Dead Ball (JPN Baseball Thread)

[Captain Japan]

[kamome]

[font=Verdana][size=84]Don't you love the cultural confusion captured by this photo? I've seen other photos posted on FG where gaijin confuse the Thai "wai" with the Japanese bow. And Ortiz's "wai" is completely wrong, too, by the way.


David Ortiz "bows" to Daisuke Matsuzaka after the Red Sox Defeated the Tigers 7-1 at Fenway.[/SIZE][/font]

[Bucky]

[font=Verdana][size=84]Don't you love the cultural confusion captured by this photo? I've seen other photos posted on FG where gaijin confuse the Thai "wai" with the Japanese bow. And Ortiz's "wai" is completely wrong, too, by the way.[/SIZE][/font]

Kaz Sasaki used to bow with Edgar Martinez in the same fashion after a save when he played for the Mariners.

[Greji]

Kaz Sasaki used to bow with Edgar Martinez in the same fashion after a save when he played for the Mariners.

Ya never know. They may have been doing it on purpose! Baseball players do the craziest things for superstition. i.e. you never, never, mention that a no hitter is in progress. Do not cross bats, standing or lying on the ground. Don't touch the glove of a guy who is having fielding problems. Don't step on the lime coming on or off the field etc., etc. I played with some dudes that would not change underwear on a hitting, or winning streak. You definately wanted to stay up wind of them. Some guys when batting did not want any signals from baserunners. i.e. where the catcher is setting up, or if the pitch will be a breaking ball or heat. They thought it would jinx them. The list goes on!

[Mulboyne]

Inside Bay Area: The Jackie Robinsons for baseball in Japan

BY NOW, WE are so familiar with them that only the first name need suffice. Ichiro. Kenji. Daisuke. They are the Japanese wave, and now, more than a decade after Hideo Nomo rolled into Los Angeles and made a splash with the Dodgers, it is bigger and more powerful than ever. The influx of the Far Eastern experience is at high tide, and it carries with it Taiwanese and Koreans. In the not-so-distant future, it may include the Chinese. And yet, can any of us name the Jackie Robinson of this group. Or the Larry Doby? Or, heck, the Satchel Paige? Can Ichiro? Or Daisuke? Or even commissioner Bud Selig? Probably not. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is one of America's ugly little skeletons, and as you might expect, it has mostly been kept in the back of the closet. But it's time to start rummaging. And "American Pastime," a Warner Home Video DVD that will premiere Tuesday is a good place to start. A fictional drama, "American Pastime" is nonetheless based largely on the writings and research of Kerry Yo Nacagawa, and it documents the influence of Japanese baseball in the camps. More important, it opens the discussion to the influence the camps had on Japanese baseball...more...

[Mulboyne]

[Captain Japan]

Matsuzaka leaves game with nausea
Mainichi(AP)

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Daisuke Matsuzaka left Friday night's game against the Texas Rangers after five innings because of a case of nausea.

Matsuzaka gave up five runs and seven hits in five innings, but left the game with a 6-5 lead. He struck out six and walked three.

The Japanese sensation entered the game with a 6-2 record and a 4.06 ERA. He was looking to join Los Angeles' John Lackey, Atlanta's John Smoltz and teammate Josh Beckett as baseball's only seven-game winners.

Matsuzaka has won his last three starts and five consecutive decisions over six starts. Over his past 24 innings he has a 1.87 ERA.

After Matsuzaka struck out Texas' Michael Young to end the third, he was seen in the dugout holding his stomach.

Kyle Snyder relieved Matsuzaka to start the sixth inning. (AP)

I'd have been feeling sick, too, if I had given up those two home runs the inning before. He got hit pretty hard.

[Greji]

Matsuzaka leaves game with nausea
Mainichi(AP)

I'd have been feeling sick, too, if I had given up those two home runs the inning before. He got hit pretty hard.

It was nausea, induced by the fact that they knocked him silly. That said, he was still the winning pitcher of record! Just must have got dizzy from the gyro!

[kamome]

[Captain Japan]

He felt that sleeping on the shoe-trodden floor might have made him sick to his stomach. Bizarre theory?

Lots of interesting tidbits in this story.

As Taro would say, Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight! What a load of bullshit. He got smashed again tonight in the sixth.

[Bucky]

On Baseball: Trouble in translation

By KEVIN GRAY
Staff Sports Writer
57 minutes ago

MANCHESTER – No longer the toast of Tokyo, Fisher Cats starting pitcher Yusaku Iriki took the mound looking for his first Double-A win last night.

Here's guessing this isn't the American dream he envisioned.

Iriki left Japan last year and signed a $750,000 contract with the New York Mets but never pitched in the big leagues. He lost his job with the organization after getting suspended 50 games for violating baseball's policy against performance-enhancing drugs.

The former Japanese standout signed with the Blue Jays late in spring training, which put him on a path to New Hampshire as a low-risk, potentially high-reward minor-league acquisition.

Iriki played a decade of pro baseball in Japan and earned All-Star honors as a member of the famed Tokyo Giants. He later requested a release from the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and wanted a shot at the major leagues.

Now the clock is ticking for the 34-year-old Iriki (0-2), who took on the Trenton Thunder at Merchantsauto.com Stadium last night while his former Tokyo teammate, Hideki Matsui, played against the Fisher Cats' parent club in Toronto.

For every Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima -- Japanese players experiencing success with the Red Sox -- there are fellow countrymen like Iriki and Kei Igawa (Yankees) struggling in the minors.

Iriki, pitching in his third Double-A start since a promotion from Single-A, earned a no-decision and watched his ERA move to 6.46.

"It's tough. There are so many good players in Double-A and Triple-A," Iriki said recently with help from interpreter Yoshi Morooka, a Fisher Cats intern.

Toronto farm director Dick Scott, watching from the seats behind home plate last night, didn't have a notebook full of glowing material for Blue Jays General Manager J.P. Riccardi.

"He's going to have to show us a little more in order to be somebody we're looking at for the major leagues," Scott said after the Thunder took an early 3-0 lead.

[Mulboyne]

Another chapter in the Ichiro story. He just hit an in-the-park home run in the All-Star game which is apparently the first time anyone has done that. That video clip will be all over the net before long.

[dimwit]

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070710&content_id=2080667&vkey=allstar2007&fext=.jsp

Video can be seen here

[AssKissinger]

Not against The Braves! Somebady please kill Barry Bonds.

[kamome]

Somebady please kill Barry Bonds.

I second that.

[Kuang_Grade]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-mariners-suzuki

Mariners to defer $25 million of Suzuki's contract, money to be paid through at least 2032
By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Writer
July 18, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Seattle Mariners will be paying Ichiro Suzuki for at least a quarter century.

The All-Star outfielder's new contract extension calls for the team to defer $25 million of the $90 million he is owed, money that the team will not have to fully pay until at least 2032.

Suzuki, MVP of last week's All-Star game, gets a $5 million signing bonus and annual salaries of $17 million from 2008-12 under the terms of last Friday's deal.

Seattle will pay $12 million in salary each year and defer $5 million per season at 5.5 percent interest. Suzuki, who turns 33 in October, will receive the money in annual installments each Jan. 30 starting with the year after his retirement from the major leagues.

Because of the deferred money, the average annual value of the contract is discounted to $16.1 million under the provisions of baseball's collective bargaining agreement.

In addition, he gets a housing allowance of $32,000 next year, an increase of $1,000 from this season, and the amount will rise by $1,000 each year. He also will be provided with either a new jeep or Mercedes SUV by the team, which also gives him four first-class round trip tickets from Japan each year for his family. Provisions for the Mariners to give him a personal trainer and an interpreter were continued.

I guess Ichiro isn't expecting much in the way of inflation in the US in the over the next 25 years.....5.5% interest is only 1 to .5 points higher than many currently available money market rates in the US.

[kamome]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-mariners-suzuki



I guess Ichiro isn't expecting much in the way of inflation in the US in the over the next 25 years.....5.5% interest is only 1 to .5 points higher than many currently available money market rates in the US.

Or maybe he just couldn't negotiate for more - the counterargument is that while the rate may not be that much more attractive than the money market rate, it's a stable source of predictable income. He can still reinvest the earned interest in higher risk alternatives if he wants.

[Kuang_Grade]

While by J banking standards he is doing well with the interest, but I vaguely remember the double digit inflation of the late 70's and looking at the state of the US economy, I don't don't think the US's 1990s sub 3.0 inflation rate is going to be the norm in the future. So if I was delaying substantial income to some future point, esp. one that was decades away, I would want to make sure that I was protected from inflation at least to some degree. After all, Ichiro is delivering the goods now, so I imagine he would hope that his payment for those goods would be of similar worth at the time of payment as as they are worth at the moment. Now it maybe that the actual contract terms are something along 'the annual interest rate will be an 12 month average of the interest rate on a T bill plus 1%' and the article is simplifying that to stating what the current interest rate is

[Mulboyne]

I don't think Ichiro has any view about future US inflation. He can now sell the value of that contract on to a third party and secure a lump sum if he wishes.

[Greji]

I second that.

Why? Is he guilty until proven innocent? With all the cases going around and no one (after the original asshole) pointing the finger at him with any substitive evidence, they might be a little overboard on BB.

Look at the deals they're cutting with Giambi and others. It looks to me like if they would have had any substantial evidence on Bonds, they would have done him before this.

A little envy to protect Aaron?

At any rate Bird, when they come for me, I now know who I won't call for my defense!

[AssKissinger]

Go suck a dick boothe. It's not a court of law it's baseball.

[Greji]

Go suck a dick boothe. It's not a court of law it's baseball.

My personal eating habits are not at discussion AK. We' talking baseball here.

Just because the sleezeball that got busted for peddling roids, named Bonds (and a score of others), the press has gone on their usual vendetta without waiting for the court. If a person is big, or famous, they take great glory in dragging him or her down. For Christ sakes, you would think in the two or more years this has been dragging out, they would have come up with something if this was in anyway true!

When and if, they prove him guilty, I will believe them. I just don't see the campaign they've got to discredit him and libel him without viable evidence.

If you don't like Bonds, that's fine. But he's a free human being. Give him a chance for a trial before you execute him.

Also, in the interim, may I extend a cordial invitation to you to french kiss my goat's ass.

[AssKissinger]

Fuck off boothe. When some dude who's been working out his whole fucking life suddenly starts seriously bulking up with muscle mass and power in his thirties he's fucking juicer roidhead. Plus, he's a dick and isn't worthy to suck turds from Aaron's ass.

[GuyJean]

.. Plus, he's a dick and isn't worthy to suck turds from Aaron's ass.

He's started nibbling on the turds; homer number 754 a couple minutes ago..

Hey, stupid question; I know there are switch hitters. Has there ever been a switch pitcher? Wouldn't that be the ultimate weapon?

GJ

[AssKissinger]

Harris is perhaps best known for being able to pitch with both hands. However, throughout his Boston career, he was forbidden to pitch with anything other than his right hand; former Red Sox GM Lou Gorman felt that it would "make a mockery of the game" [1], and subsequent GM Dan Duquette noted that "we pay Greg to pitch right-handed." [2] In protest, Greg often wore an ambidextrous glove on the mound; it had six fingers - a thumb on either side and four fingers in the middle. Greg tried to convince other teams for whom he pitched to allow him to switch-pitch as well, but did not succeed for most of his career. Finally, in 1995, the Expos relented, and on September 28, 1995, Greg became the first pitcher to pitch both left- and right-handed in the same game since Tony Mullane did it for the Baltimore Orioles on July 14, 1893.

I never even thought about it.

[Mulboyne]

Come on then, baseball experts, tell me what happened here in the 4th inning of this high school baseball game. Yokohama seemed to think they had struck the batter out and walked off. Meanwhile, their opponents thought the ball was still alive and scuttled around to score three runs.

[Greji]

Come on then, baseball experts, tell me what happened here in the 4th inning of this high school baseball game. Yokohama seemed to think they had struck the batter out and walked off. Meanwhile, their opponents thought the ball was still alive and scuttled around to score three runs.

The pitch hit the ground before the catcher caught the ball. The batter did swing at the ball so it was strike three. However, since the ball had hit the ground before it was caught, it remained alive. The catcher should have tagged the batter, or thrown the ball to the first baseman to touch first. Either would have ended the inning. They did not and the batter made it to first, which allowed the other runners to score and since Yokohama thought they were out of the inning and ran off the field, the batter went all the way around to score the third run.

What the Yokohama Kantoku was arguing is that the home plate umpire called the batter out. But what the home plate umpire said is that he asked for help on the swing, whitch you could see him point to first, and obviously the first base umpire gave him the signal that it was a swing for the third strike. Every thing is right until there. Then the home plate umpire pumped the batter (apparantly) out, giving the sign for out with his right hand. He claimed it was the signal for a strike, but it did not indicate out, because the ball was still in play.

It was a bit arguable but the call was right. It was really a bone head play by the catcher for not tagging the batter. He caught the ball clean on the bounce and it is an automatic move for a catcher in that type of a game situation to tag the batter and if the batter avoids the tag, the catcher simply tosses the ball to first base for the out.

The umpire probably didn't control the play well enough, but his call was right if he just said strike or strike three when he pumped with his right hand (strikes are indicated with the right hand and balls with the left). If he said "out" in any form, he may have blown the call.

[Mulboyne]

I can't call this anyway since I don't know the rules of the game. I know now from gboothe's explanation that calling a strike does not automatically mean an out if the ball is not deemed to be dead.

It is difficult to tell from this video but was the home plate umpire standing where you would expect him to stand if he had really meant to call out?

Am I mad or was there a similar occurrence in the last World Series or perhaps the latter rounds of the play-offs? I didn't know what was happening then either.

[kamome]

Why? Is he guilty until proven innocent? With all the cases going around and no one (after the original asshole) pointing the finger at him with any substitive evidence, they might be a little overboard on BB.

Look at the deals they're cutting with Giambi and others. It looks to me like if they would have had any substantial evidence on Bonds, they would have done him before this.

A little envy to protect Aaron?

At any rate Bird, when they come for me, I now know who I won't call for my defense!

I don't give a damn whether someone breaks Aaron's record or not. I also don't care if Bonds is a prick or not. Those things don't matter.

Bonds has done tremendous damage to the game and to his own reputation. He admitted publicly that he used the "clear and the cream", which are performance enhancing drugs. Whether or not he "knowingly" took steroids, do you really think a jury trial is necessary before anyone can render judgment given everything he and his associates have admitted? There is enough information out there to render all of his stats suspect. Given the body of evidence out there, even if he is admitted to the Hall of Fame there should be an asterisk next to his name that calls into doubt the legitimacy of his achievements in the game.

[Mulboyne]