On Friday, things were reported that one does not expect to hear about in Japan’s spring training camps, while a player has pulled out of the WBC in a blow to fans in Taiwan and Japan.
So let’s get started.
Buffaloes’ players ordered not to practice
I’ll be surprised if the curmudgeonly Isao Harimoto can pass on this one in his weekly Sunday diatribe, provided he can spend time not talking about how weight training is a threat to Japanese baseball.
Few among baseball people other than a handful of true-believers still believe it’s good for players to practice late into the night until they get dizzy and nauseous, so Friday’s top news item was: “Orix prohibits voluntary training on 3rd day of camp – Noguchi, bat-in-hand and headed for the indoor batting cage is ordered home.”
But believing a commonly held practice is counterproductive is one thing, but attacking it something else. The BayStars once fired the most successful manager in franchise history, Hiroshi Gondo, because of his willingness to speak truth to dogma and call nonsense for what it was.
On Friday, Daily Sports reported that the Orix Buffaloes’ new-age skipper Satoshi Nakajima told his players to respect the official mid-day quitting time and not practice on their own, which is what Japanese players will do automatically in the preseason.
Second-year infielder Tomoya Noguchi was caught trying to sneak in some extra BP and was sent home by the skipper.
Nakajima’s head coach, Katsumi Mizumoto, said, “There’s no need to rush. The manager said ‘We’ll do what we need to do at the time it needs to be done, and rest when it’s time to rest. The purpose of our camp is to prepare us to win games. Getting a perfect score in camp like it’s a test isn’t everything. Our view is longer than that.”
Japanese baseball has definitely changed if you hear that. When I arrived in 1984, every manager was required to pretend that players needed to be at their peak for Opening Day since it was the most important date on the calendar for nearly two months, and managers had to act like bonus points were awarded for wins on Opening Day.
Still, the article had to give Nakajima an excuse by saying the Buffaloes camp schedule lacked the early off day and given that players had trained hard on their own on Jan. 31, it was a particularly hard stretch.
Yoshii: ‘Common sense is relative’
Most of the philosophical stuff managers spout in spring training comes from attempts to explain a club’s ridiculous catch phrase or slogan like, “Now is the next” and “In line, go ahead!” but new Lotte Marines manager Masato Yoshii took a different tack by sharing with the players some favorite quotes from his childhood hero, Albert Einstein.
Yoshii, whose team’s catch phrase by the way is “Kyo wo chance ni kaeru,”–turn today into an opportunity – urged his players and coaches to consider those things Japanese baseball tradition has ruled out by quoting Einstein: “Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.”
“If something occurs to you that you think might work, don’t be afraid to try it,” Yoshii, who became fascinated with Einstein as a science-loving junior high school student, said at a team meeting prior to the start of camp.
Yoshii was not done there. He continued with, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new” and “The only source of knowledge is experience.”
As for the team’s catch phrase, Yoshii rejected the impulse to explain it and let the players and coaches figure out a meaning that works best for them.
Chang Yi out of the WBC
New Seibu Lions pitcher Chang Yi will not play for Taiwan in the WBC due to right-shoulder inflammation, he said on his Facebook account. The right-hander was acquired by the Lions as part of their compensation package for Orix signing free agent catcher Tomoya Mori.
“This is unbelievably frustrating,” wrote the 28-year-old Chang, a cousin of the brothers Yang Dai-kang and Yang Yao-hsun, who formerly played in NPB.
Chang followed in his younger cousin’s footsteps by attending Fukuoka Dai-Ichi High School, and moved from the mound to the outfield in university and signed a non-roster developmental contract with Orix, who later had him switch back to pitching.
