Tony Barnette and Japan
On Wednesday, Jan. 29, Tony Barnette announced he is retiring from pro baseball after a career that included six seasons with the Yakult Swallows. His success with Yakult coincided with…
Japan’s shadow ball
Although claims of sexual harassment and abuse of power are becoming more and more frequent in Japanese society and Japanese sports, one has to wonder why Japan's poor record of…
Tuffy Rhodes has yet to really connect with Hall of Fame voters.
Tuffy Rhodes: On being himself
On Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2019, one of Japanese baseball's all-time greats, Tuffy Rhodes, remained gathering dust in the middle of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame players division voting results,…
Tuffy Rhodes has yet to really connect with Hall of Fame voters.
Tuffy Rhodes: The beginning
On Tuesday, one of Japanese baseball's all-time greats, Tuffy Rhodes, remained gathering dust in the middle of the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame players division voting results, omitted by more…
Cheating, Japanese style
Now that two MLB managers and one GM have lost their jobs over a sign-stealing scheme, I thought I'd relay this conversation I had with former Chunichi Dragons cleanup hitter…
The Angels badly want Shohei Ohtani's bat, but they're willing to wait for his arm.
Perspectives on arrogance
On Wednesday, Shogo Akiyama dropped a little teaser about what baseball beyond the reach of MLB means for the growth of the game as a whole on Wednesday when he…
NPB under the table
The timing couldn't have been worse -- unless one ascribes to the idea that there's no such thing as bad publicity. The Lotte Marines' home interleague series with the Yomiuri…
Alex Ramirez, the flexible manager
DeNA BayStars manager Alex Ramirez, like pretty much any ballplayer you talk to, has a huge bag of cliches and simple rules to explain how to prepare for and play…
Straight talk about NPB hitters
In Japanese, a fastball is called a "straight", a running fastball a "shoot" and with the exception of a cutter or a two-seam fastball, which are oddly enough called cutters…
Japan’s baseball civil war
On Friday, Ichiro Suzuki took the first step in going back to school when he attended a seven-hour seminar on getting certified to teach baseball to children in school. The…
