NPB Tracker

I’m watching Hiroshima vs Seibu on the NPB Live page if anyone wants to join me. When I turned on the game, it struck me that Hiroshima and Seibu played each other in the 1986 Japan Series. Then I realized that yesterday I watched Hanshin vs Lotte, and they played in the 2005 Japan Series. And it turns out that we’ve seen all of today’s interleague matchups except one in previous Japan Series’.

• Seibu vs Hiroshima, 1986
• Hanshin vs Lotte, 2005
• Nippon Ham vs Chunichi, 2006 & 2007
• Orix vs Yakult, 2001 (Yakult vs Kintetsu) & 1995 (Yakult vs Orix)
• Yomiuri vs SoftBank, 2000 (when the Hawks were still owned by Daiei)
• Yokohama vs Rakuten… I think it will be a while before we see this one

Hat tip to commenter John Brooks, who left a response on another post pointing out that the Rakuten Eagles have acquired Yankees AAA outfielder Todd Linden. I saw Linden play some when he was with the Giants and to me he always kind of looked the part, but for whatever reason he couldn’t perform well enough to stick with the MLB team. Jason Ellison was another guy who was around at the same time who I’d put in the same category.

In other Rakuten news, Kazuo Fukumori’s release from the Rangers is official enough for him to have headed back to Japan for a tryout with the Eagles. Manager Katsuya Nomura has given his blessing to signing Fukumori, should he pass the audition. Nomura originally expressed some resentment toward Fukumori for leaving the Eagles to join the Rangers in the first place, but has apparently backed down. While we’re here, I’ll share this scouting report on Fukumori from 2007, which anticipated his failure to impress in American ball.