players on the team for Kanuckistan. The rest are 1A to IIIA and a University player or two. Still, even though they lost to Japan 1-0, they had nothing to be ashamed of in the game. They played a good game and even had a chance to break it open with a runner on second and third early, Naruse got tough and that was the breaks.

Hoshino gave them a chance. He went to Fujikawa in the 8th and he was awesome hitting 98mph with his heat and went right through the side. So Hoshino, in keeping with J-promotional pro-ball politics, brings in everybody's hero from the Gomiuri Giants, Uehara, as the stopper in the 9th. Uehara got three ground outs to end the game, but holy shit, Fujikawa had been throwing aspirin tablets and Hoshino pulled him for a pitcher who now-a-days only hits 90mph once a month if he's lucky. I was really hoping for Canada to tee off on that golpher, but, it wasn't to be. Still, all and all, a good game, for the pick of the litter from J-Pro ball against a damn good team of minor leaguers. The US team is also all minor leaguers and I want to see how the J-elite (W 2 - L 2) can continue their world supremacy in that clam bake.

[PileOWank]

I read someone on this thread talking about Hoshino's racism or what not.

This isn't a call-out or anything, but I google searched and didn't find anything interesting, so please do elaborate I don't like the guy very much, so it'd be nice to know some sheeit about him.

[Buraku]

[American Oyaji]

Baseball gets ugly between China and US

Link please?

[Buraku]

its probably been youtubed already

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/couch/1114230,couch081908.article

[Greji]

Baseball gets ugly between China and US

I'd like to see that. I think Leferber could kick Johnson's ass.
He was three times the ball player that Johnson every dreamed of being and that thought is alway in the back of their minds.

But one thing, Leferber was never a dirty ball player either in the MLB, or here in Japan either as a player, or a manager.

[Greji]

I read someone on this thread talking about Hoshino's racism or what not.

This isn't a call-out or anything, but I google searched and didn't find anything interesting, so please do elaborate I don't like the guy very much, so it'd be nice to know some sheeit about him.

He always has been as a color announcer on NPB coverage and on the build up to the now in-famous "Hoshino-Japan". He has been extremely quiet as of late, owing primarily to two ass kickings issued by Cuba and Korea, respectively. It has put a serious damper on his claims that he would show the world the superiority of J-baseball.

You are probably not going to find any cites that say anything more than he is "the out-spoken" manager. You just need to watch him a few times on the sports shows, or listen to him when he is doing color. He's not on a campaign for anything, he's just a pompous loud mouth and a hot head who always has been. The superiority complex in J-sports is a spoken trait only, you do not see it printed in the same fashion (unless it is Take on a bad day)!

Japan won tonight against China, but had they lost and repeated that against the US tomorrow, it was possible Japan could have been eliminated from the Olympic competition and we probably would have never heard of Hoshino again, as he would have likely been drawn and quartered on return to Japan. Unfortunately they won.

[Gilligan]

He was three times the ball player that Johnson every dreamed of being and that thought is alway in the back of their minds.

Greji, I was wondering if you would mind expanding on this because when I compare Lefebvre's career stats with Johnson's I really can't see why you would say that.

[halfnip]

Greji, I was wondering if you would mind expanding on this because when I compare Lefebvre's career stats with Johnson's I really can't see why you would say that.

Come on.... Greji is from Chicago!

[Greji]

[quote="halfnip"]Come on.... Greji is from Chicago! ]

I saw both of them play and just believe I would rather have Jim in the line-up than Davy J. Granted we're talking two separate infield positions. I did meet Dapper Davy a couple of times when he was in Tokyo, but he ruined it all when he eventually went to Baltimore.

In case Gil wasn't aware, we require visa's for people from Baltimore to enter Chicago.....

[Gilligan]

I saw both of them play and just believe I would rather have Jim in the line-up than Davy J. Granted we're talking two separate infield positions.

Fair enough Greji]I did meet Dapper Davy a couple of times when he was in Tokyo, but he ruined it all when he eventually went to Baltimore.[/QUOTE]

Uhm, Davey came up through the O's system and spent the first eight years of his 13 year MLB career in Baltimore.

In case Gil wasn't aware, we require visa's for people from Baltimore to enter Chicago.....

Just to clarify things here, while I am a huge O's fan, I'm not actually from Baltimore.

[Greji]

Just to clarify things here, while I am a huge O's fan, I'm not actually from Baltimore.

Just to clarify things, the Chicago injunction against visaless travel is now extended to include anyone outside of Baltimore that roots for the O's!

[Gilligan]

[Greji]

[Gilligan]

Wada isn't fooling anyone, even the outs are loud. Is Hoshino keeping him out there as some kind of punishment or something?

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Lack of international savvy, inflexibility doomed Japan's national baseball team

Japan's national baseball team, which had gone to the Olympics determined to bring home a gold medal, finished in fourth place. Manager Senichi Hoshino, 61, has apologized but avoided giving a detailed explanation for the team's poor performance, saying only that the "players should put (the experience) to use." But something was surely lacking from the team, and while covering the event in Beijing I was struck by both their lack of understanding of the international game, and their inability to adapt.

For example, right after losing to the U.S. in the bronze medal game, manager Hoshino stressed the different strike zones of the umpires: "Since (the first) game with Cuba, batters and pitchers seemed timid when they were batting and pitching. They were confused by the (strike) zone, which seemed from a different world." He insisted that if "professional players are going to appear in the Olympics, the umpires should also be professionals or it would not be fair to the professional players." At the Aug. 24 press conference held upon the team's return from Beijing, he reiterated that "the strike zone could not be trusted."

Blaming the calls made by the umpires is one way for a losing manager to protect his players, but Hoshino surely must have known that there would be differences in the abilities of the umpires of various nationalities who gathered at the Olympics. Other countries went into the Olympics on the assumption that this would be the case.

So I'd like him to remember the way South Korea's gold medal team and Cuba's silver medal team played the game. Batters swung aggressively from the first strike, and their pitchers hurled powerful fastballs and nasty breaking balls. I didn't run across another manager who blamed the strike zone for his losses, and in the words of South Korean manager Kim Kyung Moon, "(In an international tournament), batters react to the balls that are thrown at them, and just have to hit them."

After Japan earned its ticket to the Olympics in the Asian preliminary round last December, scorers began to gather information on potential opponents, and analyzed the weaknesses of opposing batters and traits of opposing pitchers. And this information was hammered into the heads of players during meetings and bus rides. The same approach is taken in Japanese professional baseball. Pitchers diligently search for weaknesses in opposing batters, and batters carefully scrutinize the pitches thrown by pitchers to discern a pattern in order to look for a pitch to hit

However, many of the players didn't know how to react after laying off pitches that they had assumed would be balls but were called strikes, while many pitchers had pitches that were called balls even though they thought they were strikes. The Japanese lacked the flexibility to adapt to the circumstances, and their confused expressions helped foster the impression that they were weak.

By contrast, Cuba did not place a lot of weight on gathering information. During the Olympics, the Cuban team just had an official in charge of conditioning take notes on scraps of paper. A Japanese observer who is knowledgeable about Cuban baseball said that Cuba "selects batters who swing all out at the pitches that are thrown at them, and pitchers who can pressure opponents with fastballs. So they don't need to collect detailed data." I felt that the approach that was taken by the Cuban team is the source of its strength.

Questions can also be raised regarding the brevity of the Japanese team's preparations for the Olympics. A six-day training camp was held from Aug. 2 to 7, and two conditioning games were played on Aug. 8 and 9. Although professional players in the middle of pennant races are accumulating game experience, shouldn't the team have held more practices to prepare for the conditions at the Olympics?

Both South Korea and Cuba entered Beijing after playing scrimmages. The head of the Chinese team had requested practice games with the Japanese team, but the manager Hoshino turned down the request, saying he wouldn't be able to line up his pitching rotation if pitchers were used in practice games. But he should have given his players the chance to acquire the necessary international experience, to get a grasp of the strike zones of the various umpires, the condition of his players, and the atmosphere of international games.

On the other hand, South Korea used official Olympic baseballs in its domestic league games in order to give its players the opportunity to grow accustomed to them. Yomiuri Giants pitcher Koji Uehara frankly admitted, "Japan was behind in that regard."

Baseball fans have voiced their criticism of Japan's crushing defeat to baseball association Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). However, with former Olympic team manager Shigeo Nagashima and previous World Baseball Classic team manager Sadaharu Oh both out for health reasons, NPB has already made overtures to Hoshino about managing the national team at the WBC next March.

It is not known whether Hoshino will agree to manage Japan's WBC team. But whoever is appointed manager, should take the lessons of the Olympic defeat to heart, and apply them to the WBC. "Japan did lose, but we are not weak," says Hoshino. But what the Japanese baseball world really needs to do now is to humbly accept the defeat and calmly reflect on what went wrong.

("As I See It" by Yoshiro Tanaka, Mainichi Shimbun)