No franchise should be proud of the fact that it has just one Japan Series championship in 69 years. And yet, you won’t find a baseball team prouder of its win than the Hanshin Tigers. But is that a testament to the lameness of the franchise, or is there more to it than that? The…
< Previous Next > Date: November 2, 1985 The drought had gone on long enough. In fact, there were players on the Tigers roster who were still in diapers the last time the team had won a pennant in 1964. And this team had a lot of the right pieces to take the team…
Original article can be seen here 元の記事はこちら Hanshin’s Senior Advisor, Yutaka Wada (54) has started a special column. In this one, he answers a reader’s question: “Which imports in Hanshin history left a mark on you?” Wada answered thusly: The first import that left an impression on me was Randy Bass, who was with the…
Sometimes books come to my attention through you, the reader. Someone in America sent me an e-mail a couple of months back, asking if I knew of any good books about Hanshin that were either in English, or were picture-heavy. I had no proper answer for him, but he then sent me a link to…
What if you had been able to befriend Ichiro Suzuki in Seattle back in 2001? You, a regular guy who had spent 7 or so years in Japan and knew the language, and could help him adjust to the new league, culture and country. And after his historic season, you got this idea: I could…
Some people say Santa Claus doesn’t exist or is not real. They might be right, and Santa might be nothing but a myth, but I met a legend who was dressed as a myth, visiting Japan to bring joy and hope to millions. As he does many Decembers, former Hanshin Tigers great Randy Bass made…
Yesterday my fellow Hanshin Tigers fan Peter Gibson, who lives down in Australia and will be featured on the next podcast, dropped a bomb on his Facebook page: he and Tigers legend (that word is practically an understatement, as he is practically deified in Kansai) Randy Bass became Facebook friends. Guess who’s a little jelly?…
To purchase and read this book, I had to put away my dislike of the Yomiuri Giants. After all, the subject and co-author starred for them during the most interesting years of my Hanshin Tigers’ history. He was a perfect foil to then-star Tiger Randy Bass, who enamored the fanatics at Koshien from the time he arrived in…
Of all the foreigners who have played on the Hanshin Tigers baseball club, undoubtedly the most popular and accomplished is first baseman Randy Bass. He played for the team from 1983 to 1988, and won the league Triple Crown two consecutive seasons (1985 and 1986) while establishing the NPB record for highest batting average in…
As I perused the baseball section at the local library, this book seemed like one I should read. Nothing about the cover or the title would compel anyone to read it, but the author’s name might make you feel like you should. Yoshio Yoshida was not only the manager of the 1985 championship team (the…