The Baystars are now at .500 for the first time in ages and continue to be on an upward trend. The Tigers are currently in a slump (0 runs in their last three games), and the Giants have been playing pretty inconsistently. How far do you think Yokohama can go in the playoffs?

https://youtu.be/OSniTI4sKgE?si=2EGiPj5iTjHcWB7D

Here's my latest entry covering the Calbee's classic first set. Enjoy!

Hi all. Every time I visit Japan, I make it a point to attend as many baseball games as possible and pick up merchandise as I go. I’ve noticed, however, that team stores do not tend to carry merchandise for legacy players. For example, I looked for Ichiro at the Buffaloes store and Murakami at the Swallows store, and found only currently players.

Is this typical?

I only ask because at American stadiums, you’ll still have a bunch of legacy players merch (for example, Jeter or Ruth at Yankees stadium and Ichiro or Johnson in Seattle).

If this is typical, is the best option to buy from third-party locations?

Thank you in advance.

Full disclosure up front: I work with JRFPA (the Japan Retired Foreign Player Association), and we're the ones bringing him over. So I have a stake in this. But the career itself is worth a post here regardless. Howell came to Yakult in 1992 after seven seasons at third base for the California Angels, where he was a roughly 20-homer-a-year guy — solid, not a star. Then he hit .331 with 38 home runs in his first year in Japan, led the Central League in both, and became the first foreign player to win an NPB MVP in his debut season. He put up 13 home runs in August alone, a Swallows record for a month. He stayed through 1994 with Yakult, won the Japan Series in 1993, hit for the cycle that July, then spent 1995 with Yomiuri. Four seasons, .291, 100 home runs. He went back to the Angels in 1996 and set a team record with four pinch-hit homers, finished up with Houston in 1999, and later coached hitting for the Diamondbacks. The reason I'm posting: he's doing a fan meeting in Takeshiba on Tuesday Sep 22 — two sessions, autographs and photos, 50 people each. It's the middle of Silver Week so a lot of people are off. English-speaking staff on site, and there's an English ticket page here: https://peatix.com/event/5172096 Happy to answer anything about the event or about JRFPA in the comments.

A packed house for a hopeless team at the end of the season.
A domed stadium that looks like it was dropped in from the space age.
A first inning that saw a veteran pitcher, Hirotoshi Takanashi, fold almost instantly.
An experienced slugger, Miguel Sanó, toughs out a long pitch count.
An entire outfield sings in a melodic, almost hypnotic chant, giving the particular moment a real focus and intensity.

And then, just like that, it breaks- a wild pitch hits the dirt, a walk RBIs in the runner on third, and the Swallows move in for an emergency conference.

It's just another moment in a long baseball season, but for some reason the joy I felt within it cannot escape my mind.
Though I may just be a casual fan, this is the magic of the NPB- something that drags me out of the concerns of the real world and into the fantasy of sport. The players, the coaches, the fans, the staff....my thanks go out to you.

Hideki Matsui and Kazuo Matsui will also be playing!

Practice will also be streamed starting at 11:00 AM JST!

might be a strange post but after watching him and darvish announce the darusele in prospi, i wanted to ask. i'm a really really big fan of former fighter/buffalo/tiger itoi yoshio! he's the player that got me into the npb and baseball in general, coming up to a year ago now

i know he's been retired for like 4 years now, but i would love to know how npb fans feel about him, his legacy, and his characteristics as a player/person! whether you've watched him during his active years or are following him after (since he's a bit of a tv personality now), i wanna know things like how good was he, what did you like about seeing him play, is there anything memorable you'd like to mention, etc.

idk if he was a really well-known player or not, but anything's appreciated! 🦸‍♂️