From T-Ray’s Daily Sports Column (Japanese) / トレバーの虎場（デイリースポーツ）から I can’t remember the exact day it dawned on me that I would never be a professional athlete, but I clearly recall my ambitions changing very quickly from athletic to journalistic. Like, if I could not be in that locker room celebrating a Stanley Cup with my…
This one was nothing like the first two, especially in that the BayStars did not crank one out of the park early. The losers would go home for good, and the winners would advance to face the Central League champs. Neither team’s pitchers seemed interested in giving up a run, and neither team’s hitters seemed…
When your best pitcher gets tagged for five straight hits to open the game, and you find yourself down six runs with just a few innings to go, it’s easy to just pack it in and hope for better fortunes tomorrow. Fans who did just this are kicking themselves now, because they gave up on…
I’m beside myself. The Tigers ended the Heisei Era with eight straight losses to the Giants (six this year, including shutouts in the last two). Heading into Tokyo Dome against a team that crushed the Swallows for 19 runs in a single game just last week? Not feeling this series, I thought to myself. And…
The Tigers got mauled badly by the Giants at the start of the week, and the team was to head into Hiroshima to face the three-time defending champs. They never do well at Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium. But tonight was different. Ace comes up big, pinch hitter delivers winning homer.
It’s been a long season, has it not? The truth of the matter is, the team looked pretty good during the first half of the “Road of Death” August schedule, while yours truly was away on vacation, but soon thereafter played absolutely pathetic baseball. I’m not sure “pathetic” covers it. From August 19 onwards, they…
The Tigers came back to Koshien on Tuesday and laid an egg against the Chunichi Dragons on Tuesday. The weather was gloomy after that, too, and it looked as though the rest of the series would be rained out… but somehow they squeezed in the game on Wednesday. Speaking of squeezes, everyone’s favorite catcher came…
The Tokyo Yakult Swallows had an incredible interleague mini-season. In fact, they became just the second Central League team to finish with a better record than all PL teams. They looked to parlay that momentum into a spot near the top of the CL standings, but if the Tigers have their way, it will be…
Life as a Tigers fan had been pretty depressing for much of June. Surprisingly, one of the few teams we’ve had success against this season is the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Thanks to them (really, thanks to some untimely errors) we were able to put that 5-game losing streak behind us. SWEEP! Game 66: Brought to…
The Kansai Derby always seems to be interesting. This year, it was the Orix Buffaloes turn to “hit the road” and come over to Koshien. The series was delayed thanks to a rainout on Wednesday (June 6), and the rubber match wasn’t played until two weeks after it was originally scheduled. The way it was played,…