WARNING: This post will be LONG and will likely not contain many visuals. If you are serious about knowing all you need to know about the upcoming season, keep reading. If you just want to know which team I pick to win it all, scroll down to the bottom of the post. For a look…
For the first time in my life (in any sport, perhaps) I took in a pre-season game. It was actually sprung on me when a Twitter friend told me that one of his friends had two spare tickets to the game. Since that friend-of-a-friend happened to be reliever Rafael Dolis, I was curious and could…
It was great to see many of the players up closely during the first week of spring training down in Okinawa last week. After terrible bouts with illness, I am finally ready to start processing what I saw and share it with you all. Part 1 was about the fielders (catchers excluded), this one will…
I was in Okinawa for the first week of spring training, but needed a day of recovery on February 4th. The players started on February 1st and are slated to bring things to a close on the 28th before returning to Kansai on February 29th. This session will look at the fielders, the next one at pitchers…
On Wednesday, I got to line up and get an autograph from Mauro Gomez. Many others were around me, but I was the only one who could speak with him in English… so I said he was looking great and that we are excited for a great 2016 from him. He said thanks and that…
Two of our most promising prospects took part in the winter league in Taiwan back in early December. They both finished with decent numbers against inferior competition, but hopefully can parlay that into regular playing time on the big team either this year or next. Shintaro Yokota, OF (20): .304, 2 HR, 11 RBI Naomasa…
First of all, what is a “scorer” (スコアラー) anyways? Before picking up Hiroshi Miyake’s memoirs, I would not have thought of them as anything more than guys who keep track of each at bat in a game – tracing lines on a scoresheet to indicate which runners made it how far in every inning of…
The other day I caught word on Twitter that newcomer Matt Hague‘s uniform number would be #36. So I retweeted it and tagged the man: My boy @mdhague Matt Hague is to wear #36 this coming season. Can’t wait to see him in pinstripes! #hanshin #tigers https://t.co/uJSd3hrnfa — T-Ray (@thehanshintiger) December 28, 2015 He was…
So it appears our closer of the past two years, Seung-hwan Oh, is cleared of allegedly gambling overseas. He will pay a fine and move on. I suppose this means he is eligible to play in Korea, Japan or overseas in 2016. To which I say, “Good for him. Just stay out of our backyard!”…
Anyone who has followed Matt Murton while he played for the Hanshin Tigers knows that the man is a Christian, and a vocal one at that. While his faith may not appeal to everyone, there are certainly people within the Christian community that root for him based solely on his beliefs. Contrarily, there are people…