“No Comment”
The current phase of the Yu Darvish posting saga has predictability opened with a round of “no comments”. Here’s what Nippon Ham Fighters representative Toshimasa Shimada said to the Japanese media:
“We don’t have anything we can talk about yet. The outlook for a decision? I think we want to make a decision within the extent of the rules”
When asked about what Nippon Ham would base an acceptance on, Shimada reponded,
“Starting now, we’re considering our options, including that.”
And that was all.
16/12/2011 at 12:37 pm Permalink
Here’s a piece of NPB interest that has been making the rounds here in Phils-country:
http://www.beerleaguer.com/beerleaguer/2011/12/yomiuri-giants-eye-bowker-to-replace-ramirez.html
Apparently the Giants are after John Bowker to be their next big bat. Bowker has been raking in AAA for quite a while, but looked terrible in his time with the Phils last year. It looked like he was swinging his bat underwater. It’ll be curious to see if he ends up in black and orange (and how well he does once there). I foresee a hot start, followed by a gradual retreat to ordinary competence, Josh Whitesell-style.
17/12/2011 at 9:04 am Permalink
This is totally unrelated.
Baseball-Reference lists countries of birth of all major leaguers.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/
Imagine that we do the same thing for the NPB. Now, the MLB is more diverse. (No one seems to know the exact circumstance of “Atlantic Ocean.”) But, to my knowledge, there are three countries that the NPB has and the MLB doesn’t. Brazil is a glaring hole for the MLB. Can anyone name the other two?
17/12/2011 at 9:28 am Permalink
Yeah, those reports have come up in the Japanese media as well. I’m not optimistic about Bowker. I thought they had the right idea with Jeremy Hermida, but they couldn’t get him signed.
17/12/2011 at 9:42 am Permalink
And for Passerby’s brain-buster… hmm…
Russia (Victor Starfin)?… no
Spain (Daniel Rios)? … no
Mainland China (someone)? … no
The Phillipines (someone)? … no
Thailand (someone)? … maybe
On that last one, I wonder how Krissada Shirakura is doing with Honda.
17/12/2011 at 10:02 am Permalink
Eiji Bando (China)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/æ¿æ±è‹±äºŒ
Adelano Rivera (Philippines)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ã‚¢ãƒãƒ©ãƒŽãƒ»ãƒªãƒ™ãƒ©
17/12/2011 at 3:17 pm Permalink
According to BR, Bobby Chouinard was born in the Philippines (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/chouibo01.shtml) and Harry Kingman was born in China (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kingmha01.shtml).
17/12/2011 at 5:40 pm Permalink
Yes, China and the Philippines don’t meet my requirement. I will give the answer when either Aoki or Darvish finds out which team he will talk to.
17/12/2011 at 5:53 pm Permalink
Aoki’s going to Milwaukee.
17/12/2011 at 8:55 pm Permalink
The answer is
Yoichi Okabayashi (Paraguay)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/岡林洋一
Susumu Aizawa (Federated States of Micronesia)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/相沢進
18/12/2011 at 12:10 am Permalink
passerby, プãƒé‡Žçƒè©³ã—ã„ã。
You would have had me stumped for a week with that, but I will say I had a hunch that the players in question would wind up being Japanese citizens.
18/12/2011 at 1:48 am Permalink
Well, Okabayashi is pretty recent.
Your “TO DO LIST” in the upper right corner lists Victor Starffin. Aizawa was a teammate of his when he recorded the 300th win. A book published recently about the Takahashi Unions. It might be a great pick-up for your Japanese and a great research material.
http://www.byakuya-shobo.co.jp/page.php?id=2840&gname=shoseki
Lastly, a rare Starffin interview (1m40s on)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNZZUMsamAk
18/12/2011 at 3:19 am Permalink
Interesting, Okabayashi’s nisei, and Aizawa’s mother is Micronesian.
18/12/2011 at 10:41 am Permalink
The very same to do list that I’ve ignored for at last two years 🙂
Starffin strikes me as a little bit of an under-appreciated baseball legend, though he does have a stadium named after him.
My most recent book order was for the usual Shu-Be, Yakyu Kozo, and this:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%97%E3%83%AD%E9%87%8E%E7%90%83-%E7%90%83%E5%9B%A3%E3%83%95%E3%83%AD%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88%E3%81%AE%E6%88%A6%E3%81%84-%E5%B7%A5%E8%97%A4%E5%81%A5%E7%AD%96/dp/4794218591/ref=sr_1_86?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323322316&sr=1-86