Two Talkin’ Torakichi: Episode 003

Tora (虎) = Tiger

Kichi (キチ) = short for kichigai (気違い) = lunatic

We are…

Episode 003: Baseball’s Back!

The long baseball — and Two Talkin’ Torakichi — hiatus is over! Good to be back, isn’t it, my good man?

Indeed over my friend!! Feels good to be back talking Tigers baseball and I couldn’t feel any more excited!

You were filling the void by following CPBL (Taiwan) and KBO (Korea) a little more than you usually do. Give the folks a bit of a primer on your team in each league, if you don’t mind.

Right. So, I kinda have a team in pretty much every country and in every sport and in baseball it’s no different. Since I started looking for baseball in Asia back in the day, the Brothers Elephants (former BrotheR Elephants) in Taiwan and the Kia Tigers have been my go-to choice for those countries. I remember that the choice in Taiwan at that time was between 7-Eleven Uni-President Lions, which is still the most successful team in Taiwan, and the infamous Brother (singular) Elephants. Infamous because its fan base is well-known to be rowdy and crazy. So I ended up being an Elephants fan mostly because they were there since day one of the league and I just couldn’t deny those unis. I really love the Chinese characters on them. In Korea, going through teams, the only one that really caught my attention was the Kia Tigers mainly because of their legacy and the fact that they never lost a Korean Series. I thought it was a great organization to follow, so I got on board.

Well, I know the Brothers have Wei-chu Lin as their farm manager and he played with the Hanshin Tigers for many seasons. Also, they wear similar team colours to our guys, so I automatically adopt them as my CPBL team. And yeah, the Tiger connection with Kia is a no-brainer as well. What are their records at present (start of June)?

Exactly. The Elephants had had even a special Hanshin night with Tigers-inspired uniforms and all. I mean, as a Hanshin fan, how can you not love that? As you said, Wei-chu Lin was a fan favorite back in Nishinomiya and I know for sure Brothers fans also share the same love for Hanshin. Kia’s connection with the Tigers is also one of the factors that makes the decision way easier. Right now, Brothers’ record stands as 14-15 (they’re playing the Monkeys just now so that record will change by the time people read the article) and 13-12 for Kia (they just beat Lotte).

OK well, their seasons are still young. There’s still hope, at least. Man, there is a lot of high hope and expectation for our Hanshin Tigers, too. Akihiro Yano has been going on and on about winning the CL and the Nippon Series this year. I want to believe him, but the realist in me knows better than to hold my breath waiting for it to happen. We (the H-TEN podcast) will have our annual CL Predictions show soon so you don’t need to divulge everything here, but any initial thoughts about the 2020 team?

See, as the realist in all of us, I try not to create great expectations on the team because in the end, we all know that it can be frustrating but this year, I’m with Yano. I really feel confident about this group of guys and since we were able to make that huge run by the end of the season last year, nothing is impossible so I truly believe that this might be the year.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my stance as a fan is that I always believe this year might be the year. (I was not yet a fan back in the team’s Dark Ages = 1986-2002. My narrative would be different if that were the case.) At season’s end, if they win, I never want to be saying, “I didn’t believe in them but somehow they did it.” I’d much rather be the guy saying, “I told ya so!”

Sure thing. Same here.

Anyways man, I want to talk a little about the great TV show that we were able to catch earlier this week. It was on MBS and it showed 100 (or more?) famous or cool Hanshin moments that took place at Koshien Stadium. Naturally, one of them was the back-to-back-to-back jacks, which I never get tired of seeing, but there was a TON of footage that I’d never seen before, and that to me made this show extremely fun to watch.

Man, that has to be one of the most entertaining shows that I’ve ever watched about the Tigers. I mean, EVER! Tons of awesome footage and information shown in a pretty cool format. There were quizzes all the time about stuff you probably never thought about. Amazing. I wish every Tiger fan could watch it. Not exaggerating. Btw, if anyone is ever taking that Hanshin proficiency test, this show might help.

Guy, with all due respect to Kadokawa Films, this TV show was WAY better than the official movie that came out back in February of this year.  

I haven’t seen the movie yet but I believe you. There’s no way it was better than this. Literally NO WAY!

What were some of your favorite moments/scenes? I’ll tell you right off the bat, the catching up with Tom O’Malley and getting him into the studio to sing Rokko Oroshi again was hilarious… especially since I actually downloaded the original 1993 track from iTunes, so I have listened to it a few dozen times. It is AWFUL, and I would dare say he sounded better in 2019 than he did in the original.

Lol. That was really something. Hard to name just one segment but I gotta say that I really enjoyed seeing the brawls against Yomiuri. Usually, when highlighting the team, these shows don’t really emphasise the brawls of the past so that was unexpected. I really haven’t seen most on video, so that was cool.

I kinda forgot about those brawl scenes! Yeah, pretty awesome because besides what you just said, they don’t happen much anymore. I have only had the privilege of seeing one brawl live in person: when Fujinami beaned Hatakeyama in the head back in 2017. Yano (who was a coach at the time) tried coming to his rescue but got thrown to the mat by Balentien. I also really liked that they showed every single walk-off home run at Koshien Stadium during the Heisei Era… plus the three from last year (Fukudome, Takayama, Solarte).

That was crazy! When they announced that they were to show every single walk-off of the Heisei Era, I just couldn’t believe it and yet, they did it. We’re talking about around 30 to 40 homers during that period so the name of the show (about 100 moments) actually makes sense.

Some repeat customers in there were no surprise (Tsuyoshi Shinjo, Tomoaki Kanemoto) but were there any guys that kinda surprised you or stood out?

Good question. I think what surprised me was to be able to see all of these unknown players that we usually don’t really hear about and see that they saved the team every now and then.

I have to say, I was happy to see my boy Matt Murton in there. I didn’t realize that he walked off two games in a four-day span! That is impressive! Also, Jimbo (podcast music creator) said that Takahiro Arai never hit a home run when it mattered, but he did make a single appearance in the highlight reel. Also, I did not know that he and Ryota were the first brothers to hit homers in the same game… and they did it three times!

Yeah, it’s always good to see Murton on tape, that’s for sure. It brings back good memories. I understand Jimbo just because, of the Arai brothers, Takahiro was never known for power like his brother Ryota was. He has it though but Ryota was much more clutch in my understanding. One thing that caught my attention is that Brazell, although having a season-high of 47 homers in 2010, never was able to walk-it-off with a homer.

I also have to say it was a nice touch for them to give a full segment of the show to the great (and not-so-great) import players in team history. I can’t believe they showed video of the entire pause (90 seconds?) in Randy Messenger’s retirement press conference from last year! But also, it was cool to see footage of almost exactly what George Arias and Trey Moore talked about during a Zoom Meeting that I joined them for (thanks to the Japan Retired Former Players Association). Moore with a clutch RBI hit (impressive for a pitcher) and Arias for his all-star game home run with his son present. They didn’t show the homer, but they did show him playing catch with his boy on the field that day.

Yeah, that press conference was really heartbreaking and they kept showing for a looooong time. If I’m not mistaken, Hoshino signaled for Moore to bunt. He totally ignored it and went for an RBI. You gotta have guts to do that to Hoshino, I mean, literally giant balls.

Yep… but I feel like I got to know Moore a bit on that Zoom call, and he’s definitely no coward. I didn’t know that the guy before him failed to lay down a bunt… so in some ways, two bunt calls in a row is ⅔ of the way to being what we saw live at Koshien back in 2018! But that’s another story… Back to the plotline. It was cool that they featured Jeff Williams some as well. Glad to have that guy in the fold still to this day.

See, it’s hard not to love Williams. He was part of two pennant-winning teams and it was dominant as F* during those days. I’m glad that he’s still in the loop and people appreciate his time with the team.

And that brings us back to 2020, because he was at spring training in Okinawa to help the new guys adjust to life in Japan with our Hanshin Tigers. Speaking of which, Justin Bour hit his first in-game home run of the year today against the Carp. Did you see it? It was a beauty.

Yes sir! I watched pretty much the whole thing and that homer was critical for us to start things going. Regardless whether it is practice or not, very first homer so well done Bour-san! The first of many to come. Not just that, but he was the hero of the game which is all you need to keep yourself confident and going for the fences.

Well, when you submit your CL predictions to H-TEN, you’re going to have to be bold with your prediction of how many long balls he’s gonna hit because that is the tie-breaking question! For the rest of you, stay tuned for the details about the contest because it’s coming SOON! And so is regular season baseball! Zorny, I know life is busy, and sitting down to do this takes commitment, so thank you, man. When are we gonna do this again?

Well, I think everyone already knows who’s finishing first in my list by now but yeah, the tiebreaker is gonna be as bold as possible. Let it begin my friend! Thank you Mr. T-Ray and let’s try to catch up after I finish watching those Sun-TV Hanshin specials.

Oh yeah, we never even touched on those, but Sun-TV (station of the decade) has been broadcasting parts of some classic games every Friday night. Not like “Tigers clinch the pennant” types of games, but we’re talking rare ones like “Akinobu Mayumi’s walk-off single in 1983” or “Yutaka Wada’s 4-hit night in 1992” kind of hardcore games. LOVE it.

These games are some rarities that you won’t find it anywhere so it’s must-watch. Can’t wait to talk about them. Once again, glad to be back talking Tigers!

We got 120 games of Tigers (plus Japan Series if all goes well!) to keep this thing going, man. Until next time…