Walk-Off Grand Slams, or, An Excuse to Write About Kintetsu

» 22 October 2009 » In npb »

The mid-week Climax Series games are played well past my bedtime (if anyone has a justin.tv archive link, please do share), but I am following along asynchronously as usual.

Nippon Ham won Game 1 of the second stage of the Pacific League’s Climax Series on a walk-off grand slam hit by Termel Sledge. Deanna live-blogged it and a clip is available on YouTube.

I can’t hear about a walk-off grand slam without recalling Kintetsu’s 2001 Pacific League clincher, which is my favorite walk-off of all time. How many other big games have been won on a walk-off grand slam?

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  1. Patrick
    EJH
    22/10/2009 at 6:41 pm Permalink

    Sledge’s homerun must have been quite a thing to see. I wouldn’t know though due to the fact that the TV coverage ended with Ham down 6-1. I heard that this was the first time a post-season game in Japan has ended with a sayonara grand slam. It is really a shame that the people who make the decisions think that baseball fans prefer to watch only the 3rd to the 7th innings. Last night, again, the coverage ended early. The finish wasn’t quite as exciting, but I doubt I am the only person in Japan that would like to watch baseball games, particularly playoff games, through to the last out. Do the people in charge of Japanese baseball really want to turn off the league’s few remaining fans?

  2. Patrick
    Patrick
    22/10/2009 at 11:17 pm Permalink

    It’s good to have you back EJH.

    Have you ever heard of Bill Wirtz?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Wirtz

  3. Patrick
    christopher
    22/10/2009 at 11:34 pm Permalink

    This game was on NHK BS in Japan so we had full coverage and it was a spectacular end.

  4. Patrick
    yakamashii
    23/10/2009 at 5:32 am Permalink

    Dodgers won the NL West in 2004 on the second-to-last day of the season on a walk-off granny by Steve Finley. Entered the ninth inning of that one down 3-0 with Noah Lowry (who?) dealin’.

  5. Patrick
    yakamashii
    23/10/2009 at 5:33 am Permalink

    The Dodgers won the NL West on the second-to-last day of the season in 2004 on Steve Finley’s walk-off granny. They entered the ninth of that game down 3-0, Noah Lowry (who?) had been dealin’.

  6. Patrick
    westbaystars
    23/10/2009 at 8:02 am Permalink

    EJH,

    The broadcast TV programming directors don’t believe the masses want to watch baseball. All of the die hard fans have bought into cable or CS dishes. All games are played from start to finish on J-Sports 1, J-Sports 2, J-Sports ESPN, J-Sports Plus, GAORA, Sky A, G+ (Giants home games), NewsBird (Yokohama home games), and Fuji TV One (Yakult home games). There are probably more channels, but those are the ones that I frequent (or frequently wish came with Basic Cable) that I can rattle off the top of my head.

    Think of broadcast TV as giving consumers a taste of professional baseball. Those who get hooked will pay for the subscriptions. It’s a business. The alternatives are there for those who seriously want to watch baseball.

  7. Patrick
    EJH
    23/10/2009 at 7:48 pm Permalink

    I realize that games can be seen in their entirety on pay channels and it is not hard to see that baseball fans are being pushed towards those channels, but I do not believe that these facts fully explain the 8:54 cutoff that keeps tight-fisted fans like me from watching the 8th and 9th innings of most games. I remember a time when NHK-BS and the cable channels were in very few homes and even then most broadcasts were over before the games ended. Also, serious fans may have the option of paying for start-to-finish coverage but, as far as the future of this already dying league is concerned, this is a terrible approach because it makes it less likely that kids and less serious fans will ever become serious about baseball.

    Furthermore, on a only-just-barely-related note, am I the only one who thinks “BS News” is the most appropriate name for a news program ever created?

  8. Patrick
    Patrick
    24/10/2009 at 12:18 am Permalink

    When I was living in the Kansai area, the games would cut off at 8:54, but they would usually switch to a different channel. If I remember correctly it was a UHF station based in Kyoto.

    Kintetsu games were frequently shown on tape delay around midnight. I kind of liked that because I could see two games in their entirety. And if Kintetsu wasn’t any good, I could always flip to Matthew’s Best Hit Television or some crappy B movie. It was rare to see an Orix Blue Wave game on terrestrial.

    “BS News” is the perfect name for that particular news program, absolutely.