And now. . .

From the same folks who brought you the BJ League. . .

Comes the new name for Japan professional baseball’s post-season playoffs. . .

The Climax Series. . .

Coming to a baseball stadium near you this autumn.

A writer probing the problems of too many people crowding too little space in the future, Frosty Woolridge, tells readers his take on Japan here:

To give you an idea where we’re headed, while in Japan, I watched baseball games. They endure so little space; they construct four ball diamonds in a box of land all facing inward toward each other. All the outfielders mingle with outfielders from four other teams. You can’t believe it unless you see it. What benefit has overpopulation given the Japanese?

Four baseball diamonds in one large field. Where? Photo?

Yakult Swallows player-manager Atsuya Furuta signed a new contract with Yakult Swallows yesterday. No surprises there, it’s his 18th year with the club. What will raise eyebrows, though, is that he accepted a 75% pay cut!

Next year, his playing salary will be ¥60 million - a ¥180 million reduction (though he’ll still take an additional ¥100 million yen for being manager).

Furuta’s reaction to the news was rather more graceful than you might expect.

“I was surprised when I first saw their initial offer, which had an 80 percent decrease, but it seems rational because I don’t think I deserved the money with what I did as a player last year.”

Apologies for the light posting yesterday, but I was out all day for work-related, meetings and Sunday I spent the evening with Mrs. JP, Mr. Pink, and Mrs. Pink at Tokyo Dome where we watched the final game of the Asia Series between Taiwan’s LA New Bears and Japan’s Nippon Ham Fighters.

All of us fully expected to see Japan walk all over the Taiwan champs, but the game unfolded as a real pitching duel with the pitchers and defense on both sides keeping base runners from scoring.

Ham’s Yu Darvish struck out 10 and gave up only one hit over seven innings.

Nippon ham finally won on a run-scoring single.

The lack of hitting spark on the field, however, was more than made up for by the Taiwan side’s cheering section. A quartet of sexy young woman danced up a storm, as the vocal cheering section kept the decibel at a high level.

The following shows a typical round of cheers from the Taiwanese.

All of this, combined with the beer girls constantly making the rounds made it hard at times to keep your mind on what was happening down on the field!

Found myself in JR Utsunomiya Station this afternoon with about 30 minutes to kill between trains and a minor case of the hungries, so I set off looking for something quick and simple to eat. I eventually ended up at a Lotteria hamburger shop, which was serving the Bobby Burger (named after professional baseball manager Bobby Valentine), which we wrote up here a couple of weeks ago.

I went in and ordered a set menu that included fries and a Coke, all for about 600 yen.

The thought that immediately popped into my head as I chewed my first bite of the Bobby burger was, “Where’s the beef?”

The mushy patty was a sickly beige color that looked a lot like the chicken and tofu patties that Mrs. JP likes to concoct every now and then. It was smothered in a BBQ sauce that was so sweet it tasted like a dessert topping. Other ingredients included pineapple and shredded lettuce (which appeared to be natural, but who knows anymore these days?)

The accompanying fries were acceptable, and the Coke was a Coke.

The final verdict?

If you find yourself with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in the hunger department and there is absolutely nothing else available, a Bobby Burger will serve to plug that hole growing in your stomach. But if anything else is available, your best play may be an intentional walk over to Wendy’s or even McDonald’s.

No doubt Japanese baseball will be just a bit duller with the recent retirement Tsuyoshi Shinjo. But the bigger question is what will Tsuyoshi Shinjo be like without baseball.

During the months leading up to his retirement there were rumors of Shinjo becoming an actor or politician, but the ex-New York Mets outfielder recently told reporters that such career moves are not in his current plans. In fact, the interview centered more on what he would not be doing rather than providing any information on what he would be doing.

Q: Do you plan to be involved in baseball?
A: For now, I don’t think so.

Q: Do you plan to become an actor or a politician?
A: That’s what I said in America. It was a joke. I want to have a variety of experiences if I have the chance.

Q: How about the rumor of you running in the House of Councillors’ election?
A: I don’t think I am able to do that for now.

Q: What will you be doing around this time next year?
A: I don’t know. I am looking forward to finding out what other talents I have. I want to follow a new dream while doing various types of work.

Q: How about becoming a guest commentator for professional baseball games?
A: I don’t think I will do that.

One thing is for sure, just about anything he ends up doing will most probably be a lot of fun for everyone.

American baseball manager Bobby Valentine has enjoyed the acclaim of Japanese baseball fans in general and the adoration of Chiba Lotte Marines fans in particular ever since he was able to conjure up his “Bobby Magic” and take the Marines from the cellar to the Japanese championship in only two years.

Now comes word that Japanese burger chain Lotteria will be including a Bobby Burger on its menu for a limited time.

Valentine actually was involved in developing the recipe for the Bobby Burger (special BBQ sauce topped with pineapples and cheese) and he gives it his wholehearted seal of approval.

I have to say that not only is the taste really good but it is also a healthy fast-food option that can be enjoyed by everyone.

It was not that long ago that a Japanese baseball team headed by a foreign manager was unthinkable. The success of Chiba Lotte Marines skipper Bobby Valentine last year and Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters manager Trey Hillman this year, however, seems to have shattered that taboo for good.

Now we get word that former Houston Astros and Anaheim Angels manager Terry Collins may be at the helm of the Orix Buffaloes next season. Orix is denying that anything has been decided yet.

Collins [h]as enjoyed success at the big-league level, posting a 444-434 mark in a six-year career in which his teams finished second in their respective division all but one time.

Collins later managed at Triple-A Las Vegas, an affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was promoted to director of player development for the club, and he was a candidate to replace Jim Tracy as Dodgers manager when Tracy was released after the end of the 2005 season.

I wonder if the Yomiuri Giants will ever go gaijin. . .

It seems as if Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is scrambling to replace some of the flash and dash they lost when Elivis Koizumi stepped down as prime minister.

The word is that the LDP has approached Japanese professional baseball player and unabashed hot dot Tsuyoshi Shinjo about running for a seat in the House of Councillors (Lower House) in the summer 2007 election.

Shinjo, a 34-year-old Japanese star player, played for the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants in the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is now an outfielder for Japanese professional baseball team Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

A few months ago, Shinjo announced his intention to retire from baseball at the end of the current season.

The above came from a piece in the Mainichi Daily News, which is no longer available.

Yuki Saito, the pitcher of the Waseda Jitsugyo high school team who captured the nation’s heart with is performance at this year’s national baseball high school tournament has announced that he will be going to college instead of jumping to the Japan pro leagues.

After his success in the summer national tournament, Saito has been the focus of attention in Japan and many fans thought he may join a professional baseball team.

“When talking with my family on Sunday, I said I wanted to enter university,” Saito said at a press conference at Waseda Jitsugyo High School in Kokubunji, western Tokyo. “My family respects my decision.”

As I remarked to Mrs. JP when I saw Saito and some of the other kids in action at this year’s tournament, there is still plenty of hope for the future of Japan with a crop like this coming down the pike.

Is Japan plundering The Simpsons for ideas or something? The “baseball beer backpack babes” sound a little too familiar, if you know what I mean.

But as the WaiWai article goes on to suggest, the exploitation is on more than one level for those concerned:

Despite the grueling work, the pay is hardly what you’d call lucrative. Though the sums differ according to the ball club, the average backpack babe can expect a basic daily fee of 3,000 yen, then a commission of around 20 yen for each beer she sells. Sales topping certain figures, like 100 beers, earn bonuses of around 2,000 yen. Worked out at that rate, then, the average beer seller can expect to take home about 7,000 yen for the first 100 beers she sells.

I’d stick to modelling or whatever if that’s the case.

Tsuyoshi Shinjo has once again showed the old fogies who run Japanese professional baseball something that Bill Veeck figured out a long time ago – sometimes it takes a little more than baseball to fill the seats at a baseball game.

The flamboyant and popular ex-New York Met Shinjo, currently of the Nippon-Ham Fighters, made a grand entrance into a pre-game show earlier this week by being lowered down onto the field from the roof of the Sapporo (Hokkaido) Dome on a trapeze.

Shinjo’s stunt, which no doubt had many a traditional head wagging in baseball circles here, was witnessed by a capacity-busting 43,473 fans, which set a new attendance record for Sapporo Dome.

“I didn’t expect this,” a 12-year-old fan said. “Shinjo did something different.”

Oh, yeah. . . Almost forgot. . . Nippon-Ham beat the visiting Hanshin Tigers 3-0.

Alan Gratz’s new YA novel [for young adults] has a Japanese theme, and it is titled “Samurai Shortstop.” According to a stateside blogger, the book,which is very well written and researched, takes place in Japan during its industrial revolution:

There was some serious culture shock at the time, with the dying era of the samurai and the embracing of all things Western, including baseball. The story is told through the eyes of a young private school boy whose father and uncle are both samurai. In fact, the story opens with his uncle commiting seppuku — this grabs the reader immediately! I learned about an interesting time in history while enjoying what is essentially a classic “baseball story” in reading Samurai Shortstop.

(via Elizabeth Dulemba blog)

The issuance of extra editions in Tokyo’s Ginza district by Mainichi Shimbun to announce Japan’s victory over Cuba at the World Baseball Classic on Tuesday sparked a mini riot that ended up putting three women in the hospital.

A large crowd of people surged towards employees of the daily as they handed out the extra, causing the three women to be crushed against a concrete flower box, after which they fell to the ground and sustained injuries. The women were taken to a hospital, where it was determined that their injuries were not serious.

Interest in the WBC was intense in Japan, with one TV rating company reporting that viewership of the semifinal between Japan and South Korea averaged 36.2 percent in the Kanto (Tokyo) area. Peak viewership was 50.3 percent at the end of the game.

The ratings were the highest for a live sports broadcast since June 2005, when Japan played North Korea to qualify for the soccer World Cup. That game reached 43.4 percent in the Kanto region.

Japanese figure skater Shizuka Arakawa’s gold medal-winning performance at the Turin Winter Olympics achieved ratings of 31.8 percent.

Congratulations to Team Japan for their stunning (some might say lucky) 10-6 victory over Cuba in an exciting finale to the World Baseball Classic.

———————- Update

You can catch Japundit contributor Mike Plugh’s great recap of the game over at Canyon of Heroes.

Many Japanese, as well Chinese and Koreans, think American balls are too slippery.

They also think the size is a little different, and are having trouble adjusting to the higher seams.

That’s the consensus of opinion of the pitchers from Asia who will be representing their countries in the first World Baseball Classic starting in a couple of weeks, as reported here on MLB.com’s website.

Most of the Japanese pitchers don’t care for the Rawlings product, but some are convinced the surface gives them a better break on their curveball. Many of the hurlers from China, Taiwan, and South Korea also are finding the switch difficult, though the Korean squad has more pitchers with major league experience, and are therefore used to the balls.

China’s manager Jim Lefebvre made sure his pitching staff got used to the differences.

“They had to learn to get on top of it, but once they did, they found it’s got a little more juice,” he said. “They’re OK now…It’s no excuse as far as the balls go. They made sure we got them in time, so every team has had the chance.”

Shunsuke Watanabe of the Chiba Lotte Marines, last year’s Japanese champions, may have the perfect compromise. His league modified the seams on their balls to resemble those of the U.S. product, a step he endorses, but he also thinks Rawlings should switch the covering from Yankee cowhide to Japanese horsehide.

Come to think of it, if this is an international tournament–and the Caribbean countries will participate, too–who made the decision that an American company would make the balls and manufacture them to American specifications?

“Mo sugu haru, desu ne,” say the lyrics of an old pop song, or spring is right around the corner, and there’s no surer sign of that than baseball’s spring training, which got underway this week in the United States–but started several weeks ago here.

If you’re hungry for more information on yakyu, or baseball Japanese style, your best bet may be this site I just stumbled across, called Japan Baseball Daily.

The guy running the show offers daily reports in addition to a storehouse of information, and he’s adding more continuously. There’s even a forum for discussion if you’re so inclined. He seems to be based in Japan, proficient in the language, and have contacts in the industry, so it’s worth a look.

Looks like Tsuyoshi Shinjo, formerly of the New York Mets, is really warming up to his role as image guy for Japanese men’s underwear manufacturer Gunze (more here).

I read in a Chicago Tribune report that Chicagoans have given Tadahito Iguchi an easier-to-pronounce nickname.

They call the White Sox second baseman “Gooch.”