What is Baseball’s Place in the Crisis in Japan?
It’s common knowledge that on March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Japan, and a subsequent tsunami with waves reaching more than 30 feet devoured the island nation’s northeastern coast. Faced with the daunting tasks of finding the thousands still missing, providing shelter for the hundreds of thousands left homeless, and staving off an […]
The Climax of the Japanese Baseball Season
Baseball fans are in the midst of the fervor of the MLB playoffs – with its no-hitters, 5-run comebacks, bullpen implosions, and 14-strikeout performances. Fans of Japanese baseball are also enjoying a little drama, although in a slightly different format. In Japan, the top three teams from the two leagues – Central and Pacific – […]
A Whirlwind Tour of Japanese Baseball
For the third year in a row, I joined JapanBall, run by Bob Bavasi and Mayumi Smith, on a weeklong tour to watch baseball games in Japan. It was a whirlwind event, covering a lot of ground to see five baseball games in six cities over the course of seven days. If the name Bavasi […]
The Japanese All-Star Series
Image via Wikipedia While watching the recent MLB All-Star game, I started thinking about what the All-Star game is like in Japan. Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann and Chicago Cubs outfielder Marlon Byrd performed late-inning heroics, propelling the National League to victory. Now that the MLB’s mid-summer classic “counts,” the win assures a National League […]
