Here’s a scene we discussed on today’s Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast. A beautiful example of Buffaloes catcher Katsumi Yamasaki waiting for the throw next to the plate and blocking it off once he has the ball to tag out his Marines counterpart Tatsuhiro Tamura.

And here’s Tamura giving as good as he gets, with a nice tag on Friday. Have no idea why someone would prefer to see the runner slide into the catcher’s shin guards and then be tagged out, when they can have this instead.

This used to be the ideal for a catcher, recording an out without necessarily making a tag and then limping away.

Or this one, in which Hiroshima Carp catcher Tsubasa Aizawa doesn’t so much as tag the runner but sit on him.