yakulto

Oh, and the shiny material used shows up sweat. A lot. So during the hot summer, being the sweaty sweaty man I am, it looks like someone pissed all over my underarms.

Got the home shirt a couple of weeks ago. I was an L with the old Nike kits, but a M fits about the same with the new one. Can't stand the cut of the new shirt though. Something about it is just wrong. Looks, I don't know, very square/blocky and it hangs all wrong. The old Nike kits, however poor aesthetics-wise their designs became, always fitted really well.

Superb thread, and hopefully having relived those games through these comments, I can now erase all memory of them and never again dwell on the total abomination that was the 2011-12 season.

The above is taken from F365's Winners and Losers article for this week, http://tinyurl.com/6pnqt94 Obviously I don't need to tell you which heading Mr.Lerner's name fell under.....

Very scary stuff. Was at work in western Tokyo and we all ran out into the car park. The noise of shaking buildings was pretty loud and parked cars were rolling back and forward. Feel for the people of Miyagi though. That tsunami footage was some end-of-days type stuff.

I've got no issues with the large AVFC on the back. Quite like it actually. And the oversized lions rules.

I really like that top. Nice, simple and classy IMO.

Yep, they couldn't have gone any better.

Sure, we lacked application after the red, but come on people. We'd have taken a point before tonight (I was convinced we'd get spanked) and results elsewhere couldn't have been better. We've come a long way in the fact that that people are so gutted tonight I suppose, but let's not lose perspective here folks.

The main argument against November that I heard were that most players would have been wound-down for a month or so after the regular season while the postseason took place. November would make sense to me though.

Yes, seperating the teams from one pool to the next is the most obvious way to avoid endless rematches, and hopefully something they'll introduce in 2013, along with the elimination of the seeding games. The double elimination will be back I'd imagine, which I don't mind as I thought it was a good system. It's a shame that the US didn't take it as seriously as the other teams. One of my friends was in the US for while it was going on and said it barely registered on the radar of most US sports fans, which is a shame. Competative international competitions are such a unique experience that it's a shame the US fan knows little, if anything of their joys. Most seem content to continue to look at their leagues as the pinacle of their respective sports worldwide, and in many ways they are. But international competitions offer something more & different. B-dub - your analogy of the England situation is a good one, and there's no doubt the US was lacking key players (though they had some pretty good ones on the 2009 roster) and that the extent to which the team could be "managed" was limited. But to look at it from a different angle I think of it as a Premier League vs England national team kind of thing. The Premier League is probably the best league in the world, it's teams dominating the Champions League and teams from Europe. But when it comes to international competitions, the England team are on the whole mediocre to good. The MLB is the best baseball league in the world, but take away the foreign talent (Dominicans, Venezuelans, Puerto Ricans etc, etc) that helps populate the league (I believe it's around 30%) and the US team just just doesn't match up to the standard of the MLB as a whole. The quality of the MLB magnifies the image of US baseball as all-powerful, in the way that the Premier League does to the England team. Knowing a fair bit about Japanese baseball, their roster was stacked with talent. In the first game at Tokyo Dome when we saw the starting lineup on the scoreboard, it was of true "dream team" standards. It would have been interesting to see how they would have done against a US team free from the restrictions you mentioned, but I'm pretty sure they'd have stacked up pretty well.

Japan beat Korea 5-3 in a superb final. Japan had a 3-1 lead before the Koreans later pulled it back to 3-2, and then amazingly 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. They then had a chance to win it there and then (despite Japan outhitting them by some margin) but couldn't pull it off. It allowed Japan to add another two runs in the top of the 10th via the magical bat of Ichiro, and they managed to close out the game in the bottom of the 10th. One of the best games I've ever seen I would say. Overall the WBC was full of some great games and stories, but as you say Levi, they could do with dropping those pointless "seeding matches" at the end of every round, as that would help reduce the amout of replicated matchups. Japan pretty much ground to a halt during the game, with some enormous TV viewing figures, and also good to see some 55,000 turning out in person at Dodger Stadium too.

Australia took a 4-2 lead in the 6th but Cuba came back late to edge it 5-4. Looked like a hell of an exciting game.

For the Dutch to do it once was remarkable, but to do it again is simply stunning. It's just a shame that all these games are unwatchable in Tokyo due to the time difference and work, dammit!

IIRC, aren't the Japanese domestic leagues noticeably more, er, sedate, than the North American leagues, with much more of a sit-and-watch-quietly until it's time to cheer for a bit aspect? There's an element of that, but I wouldn't call them sedate by any means. When a player comes up to bat, fans stand up and sing the players song/chant continuously until he's either out or gets a hit. When they're not chanting then folks chat, eat and get pissed much like North American crowds.

Absolutely. Kind of like the DR beating Holland in football. A shocker but one that speaks of the level of international talent that's out there in the world today. Went to Korea's destruction of China tonight. So it's Japan vs Korea II tomorrow night, and something tells me it's not going to be as one sided as the first game.

Interesting SI article on "10 Reasons why the WBC matters": http://tinyurl.com/cgjw8r

Off to Tokyo Dome in an hour or so to watch the elimination game, before the real ball starts - Japan vs Korea. Mouthwatering game. Though Korea always seems to have Japan's number I'm hoping Japan can pull it together. As an aside, official team Japan caps are selling for ￥10,000, that's over 70 quid! Plus an official Japan shirt will set you back a cool ￥28,000 - 200 pounds! And folks are buying them by the truckcload! I bought me a Venzuala cap as it's pretty much claret coloured with a "V" on it! "Only" set me back ￥3000, 20 quid. It's more of a maroon, methinks Some shades of maroon can verge on claret (e.g. rich maroon which has has hue 333deg with 65% shade, while this site's claret is 354deg, 64%), but this one isn't that much... It's close enough for me!! The cap in person looks a lot less bright than that picture. Or maybe I just have dodgy eyes! Went to Tokyo Dome to witness Japan destroy Korea 14-2, with the game being called after 7 innings due to the mercy rule. Stunning result, and one of the best atmospheres I've ever witnessed at a game.

Off to Tokyo Dome in an hour or so to watch the elimination game, before the real ball starts - Japan vs Korea. Mouthwatering game. Though Korea always seems to have Japan's number I'm hoping Japan can pull it together. As an aside, official team Japan caps are selling for ￥10,000, that's over 70 quid! Plus an official Japan shirt will set you back a cool ￥28,000 - 200 pounds! And folks are buying them by the truckcload! I bought me a Venzuala cap as it's pretty much claret coloured with a "V" on it! "Only" set me back ￥3000, 20 quid.

I couldn't disagree more. While as you say, baseball is not played in many countries, neither is cricket and they have a world cup. It may not have a tradition of international play but there's no reason why it can't develop one. Plus look at the array of nationalities playing in the MLB and Japan these days. Sure, Europeans aren't really represented but it's a fairly wide selection. And it may or not be correct that US fans couldn't care less, but I can assure you that it is quite a big deal for some of the smaller nations. It's simply a good thing for the health of the sport globally. And while US fans may like to concentrate on the "real business" of the MLB season, until there is some kind of truly global "world series" between club teams, this is a chance for those lesser baseball nations to have a shot at the big boys.

Shit, it was me that wrote that! Kinda spooky given the events of last Sunday. It's still true 99% of the time though, and just highlights just how bad Villa screwed up....... On the Subject of the WBC, went to Tokyo Dome last night to watch Japan vs China. China are certainly improved since 2006, but given the talent on the Japan team it was a pretty laboured performance all in all. WBC fever has certainly gripped Japan though, Tokyo Dome was absolutely rammed, and the camera flashes and noise around the stadium everytime Ichiro came to bat (in particular the first time he ran out into rightfield) was staggering. He is a GOD over here. Hopefully Japan will improve as the tournemant goes on, as they did in 2006. But I've the feeling a lot of the other nations are much stronger than in 2006, and thus Japan are going to have their work cut out to retain the title. I'm off to the Big Egg tonight as well for Korea vs Taiwan. I've got tickets for all 6 games of the Asian round, good ones too. It sure is good to have Baseball back again. A nice distraction from the stress that is engulfing me over the Villa at the mo!

PSN ID - yakulto77

As a Mets fan the end of the regular season was painful to say the least.......again. I'm going to be pulling for the Rays - how great would it be to see a team that has never had a winning record before this year go all the way to the WS? Plus they have ex-Tokyo man Akinori Iwamura who I saw a lot of during his time in Japan - tidy little player.

Just listened to this one and gotta say, I hear you loud and clear. "ThEeEeEeEeEeEeEEEE, Yankees win!!" Holy shit. John Sterling, kill yourself (maybe a little harsh, but fair I feel).

Well, they are coming around a little. You definitely see a fair amount of Boston caps around Tokyo which you didn't see before Daisuke's move. And the Boston games (in which Matsuzaka pitches) are being show on TV over here. However, although Matsuzaka was a hero from his Koshien High School tournament performances, he played baseball in the unpopular Pacific League in Japan. His team, the Seibu Lions, play just up the road from where I live, to average crowds of around 10-15,000 people. Not to mention that NO Lions games are shown on regular TV. Japanese fans suddenly pretended to love him to bits after his WBC performance and subsequent move to the MLB (I exaggerate a little here, but the point remains, almost no one in Japan watched him pitch in Japan bar the fans that attended games in person. The same point applies to Ichiro, but to a lesser extent as he was somewhat of a pioneer for the Japanese - the first position player to play in the MLB, so the Japanese started to love him because of this). Hideki Matusi on the other hand, played for the Japanese equivalent of the Yankees (times 10), the Yomiuri Giants, who play in front of sell out 45,000 crowds every night and are the ONLY TEAM whose games are shown on national TV (until the last couple of years every game, but more recently almost every game). The Giants (as well as my Swallows) play in the more popular Central League. So Matsui is really so much more popular and 'seen' than Matsuzaka, with almost everyone having seen him play on TV at some point. So the Yankees fans are always going to outnumber the Red Sox fans over here, but things are starting to change a little with the two Japanese players on the Boston team. But Matsui will always be the poster boy for Japanese baseball as long as he's still playing. Needless to say I HATE the Yomiuri Giants and feel similarly about the Yankees for much the same reasons. They are the Tokyo Swallows' local rivals, we are the Mets to their Yankees if you like. The bitter rival of the Giants, and Japanese Red Sox equivalent, are the Hanshin Tigers (and I hate them too just for the record).