Friday, March 20, 2009
You guys. You guys. YOU GUYS. This is a big one. World Baseball Classic semifinal! The winner goes on to the final! The loser has to live with crushing shame for the next four years!! THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND! Titans clashing, baseball cultures warring, etc.
USA/JAPAN! Sunday March 22, 8pm, ESPN! Plan your evening accordingly.
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--David Wright, heroically injured in the toe
--how dare you take a walk with a man in scoring position, how DARE you
--Ryan Garko Fed-Ex'd his own 1B glove to Mark DeRosa because DeRosa did not have one
--Brian Roberts =/= Dave Roberts, Joel Hanrahan =/= Jim Hanrahan, no matter what Jon Miller may tell us
--Munenori Kawasaki turned himself into a left-handed hitter because he was an Ichiro fanboy
--JOHN GRABOW
--Panama Hat Man was shown chatting with Tommy Lasorda and Sadaharu Oh, too amazing to be truth, and yet it is truth
--Rule 34
--Derek Jeter is the ultimate Fail for America
Many thanks to Tony, Snuppy the Hound, ivantopumpyouup, and 2632 for excoriating the everliving hell out of Derek Jeter here with me tonight.Labels: Japan, liveblog, USA, World Baseball Classic
10:48 PM
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
ELIMINATION! Japan vs. Cuba, winner plays tomorrow for seeding, loser goes home. Two teams that care VERY DEEPLY about this tournament, and will be GREATLY HUMILIATED if they lose. Someone is going to feel very, very bad at the end of this one! YOU ARE EXCITED TO WATCH IT!!
The Battle for Orestes Destrade's Heart!
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--when it is foggy, turn off the freakin' greenscreen ads, just turn them off, they will not work properly
--Orestes Destrade knows all the languages
--Ariel Pestano is SO ANGRY
--Yulieski Gonzalez and Ariel Pestano= hatelove
--Hisashi Iwakuma is groundball pitching magic
--Hisashi Iwakuma= Bambi
--don't use illegal drugs, or Dave Winfield will bust you
--Ismel Jimenez has a hypnotic ass
Many thanks to Tony, ivantopumpyouup, and Snuppy the Hound for suffering through the fog and ESPN2's determination to give their sponsors what they paid for, even though it was screwing up the entire broadcast!Labels: Cuba, Japan, liveblog, World Baseball Classic
2:07 PM
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Pool A rematch! Korea/Japan, the return of The Rivalry. This will be an 11pm start, to keep us suffering on the opposite end of the gametime spectrum, and it will be on MLBN. Alas.
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--giant Korean drum, awesome but not available in the WBC store, like all good things
--other Things We Badly Want That the WBC Store Does Not Carry Because They Do Not Actually Want Our Money: four-color WBC pens, WBC logo baseball gloves, those sweet matte team Japan batting helmets, stuffed toy versions of Snuppy the cloned Korean Afghan hound
--Yong-Kyu Lee= Korean Ozzie Guillen
--Yu Darvish will never play in MLB, unless he goes back on his Solemnly Sworn Word
--the 61 mph pitch thrown by Shunsuke Watanabe shall henceforth be known as the suhpee pitch, opposite of the eephus
--inexplicable plastic bag hats
Many thanks to Tony, Snuppy the Hound, ivantopumpyouup, and briefly Jennifer and stillawakward for enjoying this Battle of the Thunderstix in glorious liveblog action.
Japan has been humiliated by Korea again, how will it all end?? Tragically, somehow, I expect.Labels: Japan, Korea, liveblog, World Baseball Classic
3:55 PM
Sunday, March 15, 2009
A return to liveblogging after a brief hiatus! I know you are all terribly, terribly excited, by which I mean that I fully expect to be doing this one on my own. Expect rambling. I believe that our announcing team will consist of Gary Thorne, Steve Phillips, and Orel Hershiser.
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--Orestes!!!!
--Panama Hat Radar Gun Man!!
--Yosvani Peraza= Cuban Cecil Fielder
--Japan headed to America with humiliation in their hearts
--Orestes Destrade is a multilingual genius of words
--the first Japanese player in MLB was not Hideo Nomo, stop lying to us ESPN2
--San Diego sunlight hates baseball
--Steve Phillips has been sneaking into WBC ballplayer hotel rooms and also going with them to SeaWorld
--Ariel Pestano= Cuban Mike Sciosia
--Yulieski Gonzalez looks like Jeff Francoeur a little bit, true fact
--ORESTES!!!!
Many thanks to Snuppy the Hound and ivantopumpyouup for joining me in this exercise in baseball humiliation!Labels: Cuba, Japan, liveblog, World Baseball Classic
1:08 PM
Monday, March 09, 2009
The last Tokyo Dome game of the 2009 World Baseball Classic. On the one hand, yay: no more Sickeningly-Early-o'clock start times! On the other hand: the last game of this WBC that Orestes Destrade will broadcast.
:(
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--Hisashi Iwakuma= Japanese Mike Mussina
--Jung Keun Bong, the Korean starting pitcher, is an Ichiro fanboy and needed a moment every time Ichiro came to the plate
--rocket of arms
--Orestes Destrade makes the worst Stu Scott/boo-ya joke in the history of the world
--Yu Darvish, sexy in both the pitching sense and the literal, posed naked for a magazine sense
Many thanks to ivantopumpyouup and stillawkward, who joined me for this last and best bit of pre-breakfast baseball and frantic Google Images searches for the naked photos of Yu Darvish.
We will miss you, Tokyo Dome! ORESTES DESTRADE AND SUPER "DRY" FOREVER!!
 Labels: Japan, Korea, liveblog, World Baseball Classic
12:39 AM
Friday, March 06, 2009
Three 4 am wakeups in a row, for no reason at all-- except for WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC GLORY! Am I crazy or am I.... no, I'm crazy. Here we go for the winner's bracket of the second round of Pool A play. The enormous Japan/Korea rivalry! The Tokyo Dome!
Thunderstix! SUPER "DRY"!
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--Daisuke Matsuzaka pitches like he's having sex with the game of baseball
--when they implement the mercy rule, everyone wins, except for Korean national pride
--Norichika Aoki has the best name for Tokyo Dome chants
--gyroball
--if you're fat you're a power hitter, if you're skinny but still hit homeruns you're a 'nonpower power hitter'
--baseball statistic abbreviations, for grate lulz
--grackles
Many thanks to ivantopumpyouup, famous cloned Afghan Snuppy the Hound, and Tom Clifton for contributing to this exercise in waking up early to lovingly stroke the dewy flank of international baseball. Sorry your boys lost, ivan, but, um.... yeah, no, sorry, there were no positives to that performance.Labels: Japan, Korea, liveblog, World Baseball Classic
10:29 PM
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Liveblog of the first game of the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Oh yes. I am EXACTLY that crazy.
Well, that was exciting. Regular RotT commenter ivantopumpyouup was also awake to keep me company and watch LIVE BASEBALL FROM THE TOKYO DOME. The entire liveblog (which is basically just the two of us rambling) can be viewed above at any time simply by clicking "replay" in that box up there. It is probably deadly boring, but if you're sitting at work bored out of your mind, maybe it will be less boring than that.
SUPER "DRY"!
postscript: things we learned from this game:
--China has first and last names on the backs of their jerseys
--pitcher Yu Darvish is really, really good
--CHINA= GREAT WALL
--JAPAN= MT. FUJI
--MLB 2K9 should be boycotted by everyone because of their terrifying digital Tim Lincecum ad
--Ichiro is a sexy beast even when he's not hitting
--US and Asian League baseballs are made out of different dead animals
--Orestes Destrade likes meaty ballplayers
--do not question SUPER "DRY"Labels: China, Japan, liveblog, World Baseball Classic
8:53 PM
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Here was my favorite thing about the Japan series.
I set my alarm for 5:30 in the morning so that I would be mostly conscious by the time the game started. I made coffee and got waffles (frozen) and maple syrup (local). I turned on the TV at a low volume so it wouldn't wake my roommate up. I grabbed a pillow so that I could beat it up when the game got too tense and/or awesome for self containment.
I looked at the completely sunless sky outside and wanted to die. Because it was so fucking early. But it did not even cross my mind, not for a MOMENT, to sleep more, because BASEBALL.
That's not my favorite thing about the Japan series. Nor is it Manny with a bat making friends with thousands of Japanese fans all at once, although that ALSO happened and was in fact magnificent. Seriously. Pretty much the entire baseball-loving population of Japan is now one giant collective Manny Ramirez fan. This is a sign of some deep rightness in the world.
My favorite thing about the Japan series is also not the way Boston fans all over the eastern time zone staggered around like zombies all day, downing coffee and giving each other sympathetic looks. I am not even kidding. I must have exchanged the tired face with at least 4 different kids in Red Sox hats during and immediately after that series, and that's all the way out in Michigan.
No, my favorite thing about the Japan series was the fact that, as I sat there trying to get coffee fumes into my sinuses, with the sky doggedly NOT lightening with sunrise, not even out of my pajamas yet (my pajama pants are Red Sox patterned; it was appropriate, dammit!), I thought to myself, "You know what? This is early, and I am tired, but at least I'm not a California-based Oakland fan. Those poor bastards have to be up at 3 am on a weeknight if they want to watch this live."
I felt a lot better after that.
It helped that there was baseball.Labels: baseball, Japan, lolcats, MLB, Red Sox
11:11 PM
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Best moment from the Barry Bonds 756 press conference: a Japanese reporter in the crowd asks him (I'm paraphrasing), 'Well, what about Sadaharu Oh and his 868 career homeruns?'
Barry responds weakly with something about Josh Gibson and his '800 homeruns' and 'have we forgotten about him?' Except most everyone knows that the 800 homerun total is mostly apocryphal, and Gibson probably hit 150-200 runs in official Negro League games, hitting the rest in games against unofficial teams, some of whom may as well have been high school teams and the like.
Nice try, Barry. But the Japanese just pwned you. Hard.Labels: Barry Bonds, Japan, record, Sadaharu Oh
2:16 AM
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Of course it's not only Julio Lugo who was hypnotized by the Mariners and their evil moose-ish ways, but he was a big part of it. I'm aware that everyone has slumps, but with Lugo it's starting to look like we're leaving the "alas, poor fellow's in a bit of a low spot" slump and rapidly entering the "may as well go up there holding a fuzzy purple pipe cleaner, he's just as likely to hit something with THAT" slump.
I'm starting to fear that we have the Curse of Cabby. It's nothing quite so panic-mongering as that Bambino business; just that since we declined to keep Orlando Cabrera, we will henceforth be doomed to suffer through shortstops who really, REALLY just can't hack Boston. It wasn't the kind of place where Alex Gonzalez could play, and it's starting to look like it's not the kind of place where Lugo can play either.
When he was pulled for a pinch hitter today and smashed his bat at the ground in the dugout, that was when I realized it. Oh, I had realized that he can't hit a cockroach's weight right now (or, rather, I SAW that... it didn't take any REALIZING) some time ago, but I thought that maybe his simmering belligerence would be enough to buffer him against everything that comes from playing in Boston.
That wah wah wah i don't wannaaaaa bat slam showed a depth of helpless frustration that convinces me this is not the case. He may be simmeringly belligerent, but he's not using it to shield himself against Boston... he's directing it AT Boston, or at himself, or at both at once. And that will only end in tears, and a lot of angry words about contracts from everyone in the area.
And to think, I usually LIKE when the Sox play the Mariners. I get to watch Ichiro play baseball, which is always a delight... when you watch Ichiro play baseball, you are watching a more pure and exacting form of baseball. His little measuring gesture with the bat, his pigeon-toed stance, the way he flies over the outfield grass... it's just a simple joy to watch. I reckon that if you don't like watching Ichiro, you don't like baseball.
Oh, and the whole Matsuzaka vs. Ichiro thing is a pretty good storyline too, y'know. I love how everyone gets so unreasoningly excited about it. NESN even put on the NHK broadcast for an at-bat-- so there I am, watching Ichiro up to bat against Matsuzaka, and the broadcast is in Japanese, which means I don't understand a single word of it... and I still LOVE IT. Why? I don't even know. It's probably something to do with the fact that you can almost imagine what they're saying. The universality of baseball announcing and all that. And maybe it's that little reminder that somewhere halfway across the world there's someone your age sitting there, listening to that very same broadcast, just as excited about the coolness of the matchup as you are.
I also always enjoy seeing JJ Putz, because with Mike Matheny out of baseball, he and Rich Hill are holding down the Wolverine alum fort. So it was great to see how well Putz is pitching. The Red Sox fan bit of my brain, however, spent much of that series screaming that HE MUST BE STOPPED. 'Cause, wow. That was SOME kind of game closing action.
edit: Man, I REALLY need to get around to overhauling my sidebar. I've got a bunch of work-things due soon, and am heading into NY this weekend for art and a ballgame, but after that! Blog gets attention. Suggestions welcome.Labels: baseball, Ichiro, Japan, JJ Putz, Julio Lugo, loss, Mariners, MLB, Red Sox
10:19 PM
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Is there anyone who cares at all about the Red Sox and ISN'T talking about Matsuzaka?
The insanity involved in this is pure, utter Bostonishness. There are other cities that are obsessed with baseball, of course, but the Bostonian brand of obsession is a distinct and particular one. It's an obsession that does not keep baseball in its own little niche, but spills it out into all walks of life, as if Boston Baseball is some kind of molasses that you're trying to hold in your hands.
It's not just the baseball that's interesting, but everything surrounding the baseball. What does Matsuzaka look like? What does he sound like? What kind of smile does he have? What kind of glove is he using? How does he wear his hat? How well does he seem on a completely superficial level to be interacting with Varitek? Is he getting along with Okajima? What happens when he meets Manny and Ortiz? Will it be easier for him to stand Schilling for long periods of time because he won't always know what he's being lectured about?
What does the media covering this dude look like? There are teams of photographers whose job seems to be to shoot the Japanese photographers, who are there to shoot Matsuzaka. That's how freakin' meta we've gotten.
And it's not just one slightly creepy and obsessive web entity (exhibit A) chronicling his every move. It's EVERYONE, from the newspapers to the TV stations to the radio shows to the bloggers to the AP photographers. And of course that's not even getting into the constant critical inspection he's undergoing at practice every day from his coaches and teammates. This level of scrunity is not unlike that under which the President of the United States operates. It should be enough to drive most people, even "celebrities", batshit insane.
Here's the thing with Matsuzaka, though. He's from Japan. He's been a huge pitcher in Japan for a long time now, ever since he was in high school. And if there's one international baseball media market that could compare to Boston for sheer relentless obsession, it's Japan.
In a way, Matsuzaka is perfectly primed for Boston, and Boston is perfectly suited to him. He should be used to the kind of insanity that we can dish up, because he was followed so closely even before this*. And I think the language barrier may actually work in his favor a little bit; he's not going to be getting himself upset listening to the wacknuts on WEEI after a bad game. He's accustomed to the scrutiny and simultaneously more able to readily ignore it than, say, ARod (or, to be fair, Schilling).
The Japanese media, who will be probably be entrenched for the season and the long run, get a city that is less bemused by their persistence and more understanding. Boston as a collective whole doesn't really have to wonder when we see a vast horde of Japanese media sorts tailing hopefully behind Matsuzaka as he goes about his day; we can recognize a little bit of ourselves in that horde.
*Of course this assumes that Matsuzaka had learned to handle the media gracefully back home and is past the point where such intense regard could ruffle his feathers. I think he has, or he probably wouldn't have been as good a pitcher as he is, but if he hasn't, eh, you can disregard this post.Labels: baseball, Daisuke Matsuzaka, frenzy, Japan, media, MLB, obsession, Red Sox
1:10 PM
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
I think it's fair to say that Arroyo got kind of screwed here. Now, on the bald and shiny face of it, the Tito face of it if you will, this deal makes sense. It's not like Arroyo was Wicked Vitally Instrumental to our pitching staff... let's admit it, no starter with an ERA over 4.00 and an age over 25 is going to be WVI*. We do have some pitching depth, 'though after last season I'm of the opinion that we can never have too many potential starters lined up, especially when 3 of our starters right now are old (Wake), older (Schill), and so old that they're liable to start eroding like a sand dune in a high wind at any moment (Wells). Arroyo was moveable.
And it's not unexpected. I hate to say it, but I had that goodbye image photoshopped up already... it had been sitting on my harddrive for months. And don't get on me for jinxing him, I had one made for Varitek too. I just like to be prepared. I'm a pre-emptive photoshopper, yo. Anyways, clearly the idea of trading away the cornrows had been floating around in varying stages of likelihood for quite some time now.
Wily Mo, even besides being named Wily Mo (pronounced 'Willie', but still awesome), is a worthwhile player. He doesn't grade out great according to the Sporting News Baseball Register (only a 6.3... yeesh, Carlos Pena even grades out to a 7.1), and he has trouble with pitches up in the zone. He's shown respectable power in the years he's played a respectable number of games, slugging .527 the year he played 110 games and slugging .492 last year when he played in 99. He hit .291/.345/.536 against lefties last season. Combine that with Trotter's .288/.364/.489 against righties, and you've got a .290/.355/.513 composite right fielder, which ain't bad, and is marginally less likely to injure its collective self, having two sets of knees to properly blow out.
And I guess I'd trust him at the plate against lefties more than I'd trust Dustan Mohr. So it's not a horrible trade, not in a pure, hard, baseball vacuum sense.
But (and here is where I take off my Rational Human Being Red Sox Hat and replace it with my battered, paint-smeared, Pry It Off My Cold Dead Skull Insane Fan Red Sox hat) what this trade, did, basically, and I don't like to be crude about this, but what it did was lay a big steaming egg on Bronson Arroyo. And I don't mean a nice pretty light blue speckled egg either. I mean an egg in form alone, an egg with the composition of a pre-fossilized coprolite if y'know what I mean, and I think you do.
Against the advice of everyone from his agent to his mom to the dust mites that live in his eyebrows (as they do in all of ours) Arroyo resigned with Boston for stonkerloads less than he could have made had he chosen to push the matter. Why? Because he loved the city and the Red Sox and recognized that it was somewhere he would be appreciated for his horrible hair and his loopy leg kick and where he could totally get, like, gigs in local bars, man.
He had been stuck bouncing between a big crumbly rock (the Pirates' minor league system) and a dry icky hard place (the Pirates) when Boston swooped in like Batman, rubber Clooney nipples and all, and plucked him out of the clutches of the cocaine-smuggling parrot. He had been stuck on waivers, for Pesky's sake. In Boston he was someone. I'm sure there were a lot of reasons behind Arroyo giving such a huge discount to the home team this offseason, but gratitude for the team that 'saved' him may well have been one of them.
And now this. The dude shows his faith in the team and his love of the city and he gets shipped out of town to Ohio, of all godforsaken cabbage-smelling crap-university-having places. It's just a slap in the face, is what it is, not to mix that metaphor with the odiferous egg or anything. It's cold, man. And it wasn't unexpected in a general sense, but the timing of this caught me completely by surprise. Why now?
I am bloody exhausted and had about the worst day possible today, so you'll have to pardon any spelling/grammar mistakes or out-of-place references to penguins**. This and Joey being ridden out of town are, surprisingly, the least of my concerns today, although they CERTAINLY DID NOT HELP THANK YOU SPORTS.
A nice surprise came with the WBC final today, though. I don't get out of my prison workshop until 8:30 pm, and that's in Jackson, and I have to be escorted across the yard and let out the gate (sometimes a lengthy process), and then I have to drive all the way back to Ann Arbor (up to an hour, depending on how slow I'm driving), and then I have to return the van to the art school and return the supplies and wait for the bus to take me back to my dorm (anywhere from half an hour to a full hour, depending on how many supplies I bring out and have to slot back into the closet, and how long the bus takes to show up). Long story short, I figured to get back around 10, 10:30, and so expected to miss a good-sized chunk of the game, since it started at 9.
Imagine then my surprise when I staggered into my room, turned on the TV, and saw that they were just wrapping up the first inning.
Bless you, Japan, for beating the cigars out of Cuba for that first inning, and thereby taking up enough time to allow me to watch almost the entire game. For reals, yo. Thanks.
It was a good game, too, with Japan dominating for much of it, and then Cuba staging a rousing comeback to bring it to within one run, only to see Japan pull ahead again and ultimately win, 10-6. The Japnese players hugged each other with the enthusiasm of Big Papi after the game, and they laid a flag down flat across the pitching rubber, a rather obvious but still vaguely touching snub of the nose at Korea. The enthusiasm of some of the Japanese players when a few of their teammates came running onto the field with a giant Japanese flag was something to see: one guy smacked the player nearest to him on the shoulder and they started excitedly pointing at the flag as it was being run out. Too cute.
Oh, and they did the traditional Japanese baseball manager throw too, where the championship team lifts the venerable old manager onto their shoulders and proceeds to hurl him several times into the air, usually with his arms and legs held awkwardly up and out like an upturned, but very very sincerely happy, beetle. It always reminded me of people getting lifted in chairs at Jewish weddings and Bat/Bar Mitzvahs... the kids have a ton of fun with it, but the older ladies so treated just grin nervously and grip the edges of the chair really hard, and hope like hell that Uncle Dave doesn't lose his grip. But they're really happy!
In other words, it was hilarious seeing Sadaharu Oh get moshed.
The Cuban team, after a moment, filed out of their dugout and into the midst of the Japanese celebration to shake their hands and say congrats in a language their opponents did not speak. It was a very classy move of them and the Japanese players seemed as mildly but pleasantly surprised as the announcers were. I also noticed a few of the Cuban players getting people to take photos of them with their arms around Ichiro, which is so what I would do if I was there, (seriously, be still my heart, and shut up ladies, I know what you're going to say already) so thumbs up to them for seizing the opportunity.
I still can't get over how great it was that he broke out high socks for the event, thereby combining two of my favorite things: amazing fielders who hit for average, and high socks.
One final WBC question, that may only make sense to those who insomniatically stayed up to watch some (or, er, most) of the late-night reruns of the games. The ones where 'due to time constraints, [they] now jump ahead in the action'. The guy who pops up on the screen and tells us that we're leaping forward in time: isn't he extremely creepy-looking? Is it just me? Or are other people as completely freaked the hell out by him as I am? I think his name is Ron Flores***, but isn't that a pitcher for the A's? It's possible I'm hallucinating the entire thing; after all, I am watching these games at 3 in the morning. But the dude just terrifies me. He has these creeptastic mismatched wandering eyes.
I'm not sure that's the right note to end my WBC chatter on, but perhaps it's as good as any other.
*Jeremy Bonderman, you will note, is a perfectly valid WVI pitcher under these constraints. Jus' sayin'. Blue Cats and Red Sox: we like Science, especially the kind we make up ourselves. And by 'we' I mean me and the Manny-on-a-stick that sits above my desk. No word of a lie. I used it to point at the screen during a presentation last year.
**Tends to happen when I reach a certain critical level of exhaustion. There comes a point where I'm so tired that I literally do not know where I am anymore and am actually asleep in my mind, but I'm still sitting at the computer typing. This happened once in high school while I was writing a history paper. I jerked awake after about 3 and a half pages and reread them, only to find a comprehensive study of 19th century utopianism to be filled with phrases like, "The commune lasted for another 12 years in this fashion penguin on the ice fish before finally dwindling down to nothing ice floe penguin." Three pages of that. I was terrified and confused and I only wish I was making that up.
***I just flipped on ESPN2, realizing I might catch him rebroadcasting tonight's game. It's Robert Flores and he has something to do with ESPN Radio, 'tho I rather like the idea of a relief pitcher prospect for the A's somehow getting shanghaied into saying "due to time constraints we now move forward in the action" at 3 am every night, because it's exactly the sort of deranged thing that seems to follow around the A's. Anyways, this is the only photos of him I can find on short notice, and it definitely does not showcase the full terror, so you'll either know what I'm talking about or you'll just have to trust me on this one.Labels: baseball, Bronson Arroyo, goodbye, Ichiro, Japan, MLB, Red Sox, trade, World Baseball Classic
3:45 AM
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Holy freaking cats, Korea.
I'm going to be a mess tomorrow. I have to be up and vaguely mobile in about 3 and a half hours. I have 10 and a half hours of solid classtime tomorrow (today), not counting transit, which works out to about 2 more hours for the whole day. I just stayed awake to watch Korea/Japan, even though I already knew that Korea had won.
It was completely worth it.
At this point I am quite incapable of summing the game up properly but let me say this: it was 0-0 going into the 8th inning.
Chan Ho Park started and threw 5 innings of 4-hit, scoreless ball. Byung Hyun Kim got the win and the Fabulous Mr. Koo (name probably picked up from some Mets blog or other) got the hold.
Korea scored when a runner hustled from first to third on what should have been just a single. The ball beat him there. The third baseman had the ball. The Korean runner sort of slid into the Japanese third baseman, forcing the ball out of his glove (all very aboveboard and and clean and legal, by the by... no slapping), and making himself safe. The next batter was the Korean captain, Jong Beom Lee, who proceeded to hit a two-run double.
Japan got one run back on a single-shot homer in the bottom of the 9th, but the ridiculously good Korean pitching held on for the win.
The crowd was overwhelmingly pro-Korean. There were signs everywhere: "Final Four-Korea-March Madness", "30 years? We only needed 1 week!" (a reference to Ichiro's comments on Japan's dominance of Asian baseball), "Korea hit homer!" with a big drawing of Homer Simpson.
When Korea got that last out. Oh man.
They got their flag, and ran around the field with it like in the Olympics. One of their players took another Korean flag, on a pole, and dug a little hole in the center of the pitcher's mound, and planted the Korean flag in front of the rubber at Angel Stadium. He took his time, concentrating on getting it straight and standing tall, digging a little deeper when it threatened to fall over, excited and happy and intent on his task, like it was the most important thing in the world at that moment. When he got it standing to his satisfaction he stepped back to rejoin his teammates in the celebration.
Then he picked up the hem of the flag and kissed it.
Japan can still get into the next round, if the US loses to Mexico tomorrow. And I'll feel bad if they don't make it in, after what happened to them in their game against us.
But for Korea to beat Japan not once, but twice, and once in the Tokyo Dome... for any team to win the Asian bracket besides Japan... for Byung Hyun Kim to have a more positive impact on a baseball game than Ichiro Suzuki... it's huge. It's immense. It's a bigger upset than Canada beating the US, which I said at the time (Korea had already beaten Japan at home at that point).
Quoth the captain: "It made me proud to be Korean, but more important, we beat Japan," he [Jong Beom Lee] offered. "It was sweet revenge."
Oh yeah, and Korea is undefeated in WBC play.
Oh, and the Korean government has announced that, since they made it to the semifinals, those members of the Korean team who have yet to serve their mandatory military service will have that three-year requirement waived.
I don't care what George Steinbrenner or David Wells think. Bud Selig got something right with this thing. If you don't love this, you don't love baseball.Labels: baseball, Japan, Korea, World Baseball Classic
6:06 AM
Monday, March 13, 2006
Well that kinda stunk.
The US won on Sunday, barely, and it was terribly exciting and all, but the whole thing was TAINTED for several reasons:
1. A-Rod hit the final ball to win the game and thus all my excitement at the whole bases loaded thing and the whole Ken Griffey Jr. will he get a hit will he make an out will his arms break off and turn to powdered cornstarch on the ground scene leading up to it was for naught. I got all worked up and then the final run came across and YAY WE WON WHAT A GAME but wait. WAIT. Whose purpled lips are stretched wide in a rictus grin of victory? A-Rod? Nevermind. To the vomitorium I go.
2. Joe Nathan peed himself on the mound. There was wee dribbling down his legs and Japanese men giggling at the plate. It was embarassing to watch, like Johnny Damon struggling to form a coherent sentence back when we were all still trying to not be annoyed by Johnny Damon, and I wanted it to stop. The boxscore said there was only one hit and one walk against him but he looked so bad I refuse to believe it.
3. We shouldn't have won. The Japanese had the bases loaded, 1 out, and there was a relatively shallow pop fly, so the guy on third bolted for home. He came across and Buck Martinez came barrelling out of the US dugout to tell the umps that the guy had left third early, even though the second base ump had already called him safe at home. There was much discussion and eventually it was overturned and Sadaharu Oh was quietly disgusted. Replays seemed to indicate that the guy did not leave early BUT.
But. OK. Even if this was football and the umpires had the benefit of on-field instant replay, THIS WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN OVERTURNED. The original call had been made pretty much without hesitation, albeit by the wrong ump (so what was the third base ump doing at the time, picking his toe jam?), and the replay did not show a conclusive difference one way or the other. ED HOCHULI WOULD NOT OVERTURN THIS. But Ed Hochuli has good eyes and good biceps and an understanding of letting the team that actually scored the points keep those points and also he is not a minor league referee so this would not have been a problem.
So the Japanese got their run taken off the board AND two outs on the play, taking them out of the inning. For a long while they refused to take the field because they didn't think the inning should be over and THEY WERE CORRECT. Sadaharu Oh did not throw a hissy fit not because he had no case but because it would not have helped and he is a GENTLEMAN in other words quite unlike Tony LaRussa, who is a man with old school pine tar in his soul not scruples.
I would have liked to have won this in a way that was not tainted but this was bad meat. The Japanese team should have been up 4-3 with one more out in the inning but instead they were left tied at 3 with no outs at all, and they were vulnerable to the slappy ways of A-Rod in the 9th.
More notes from the game:
This is the second Chipper Jones homerun I have seen in the WBC so far. WHY IS CHIPPER JONES SO FUCKING GOOD?
Derek Jeter cups his genitals very lightly before stepping into the box. Dude, if you’re gonna grope the junk, GO FOR IT. Look at Brandon Inge. Brandon Inge knows how to tweak a cup on the field. And then Jeter grounds into a double play so MY SCORN IS UNENDING.
Michael Young got a hit. Ken Griffey Jr. got a hit. Why didn’t you, Derek? Why didn’t you? Hell, A-Rod got a hit, there are two men on now and two outs. Chipper is up but he can’t do everything by himself, Derek. I’m having way too much fun taunting him for doing something that Poor Edgar did, repeatedly, for the Sox.
Ball gets by the catcher (wild pitch) and the base runners move up. Fucksocks, Chipper grounds to first. SEE, JETER?? If only you had bussed your balls like a man, we would have scored somewhere in that inning. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE MY LOGIC, READERS. It is flawless.
“In Puerto Rico you don’t become a baseball fan. You’re born a baseball fan. If you do well, they’ll let you know. Heh, if you do bad they’ll let you know too. They’re definitely gonna be loud. I’m Carlos Delgado, and I’m hella happy to be off the Marlins.” So Puerto Rican baseball fans are basically Red Sox fans, right?
Sadaharu Oh on Ichiro: “First of all, he loves the game of baseball.” So he’s NOT Zach Greinke or Keith Foulke, is that what we’re sayin’? Then again if I was Zach Greinke and was stuck on the Royals I might get sad with life too. OH WAIT EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT HE'S BARELY OLDER THAN ME AND HE'S PLAYING BASEBALL AND MAKING MORE MONEY THAN I WITH MY USELESS ART DEGREE WILL EVER MAKE. Boo fucking hoo, Mr. Greinke. Your hypothetical sob story is wasted on me.
Peavy finally settles down in the 4th. Gaslamp Ball thinks that Jake Peavy is being supplanted as the cutest Padres pitcher. Judge for yourself.
Has anyone else noticed that the underarmor-ish shirts being worn by Team USA make it look like they all have skin disease? They’re navy blue with a spattering of red dots at the elbow that look like nothing so much as a clustering of eczema. Please tell me I’m not the only one seeing this.
With one swing in the 6th Derrek Lee ties it up. WHY IS DERREK LEE SO FUCKING GOOD?
I just realized why Ichiro looked different in this game. HE’S WEARING HIS SOCKS UP. He never does that for Seattle, he wears his pants down and those stupid hightop looking cleat things, like he's a basketball player in his secret dreams instead of a gory actor. Huh.
Well, I also watched the Dominican Republic/Puerto Rico and Mexico/Korea games, but I didn't follow them as closely because I was busy making worksheets and color wheels so that tomorrow evening I can teach Michigan prisoners the basics of color theory. I will note that Pudge was absolutely adorable when he hit his double early in the game (he cruised into second base pumping his fist like Derek Jeter only not so much with the extreme lame), and I was disappointed in the Korean game because Sung Heon Hong wasn't playing. Although I note that they replaced the stocky thirdbaseman with a guy named Bum Ho Lee, which, hello, I am 5 years old.
Oh and the art show reception went AWESOMELY. It was GREAT. The turnout was way bigger than we expected and there was a BAND, and they were DRESSED UP AS ANIMAL HYBRIDS, and they WRESTLED WITH MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE, and people ACTUALLY SPENT TIME READING THE WORDS ON MY PIECE, and it was just generally ace in every way. You can see photos from it here if you wish to partake of the awesomeness.
If you're in the area and couldn't make it out for the reception you can still see the show, it is in the WORK gallery until March 24th. I recommend it, although it is too bad that you missed the band.Labels: baseball, gameblog, Japan, USA, World Baseball Classic
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