The English NPB Blogosphere, 2010 Edition

» 08 March 2010 » In kbo, npb »

When I started this site in 2008, there were some good English language sources of information on Japanese baseball, but I (obviously) didn’t feel there were enough. Thankfully, there are a few more now. So here’s my guide to the English NPB Blogosphere for 2010.

General Japanese Baseball

  • JapaneseBaseball.com, the first there ever was, hosts blogs as well as discussion boards.
  • By know we know what to expect from Deanna’s Marinerds: baseball otaku-ism, lots of detail, and great photos.
  • Similarly, if you’re reading this you’ve probably seen Yakyu Baka, Gwynar’s insanely thorough news site.
  • Gary Garland no longer posts news to Japan Baseball Daily, but stats and archived content are still available.
  • Simon appears to be on a little bit of a hiatus, but he occasionally covers baseball at jhockey. His hockey content gets a thumbs up from me too.
  • Japan Baseball News is a new site that got going last season.
  • Japanese Baseball Cards makes me miss Calbee Potato Chips.
  • Kokoyakyu is an invaluable resource during the Koshien tournaments. I haven’t found it’s equal in Japanese (not that I’m looking).
  • Janblurr’s blog includes the occasional post on Japanese baseball. Jan also contributed this post about German baseball to NPB Tracker last year.
  • Yakyu All-Stars is a site written by NPB Tracker reader Matt, and knowing his team allegiance I almost put him in this next category…

Team Specific Blogs

Historical Sites

  • Rob Fitts chronicled the famed 1934 MLB All-Star tour of Japan, which is really what gave professional baseball its start in the country. Rob isn’t maintaining that particular story line any more, but its still a great read.
  • A Noboru Aota Fan’s Notes is only an occasional read for me, but it’s really a remarkable site. The very anonymous author goes into a tremendous amount of detail on each topic he covers, and includes scans of old photos and painted baseball cards. Really enjoying this site requires a decent investment of time, though which runs counter to the Internet culture. Still, this is a hidden gem.

Around Asia

And Finally…

I don’t link to writers in Japan’s mainstream English press very often, but there are some who do excellent work. Three that I think deserve special attention are Jim Allen, Jason Coskrey, and Wayne Graczyk.

If there any sites that are missing from this list that should be included, please leave a comment.

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  1. Patrick
    Christopher Amano-Langtree
    08/03/2010 at 12:35 am Permalink

    Tiger Tails (my blog) on Japanese Baseball.com is dedicated to Hanshin Tigers. Comments and news on every aspect of the Tigers universe

  2. Patrick
    David Pan
    08/03/2010 at 1:01 am Permalink

    I’m not sure if this is relevant, but Robert Whiting from the japan times should also be included somewhere in this list, because of his insightful views about the effects of foreigners making contributions to Japanese baseball, such as the Bobby Valentine Effect to the Marines and Trey Hillman’s personal philosophy towards success with the Hamfighters:

    Bobby V: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sb20100124c1.html
    Hillman: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sb20090531j2.html

    In addition, he also wrote articles about the NPB reform and argues the necessity of modeling its system after MLB, so, if you could read it during your spare time, assuming, of course, that you never read it, you should read it. The link below is part 3 of his 4 part series:

    http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sb20070413c1.html

    However, he seldomly updates his column, so that’s why i somewhat hesitated when mentioning his name: readers might enjoy viewing columns or blogs with daily updates, as opposed to ones with periodical updates.

  3. Patrick
    Jan
    08/03/2010 at 3:50 am Permalink

    That’s a great list, thanx a lot.
    I didn’t have any time to write anything lately. Hopefully the situation at work will become a little less stressful, that’s when i’ll be back in action. 😉

  4. Patrick
    Patrick
    08/03/2010 at 8:54 am Permalink

    Christopher — I’ve added you to the list. I initially left you out because I wanted to cover all the JapaneseBaseball.com content with a single link.

    David — Robert Whiting is great, but this post was about highlighting some of the writers that aren’t getting his level of exposure.

    Jan — ohisashiburi. I’ve put you back on the list as well, hopefully you’ll free up and find a little blogging time this year. Writing is a great stress-buster for me.

  5. Patrick
    simon
    08/03/2010 at 6:20 pm Permalink

    Thanks for the shout out Patrick! I’ve been working on-site on a short term contract since autumn, and haven’t found a good way to balance that with my freelance work and skiing during the winter! Hence the blog hiatus. Bad timing too as the Olympics were a fantastic tournament, and Asia League is heading into the playoffs after the Japanese Championships.

  6. Patrick
    npbcardguy
    08/03/2010 at 7:02 pm Permalink

    Thanks for the mention. One site you left out is Japan Baseball Daily which is probably the best English language source of historic information out there. It’s not a blog, but just a clearing house of stats and he’s got a pretty extensive collection of links as well.

  7. Patrick
    npbcardguy
    08/03/2010 at 7:04 pm Permalink

    Rereading my comment, I realize that saying “just a clearing house of stats” sounds like I’m putting it down. I didn’t mean to come across that way. It’s an amazing collection of stats.

  8. Patrick
    Patrick
    08/03/2010 at 10:03 pm Permalink

    Yeah, Japan Baseball Daily was one of my sources of inspiration for starting this site. The stats are still great but I don’t think Gary is regularly updating the written content any more.

  9. Patrick
    Patrick
    08/03/2010 at 10:05 pm Permalink

    Although when he does, it’s pretty entertaining: http://www.japanbaseballdaily.com/editorial.html

  10. Patrick
    Steve
    09/03/2010 at 1:27 am Permalink

    Patrick,

    Thanks for the mention! I went on a winter hiatus myself, returned last month a bit and am working on some redesign issues now (and have a pile of unpublished posts and pics).

    Looking forward to the season that is now less than two weeks away!

  11. Patrick
    westbaystars
    09/03/2010 at 6:47 am Permalink

    Pro Baseball Taiwan has just started up this past month and looks to be a great source for CPBL happenings both on and off the field. He started off running one for his team and the general one for all of CPBL, but realized after a couple of weeks that the overlap was too great to run two sites, so this is the product of that merger.

    And I’ll try to write about my BayStars more this year. I may not write often, but I hope that when I do write that it’s worth the read.

  12. Patrick
    Deanna
    09/03/2010 at 7:09 pm Permalink

    I promise to be both more and less lame with my blog this year. 🙂

  13. Patrick
    Bob
    12/03/2010 at 8:49 am Permalink

    What a nice nod you gave to the three writers Jim Allen, Jason Coskrey, and Wayne Graczyk.

    I don’t know if this may be of interest, but allow me to offer you this link to the discount page for Wayne’s Japan Baseball Media Guide in English.

    It’s not a big deal, just a couple bucks off until April 1, but if someone was planning to order, a couple of dollars is a couple of dollars.

    Wayne’s a good guy and I tend to think his guide is a resource worth trying to preserve.

    In any event, here’s the link for your perusal if you’d like to use it.

    http://www.japanball.com/book_special.htm

  14. Patrick
    Dan
    17/03/2010 at 12:09 pm Permalink

    I’ve had a English KBO forum for awhile now….

    http://www.mykbo.net

    http://www.twitter.com/mykbo

  15. Patrick
    Patrick
    17/03/2010 at 9:59 pm Permalink

    Thanks Dan. I’ve added you to the list. I have an upcoming post for Twitter so I’ll get you into that one as well.