First in a four-part series The history of the Japan-America baseball relationship can be divided into two eras: Pre-Nomo and Post-Nomo. Younger readers may find it difficult to believe but before Hideo Nomo went to the United States to become a star for the Los Angeles ...
Nippon Professional Baseball recently released the results of an interesting survey of the greatest games and moments — regular season and postseason — in its history. Indeed, opinions will vary on which games should be on the list and how to rank those games ...
Fourth in a four-part series It was not exactly clear what Chiba Lotte Marines president Ryuzo Setoyama's motives were, whether he was so frustrated that he really did intend to quit, or whether his threat to resign in 2008 was just a ploy to get ...
Third in a four-part series There are many reasons why Bobby Valentine lost favor with the Chiba Lotte Marines organization. It wasn't just his prohibitive salary ($5 million per year). In contrast to the foreign media covering Valentine in Japan, who liked to portray Valentine as ...
Second in a four-part series Bobby Valentine was born and raised in Connecticut and was chosen one of the most outstanding high school athletes in the history of the state, in a survey by Sports Illustrated. He was recruited by the University of Southern California, whose ...
First in a four-part series It was just about the time that Chiba Lotte Marines acting owner Akio Shigemitsu declared that Bobby Valentine could run his team "for life" that things began to go sour. Until then, the former Texas Rangers and New York Mets ...
Last in a two-part excerpt of updated "You Gotta Have Wa" In 2007, despite losing several key members of his team, Hillman led Nippon Ham to a second straight pennant, juggling his lineup and pitching staff with reinforcements from the farm team. One critic called ...
First excerpt in a two-part series of updated "You Gotta Have Wa" The most successful American manager in Japan turned out to be a relative unknown named Trey Hillman. His achievements were all the more remarkable, because they entailed an almost complete turnaround from the ...
Third in a three-part series PART I — Devoted to the game: Looking back at Oh's career PART II — Oh's career sparkled with achievements as player, manager The one big black mark on Sadaharu Oh's reputation was, of course, the unsportsmanlike behavior of the pitchers on his ...
Second in a three-part series PART I — Devoted to the game: Looking back at Oh's career I watched Sadaharu Oh through much of his career with the Yomiuri Giants, living as I did in Tokyo, first as a student, then as an employee in a ...
