Category Archives: News

Camp fires: Feb. 18, 2024

I’m back after a short break to take care of some other work that needed to be taken care of. It’s not like I’ve gone anywhere but when the most interesting thing I saw in the first 10 days of camp was a pitcher discovering a cat had taken a dump on the bullpen mound he was using, well, it was not that compelling.

On Sunday, Livan Moinelo threw his first bullpen of the spring, the Chunichi Dragons media was particularly revved up about Sho Nakata, which is not a good sign, and batters getting hit with pitches seems to be a thing.

Moinelo throws 87 pitches

Livan Moinelo, who had an unspecified procedure in July that was expected to keep him out of action for three months, threw his first bullpen of the spring Sunday, heaving 87 pitches under the supervision of new manager Hiroki Kokubo and pitching coach Shinji Kurano in Miyazaki.

Continue reading Camp fires: Feb. 18, 2024

Camp fires: Feb. 2, 2024

On Friday, we were reminded of a fixture of NPB spring camps, reporters counting stuff that has little meaning to anybody and is simply a placeholder for real news.

In other news, we learned that some new dogs are learning old tricks, and we have a list of the former players who have qualified to teach student ballplayers.

Where’s the count when NPB needs him?

The 1st of many 1sts for Dickerson

This is not really about counting but about headlines. Apologies in advance for harping on this, but there is nothing Japan’s media loves than an accomplishment that is absolutely unremarkable being touted as the first of its kind.

Friday, new Chunichi Dragon Alex Dickerson cleared the fence in BP, which is good news if you were betting on that, but it was enough for the Chunichi Sports, not surprisingly the sports paper owned by the team’s parent company to put up a headline saying “Dickerson hits his first home run in Japan!

Continue reading Camp fires: Feb. 2, 2024