Euro 2008 Day 13 (Quarterfinal 1): 2006 all over again. Schweinsteiger remains Portugal's nemesis

Yet another piece about all the flags on cars, balconies and especially on people. Today I was going home at around 4pm but had to leave the house once more to pick up the birthday present for my mother. My walk to me around the campus of the University of Cologne and I was rather surprised to see so many people walking around in Germany jerseys there. When I got home and entered the lift four people jumped in, dressed in Germany jerseys, wearing black-red-gold scalfs and face paint, you name it. This thing seems really to be getting out of hand. Or is it just getting normal? I have to be honest, it's not just a German thing, it's all over Europe. people are going crazy when their team plays, they come out in masses to support them and wear their national colours. So is Germany becoming what some people here would consider to be a normal country? Well, I still don't like the fact the half of the population (according to a recent survey) would love to see flags being raised for the whole year. This is way too much for me. Still it's just half of the population, I would have figured it's way more.
On the positive side I like it when people sport more than one flag. There is a lot of cars driving around the city with a German and another European flag. Turkey has the most, mainly because there's a lot of people with Turkish origin live here. In second place would be Italy, I think. Still there are some weird combinations. I saw a car with a Turkish and a Greek flag which, when you consider the history between the two countries, is quite remarkable. And, oh my, The Netherlands and Germany? You gotta be kidding me?! That car still has all four tires? Lucky guy. I reckon quite a few people would go bezerk when they see a car dressed up like that.
So, to end this let me just say that I find it very remarkable that the immigrant communites have a German flag waving on their car, something a few years ago would be considered to be highly unusual. Maybe that's the thing when people talk about Germany is becoming more of a normal country. The immigrant communites seem to slowly accept Germany as their - at least second - home and maybe the Germans start to acknowledge the immigrant communites a little bit more.

Meanwhile I'm enjoying a nice game of baseball with the Yankees playing the Padres on Interleague play. It's another outing for pitching wonderboy Joba Chamberlain and right now the commentators a going crazy over a play he made while covering home plate. Did I meantion the Hanshin Tigers are still winning and remain at the op of the Central League? And the Red Sox just won't give in even though they seem to lose one starting pitcher after another. Somehow it#s nice to watch a slow sport like baseball as a contrast to all the football madness going on at the moment.

Germany vs Portugal 3-2 (Quarterfinal 1)
Huge upgrade from the last game's performance by the German team. This looked much more like the football invented by Klinsmann and Löw again. And finally a great outing by Bastian Schweinsteiger, a player I usually love to hate for his sometimes egoistic style of play. Portugal somehow didn't look convincing at all, a huge setback from what they had shown in their group matches. Cristiano Ronaldo never looked like he was in the game and their short pass play ended at the German penalty box almost every time. The changes the German coaching made compared to the game against Austria looked good, this time this was almost a 4-3-3, although some would see it as a 4-2-3-1. Still I can't understand why they set up Miro Klose to play the lone striker up front. That's the perfect role for Kevin Kuranyi who brilliantly shades the ball from the defenders and is a workhorse as a one-man attack. The defending midfielders positions were played really well by Thomas Hitzlsperger and Simon Rolfes and although they didn't do much offensively their defending was good, to say the least. A great team effort by Germany and this fuels the hope for a cup final berth because with a performance like tonight's they should not fear neither Croatia nor Turkey.
One has to mention though that there was a foul play by Michael Ballack before the 3-1 and Portugal's coach Luis Felipe Scolari was right to complain about it. I wonder what German newspapers would have written had a Portugese player scored the winning goal that way. It would have been conspiracy theories all over again.

Euro 2008 Day 8: Defending champions out, Spain advances

After all the football craze it was nice to get a small break this morning while watching some NPB action. The Nippon Ham Fighters from Sapporo played the Yakult Swallows at home and it turned out to be a fascinating pitcher's duel. Sweeney (Fighters) was throwing a no-hitter until the 6th while Kawashima (Swallows) carried a perfect game into the 5th inning. This was an interleague match up just as the MLB resumed its interleague play yesterday. I was watching a little bit of Red Sox vs Reds and Yankees vs Astros as well. Red Sox starting rookie pitcher Justin Masterson was very sharp again, but his opponent was just a little better. Those series will continue tonight so if it turns out that some of the Euro games are boring I have the chance to change the channel.
Getting back to what happened last night The Netherlands are now clear front runners for taking home the cup after the final. Their performance was outstanding and was praised almost everywhere. Meanwhile in their quest for answers for the loss against Croatia German tabloid "Bild" dug up a potential transfer of striker Mario Gomez which they think is disrupting team harmony. The interesting thing is that this transfer is only reported by "Bild" and its affiliates. I never found anything about this anywhere else. Which might mean that this is a fluke. Still this might point to a very important matter: the role "Bild" is playing all around the national team. Before the 2006 World Cup reporters of said newspaper were banned from the team hotel, but this seems to have changed now. There have been countless stories about players and "Bild" journalists trying to benefit from one another. The player gives out some information, the journalist writes in favour of the player. Dirty business. I do hope this is not the case this time. Cologne based tabloid "Express" meanwhile senses tension between the coach and the captain. This doesn't look too promising.

Sweden vs Spain 1-2 (Group D)
Spain winning ugly is an unusual sight but with this win they are through to the next round which should give this young side some confidence for the things ahead. Fernando Torres scored early, but Sweden equalized after some poor Spanish defending with a goal by Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Spain should have been rewarded a penalty shortly before the break, but the referee had a different opinion. When everything seemed to settle for a draw David Villa struck again. He is now on top of the goal scorers list with 4.
I wonder what impact the loss of Carlos Puyol will have on the defense which didn't look very stable in the first two games. Seems he had some problems with his footing.
Sweden was a big disappointment to me as they didn't really have an answer when Ibrahimovic was substituted after the break. They still have a big chance to go to the next round but this would put them most likely in a tie with The Netherlands and I am sure they won't survive this clash.
This was one of the more mediocre games, but it was still far better the then some of the group matches we've seen during the World Cup 2006.

Greece vs Russia 0-1 (Group D)
I presonally find it always very disappointing when two teams who have or are supposed to have a huge technical skill deliver such a horrible performance. This was average at best. Both Russia and Greece weren't very convincing. For Russia it was a step back from their match against Spain although this time they came through for the win. Greece meanwhile looked better than their stone age play with a three man defence against Sweden, but they just didn't create any chances. There was an article in German left wing newspaper "taz" today remarking that you need the right mixture of young and old players to win such a tournament and that the Greek team just failed to make a clear cut after their sensational victory in 2004. What made them strong back then today was their biggest weakness. The defense is just not there anymore. Players like Traianos Dellas and Georgios Nikopolidis overperformed at the last Euro and today they are just normal players. So the defending champions are out of the competition and this means we won't have a repeat again. No team was able to defend their title.

So after the second day of matchplay I have to say that the overall performance of the teams in the matches looks a lot better than what we have seen in the 2006 World Cup. It is not as static and boring but instead most of the teams were looking for a goal right from the start. Although the defense looked strong in most matches, there were plenty of offensive highlights. At this moment The Netherlands look like the hot ticket to win it all, but don't count out teams like Germany, Portugal or Spain. Even Italy and France still have a chance to come though to the next round. Huge disappointment for teams like Switzerland who invested a lot of years in this tournament and now have to leave empty handed.
I really hope I won't have to listen to this "Cordoba" stuff tomorrow that much. It's been everywhere, on the radio, on TV, in the newspapers. I'm sick of it.

NPB: How to stay up-to-date with the action

It's pretty hard to follow the action in the japanese NPB league, especially the games in the Central League, since there seem to be no streams for any of the matches. And when there are they are strictly limited to a japanese audience. In times of teams and sports looking for new chances of revenue and income all the time that can be considered to be rather anachronistic, I guess. Sports like football and leagues like the English Premier League seem to be willing to do anything to draw new crowds to their games and they even discussed an extra day of play at the end of the season in foreign countries, so the fans in Asia and elsewhere can watch there stars live instead of on the screen.
Now I know and take into consideration that baseball isn't a game like football and the only countries paying a huge attention to it are the US, the carribean states and some countries in east Asia. But still it's kind of sad that people interested in what's happening in the NPB get left out if they don't live in Japan.
I for my part would find it extremly interesting to watch a game of a Hanshin Tigers - Yomiuri Giants series, because of what I have read about the rivalry between the two teams. The only thing to do is to watch some wort of live ticker on the website of one of the teams or check the result elsewhere. I finally managed to memorize the kanji which are used for the different teams, so i now can read the table on the NPB homepage.
You can read the articles on some of the english sites of japanese newspapers afterwards, but it will always take a few days before the articles get published.
In the Tiger's case there is a great blog which keeps track of what's happening with the team where you can find a lot of information. But pictures can be rarely found anywhere.
Sometimes though some footage finds its way over here thorugh places like youtube so I was pretty thrilled to find the final inning of the final game of the series there (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Hanshin were down 2-3 and turned it around against the dominating Giants closer Marc Kroon, who holds the record for throwing the fastest pitch (161 km/h) in the NPB. The noise at Koshien is deafening and I always find it interesting how the baseball crowd sounds younger than, let's say, a football crowd. Their voices seem to be a little bit higher.
Anyway, it's nice to at least get a glimpse of what is happening over there. It's better than nothing.

Curses and buried shirts: Baseball lore revisited

There seems to be a strong belief in baseball that curses really exist and work, although some of them seem to have been overcame over the past years. The best known one must have been the "Curse of the Bambino", but is there any clue as to what made the curse go away? One that apparently is still active is the "Curse of the Billy Goat" which prevents the Chicago Cubs from winning a championship in the past 100 years. In Japan the Hanshin Tigers are still waiting to win the Japan Series for a 2nd time and there a fastfood mascot is taking all the blame. The "Curse of the Colonel" is thought to prevent the team from winning since 1985 now when excited fans dropped a statue of KFC mascot Colonel Sanders into a river.
This kind of sports lore is something which makes baseball interesting to me. Legends, curses, witchcraft, that's something which adds to the fun. Fans and supporters always turn to higher powers when they are trying to explain the inexplicable. Why has my team not won a championship in a long time? Well, maybe it's not bad management or even worse players. No, it must have been a curse. There we go...
Now, it seems some people even try to force their "luck" a little bit and with the New York Yankees building a new stadium what better way to put a little flaw in the construction. A worker buried a Red Sox jersey under the visitor's dugout, told the New York Post and then the Yankees resurfaced the jersey with lots of media attention. At least this kind of child's play is one where no one gets hurt, unlike the stuff football supporters to over here.

A week in baseball

So here we go, the baseball season is in full swing after a week of play. And it seems that a few teams try to ridicule some of the experts who were labelling some clubs as losers before opening day. I found it quite surprising to see that the Orioles, the Royals, the A's or the Rangers (incidentally all AL teams) who were all considered to be cannon fodder for the big teams before the season suddenly turned out to be good ball clubs. Now I know that there will change a lot over the course of a 162 game season, but I found it quite astonishing that there wasn't a single team who was predicted to lose really did so. Everyone was talking about the great offense of the Detroit Tigers (0-7 after last night's loss to the Red Sox), the great Angels (5-4) and so on. In football the three teams who get promoted usually are considered to the the first three candidates for immediated relegation. Normally there's one stand out surprise (this year that would be Karlsruhe), but usually they go down the drain as the season continues. But that doesn't seem to be the case in baseball. What I like about that is the balance of the league. It's not like that every team has a chance to win the World Series, but it's close. Closer than in European football competitions.
And, oh boy, you got to give credit to the Americans for celebrating their championship teams. I was watching the ceremony for the Red Sox yesterday and that was brilliant. Although I don't really like F-16 flyovers, but bringing out legendary players from different sports teams (Bruins, Celtics, Patriots), honouring a former player who gave the club one of it's worst memories (Bill Buckner in 1986) by letting him throw the opening pitch, that's something you won't get in German stadiums. I like the way they honour their tradition.

In Japan meanwhile the spring Koshien ended with a win for a school from Okinawa. I guess that the population of those islands down south is rather small so that must have been a highlight for the region.
So this means the Hanshin Tigers finally get to take their home field again after having a great start on the road. They are now 8-2-0 and lead the Central League. I still wasn't able to watch a game because of the different time zones (Japanese baseball games will air at 11 am over here), but I really hope to catch one on some weekend in the future.

MLB: Opening Day holds its promise

I was really anxious for the new baseball season to start, something I didn't even think of at the same time last year. This is kind of strange for me to get sucked up into a sport which I didn't find very interesting some time ago. But somehow the excitement of grown up man clubbing small balls with way too thin sticks out of parks got me hooked and that is why I was watching a few games yesterday.
I started with Royals at Tigers, a highly anticipated game because of the tuned up offense of Detroit. They went ahead early but then Kansas City came back to tie the game and it all went into extra innings (Final: KC 5 DET 4).
There were quite a few rain delays and the final opening game for the old Yankee stadium was postponed to today. Impressing how the Cubs audience at Wrigley Field was cheering on every pitch Carlos Zambrano threw in the first inning. That was more like a rowdy crowd at a European football stadium than people hanging out at a baseball game. Well, they have been waiting for 100 years now. Oh, by the way, this seems to be the year for anniversaries of championship droughts. In German football two teams will have to celebrate as well. Schalke 04 is 50 years without a championship, 1.FC Cologne is waiting for 30 years now. In the end the Cubs also went to extra innings after their newly acquired Japanese outfielder Fukudome Kousuke entered the MLB stage in style by tying the game with a 3-run homer. Still they lost to the Brewers 3-4.
I also took a glance at the Dodgers who were facing the Giants at home, the only game I watched where there was nice weather, by the way. That wasn't as close as the other matches with L.A. getting in front early. (Final SF 0 LAD 5).

Meanwhile across the Pacific the Japanese season got started as well and the Hanshin Tigers are leading the pack in the Central League after sweeping the Yokohama BayStars. What makes this even sweeter is that the Giants lost their series to the Yakult Swallows.

Finally something to do in the evenings on boring days.

Spring is coming and so is the sound of cracking bats

I have to admit that I have been very anxious for the baseball season to start again and spring training games haven't had a great placebo effect on me. So I gladly accepted the opportunity to watch the season opening game from Tokyo between the Athletics and the Red Sox at a decent time. It was 11 AM in Germany so I was able to watch a few innings before I had to leave for work. I twas nice to watch, some nice defensive plays and hits, some shaky pitching by homecoming Matsuzaka Daisuke at the beginning, and a nice outcome for the Red Sox with a 6-5 win in extra innings.
I wasn't able to watch the exhibition games the days before though. I would have loved to see the Hanshin Tigers play against the American teams and they seemed to have done well against the defending World Champions from Boston. But those Tigers games were broadcasted too early for me unfortunately. And they were at Tokyo Dome and not at Koshien stadium which currently is hosting the invitational Spring Tournament.
Which leads me to the website for that tournament. The great thing is that you can watch every game there as a replay once it is finished. Just click on one of the numbers 1-13 which represent the game days. Complete game coverage with no commercial breaks. And the commentary is just hilarious. I watched a little bit of a surprising match in which Yokohama crashed out of the competition. Yokohama of course being the former school of Matsuzaka.
And finally in Japan the new season kicked off as well. Until now it is only the Pacific League, but the Central League will join the action this weekend, if I read the NPB website correctly. There is a nice blog about the Hanshin Tigers on a website which deals with almost everything about baseball in Japan which I really recommend.

Aah, I am really looking forward to another season...

NPB: Chunichi Dragons are Nippon Series Champions

Chunichi Dragons of Nagoya won the Nippon Series against Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters with a 1-0 perfect game in Game 5. Starter Daisuke Yamai and closer Hitoki Iwase retired all 27 Fighters Batters and won the match against the Fighter's ace Yu Darvish who delivered a strong performance once again and proved that he was a worthy winner of the Japanese equivalent to the Cy Young award, the Sawamura award. So this gives the Dragons their first title since 1954 and with this at least one drought ended this year, when the Cubs and the Indians saw their hopes buried in the MLB across the Pacific.

MLB: Boston wins it - NPB: Series tied

Congratulations to the city of Boston. The Red Sox swept the Rockies and won the World Series 2007. Jon Lester was the winning pitcher in Game 4 and because the Americans love those heartfelt stories about people who have to suffer some sickness or injury and then come back to win it all, Mr. Lester was at the center of attention. To me it's something I never really had in my fan life with football teams over here. The teams I root for are usually losers who don't win anything at all. Which is why I really like the red Sox. Their history, with all the failures, mistakes and terrible things that happend on their quest to end the 86 year old drought, is something I instantly fell in love with. And now that team wins their 2nd World Series title in 3 years. Amazing.
Although one has to admit that the Rockies were hard to beat in the playoffs one also had to say that they never really stood a chance against the Red Sox. Whatever the Rox were doing, the Sox immediatly found an answer. Yesterday Boston was cruising on a 4-1 lead in the 8th inning when Colorado finally made a comeback. Or did they? The only caught up to 4-3 and then Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon closed the door for them.
Well, it has been an interesting first full season of baseball for me and I think I'm hooked now. Hopefully some time in the future I might get to visit some friends in the States or Canada and then go to a game. I'm really looking forward to that.

Or I might go to Japan to watch a game there. The Nippon Series is tied now at 1-1 after the Dragons won the second game against the Fighters on Sunday. It seems there is a little more suspense in Japan. the Fighters won the first one after a tough battle 3-1 and now Chunichi thrashed them 8-1. Hopefully this series will go over the whole distance. Cause then there will be a rematch between Darvish and Kawakami from Game 1.
If I ever make it to Japan to watch a game I think I might try to get into Koushien to watch a Tigers game. It's funny cause I always thought of baseball supporters to be rather quiet and calm when their team plays. But after seeing pictures from the Boston fans celebrating in the streets and videos of Tigers fans making a huge noise at the stadium, I'd really like to check that out myself.

MLB & NPB: One more for Boston, Darvish with a complete game

Boston's Matsuzaka Daisuke was the main main in yesterday's Game 3 at Coors Field in Denver when the Red Sox took another win against the Rockies. He pitched really well and he even got 2 RBI in a 6-run third inning for Boston. The other shining players for the Red Sox were Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia. The media is going crazy about so much rookie power. Colorado tried to get back into the game and did so with a 3-run homerun by Matt Holliday in the 7th, but that wasn't enough. Boston is now one game away from winning their second World Series in just three years. While this is happening one could really see how the media are clinging to at least some stories that might add to some suspense while there really is nothing special to report about. It just seems that Boston is way too good for a young Rockies team. Because Games 3-5 are played in a National League city Boston manager Terry Francona has to sit one of his key players because he is not allowed to nominated a designated hitter. So before Game 3 there was a huge fuss about whether he will sit DH David Ortiz, 1B Kevin Youkilis or 3B Mike Lowell. I just don't see the point. They are all great offensive players, one of them (Ortiz) doesn't field that much, but hey, he did it last night. That's the game.
Tonight the Red Sox will try to complete the sweep with Jon Lester on the mound.

On the other side of the ocean the Nippon Series kicked off with Game 1 in Sapporo. Fighters starter Yu Darvish pitched a complete game with 13 strikouts, which ties the record for a Nippon Series game. The losing pitcher was Chunichi ace Kawakami Kenshin who also threw a great game with only two hits over 8 innings, but he gave up two walks in the first and then came Fighters clean up hitter Fernando Seguignol and that was it. Kawakami retired the next 21 batters, but his offense wasn't able to come back, scoring just one run in the 6th.
Game 2 will take place tonight at Sapporo again, but there is no chance for people outside of Japan to follow the match. I think I read somewhere that there used to be a stream on the internet that accessable for fans living outside of Japan but that one was closed down at the start of this year's season. Which is a pity, I think. It's very interesting to watch a Japanese yakyu game and compare it to what is played in the USA.

MLB & NPB playoffs: Sox tie it, Fighters are through to Japan Series

The Boston Red Sox came back after being down 1-3 beating Cleveland in the last two matches and therefore getting a final and decisive Game 7 at Fenway Park. Beckett and Shilling were the winning pitchers in Game 5 and 6 and J.D. Drew, the man some labeled as the biggest disappointment for the Red Sox this season turned up the offense with a grand slam homerun in the first inning of last night game. The 12-2 win was never in danger as the Indians pitching staff was not the best with starter Fausto Carmona lasting only 2 innings. It seemed like the Boston team was really determined in last night's game. Everybody looked really well and there were some fine defensive plays as well.
Game 5 set the tone for what was to come with another brilliant performance by Josh Beckett. He dominated Cleveland once again and even had time to quarrel with Indians outfielder Kenny Lofton.

Meanwhile across the Pacific the contenders for the Japan Series have been determined. Last year's champions Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters won a five game series against the Chiba Lotte Marines 3-2 with Yu Darvish winning the final game. They will now face a familiar opponent because the Chunichi Dragons, last year's runner-up in the Japan Series, won their Climax Series in the Central League by sweeping the Yomiuri Giants 3-0. So now it's the question whether history will repeat itself or will the Dragons have their say against the Fighters this time.

MLB & NPB: The playoffs continue

Colorado extended their streak to 21 out of 20 by beating the Diamondbacks yesterday 4-1, so they are now just one win away from entering the World Series. And to be honest, although I haven't seen any game of the NLCS so far I think their are a force to be reckoned with. Winning 20 out of 21 is a very impressive number and Boston or Cleveland will have problems when they face the Rockies. Meanwhile in the ALCS the Red Sox and the Indians will continue their series which is tied at 1-1 at Cleveland. Matsuzakla Daisuke will be the starter for Boston and it will be interesting to see how he will do in this situation. From what I've read about his acreer in Japan he was considered to be a "big game pitcher". The higher the pressure, the better the perfomance of Dice-K. He did well against the Indians the last time he played at Jacobs Field, a game in which he pitched a 7 inning shut out, if I remember that right.

On the other side of the Pacific, the playoffs are also in full effect. The Pacific League is entering the 2nd stage of theri Climax Series with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters going up against the Chiba Lotte Marines. Japanese wonderboy Yu darvish started the first game for the fighters and was struggling at first but then stelled in securing the 5-2 win for his team. I have no idea how many ganmes are played in this series, maybe they have one game more than the first stage which was a best of three series.
In the Central League for the first time in their history they are having palyoffs as well. The first Climax Series their is played between the Chunichi Dragons and the Hanshin Tigers. Hanshin completely blew the game losing 7-0. The winner of thios series will face regular season champions Yomiuri Giants, a team considered to be the equivalent of the NEw York Yankees in Japan.
It seems they introduced those playoffs to rise interest in the leagues. Before the playoffs the winners of the Central and the Pacific League played the Japan Series against each other. Now they have playoffs, the Central League introducing them just this year. It's a pity there's no way to watch anything of those matches over here so I have to rely on what's written in some English newspapers from Japan. The Japan Times Online is a good one. And also there's Japan Baseball Daily with all the scores and lots of news.

MLB moves on to the next stage, NPB looking for opponent for pennant winner

The divisional series ended in the MLB and the Championship Series are set to start. It will be Arizona vs Colorado in the NL and Boston vs Cleveland in the AL. With all the fuzz about curses that seems to be going on in the States it's no wonder that someone found something that fit to Cleveland, a team that won its last World Series in 1948. I can't really say who will make it in the NL since I haven't seen that many games of the Diamondbacks and the Rockies. Colorado looked pretty strong against Boston during Interleague play and one always has to keep in mind that the won 17 of their last 18 matches.
Boston meanwhile will be glad that they don't have to face the Yankees, but it remains to be seen if the Indians are the better choice. especially their top starters C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona looked very sharp in their appearances against New York. The Red Sox dropped Matsuzaka Daisuke to Game 3, since he didn't look that good against the Angels in Game 2. We'll see how that works out. He said of starting at Cleveland that he liked the mound there a lot when he played there during the regular season. I'd really like him to do well this time again.

In Japan the regular season is finished now and I somehow managed to find my way through postseason procedures. It looks like the number two and number three teams of each divison will play against each other in a so called three game "Climax Series". The winner will then face the divisional champions to play for a place in the Japan Series. This means that the Central League Climax Series will be played by Hansin Tigers (3rd) vs Chunichi Dragons (2nd) and the winner will play against the Yomiuri Giants. I'd really like to see Hanshin advance, not only because they play at Koushien, but also because they are great rivals with the Giants. It's always nice to have a little extra in a series. But that's not very likely taking into account that Hanshin was struggling heavily to the end of the regular season and they are playing against last year's Japan Series runner-up, the Dragons. It seems that the CL Climax Series hasn't started yet.
The Pacific League Climax Series was on it's way, it's already finished. Chiba Lotte Marines (2nd) were playing against Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. The Marines won the series 2-1 and will now face the Nippon Ham Fighters in Sapporo. The Fighters are last years Japan Series Champions and with pitcher Yu Darvish they have one of the top players of Japanese baseball in their line up. He said that he would like to play in the USA rather sooner than later so perhaps this might be a good chance for American scouts to take a close look at him.

MLB & NPB: Entering the postseason

So this is actually my first time watching a postseason unfold on television. because it's so hard to get any footage of the games over here the only time before this year I was able to watch a baseball match was in 1991 when the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves were playing in the World Series. They actually showed those matches on cable TV.
So as always when it comes to deciding games there's always a huge fuzz about what's going on and what's going to happen and so on. With the Phillies clinching their first division title since 1993 and the Rockies an a blazing run winning their tiebreaker against the Padres in the 13th inning you couldn't ask for more excitement, I guess. To someone who has always been watching football which only takes place on the weekend it's still a mystery why you have to play 162 games to get to this point. Well, at least there's a game everyday for almost 6 months.
So the Phillies lost to Colorado in Game 1 (2:4), the Red Sox crashed the Angels (4:0) at Fenway and the Cubs started their postseason campaign with a loss against the Diamondbacks at Arizona (3:1). Today, the Yankees and the Indians will take action for the first time.

It seems things are falling into place in Japan as well. I still don't get the mode by which they determine who plays against who in postseason. As far as I found out they used to have just the Japan Series after the regular season in which the respective league pennant winners played against each other in a seven game series. Not so nowadays. The league tables on Japan Times Online show three teams in each division who claimed a playoff spot. The Central League will have the Yomiuri Giants, the Chunichi Dragons and the Hanshin Tigers, the Pacific League will feature the Nippon Ham Fighters, the Softbank Hawks and the Chiba Lotte Marines. Who will play against who is still a mystery to me.

NPB and Koushien: A nice start into a new day

After waking up today I watched two games from Japan. First up was a match at Koushien Stadium where Aomori Yamada played against Seiko Gakuin. This was an interesting game with both teams being in a deadlock in the first few innings. But then a grand slam homerun for Seiko Gakuin in the 5th broke up the tie and sent them up 4-0. Aomori Yamada would score as well in the remaining innings, but they faied to capitalize on a loaded bases situation in the top of the 9th when their clean up hitter and pitcher struck out in three straight pitches. Seiko Gakuin won 6-4.
I also watched the closing innings of Niigata Meikun vs Kofu Shogyo on Wednesday, a very close game. I tuned in when the score was tied at 1-1 and it was already the 6th inning. Both teams went on scoreless until a single would give Niigata Meikun the winning run in the 12th inning.
Watching those students play in front of a huge (although not sell out) crowd at koushien Stadium is a lot of fun. It seems as if they are enjoying every minute they get to stand on the field, sometimes they laugh, sometimes they are frustrated with themselves, but they never have this dull and emotionless expression that some professional players seem to have when they play. Also I noticed that the games at Koushien have a much faster pace than professional baseball matches. Maybe that is because there are four games on each day and they have to get through the program as quick as possible.

This concludes this round and now these teams are left in the competition:
Day 10 (07-08-17):
Game 1: (Nagasaki) Nagasaki Nichidai vs. Kyoto Gaidai Nishi (Kyoto)
Game 2: (Shimane) Kaisei vs. Yoshikan (Oita)
Game 3: (Shizuoka) Takoha Gakuen Kikugawa vs. Nichinan Gakuen (Miyazaki)
Game 4: (Gunma) Maebashi Sho vs. Saga Kita (Saga)
Day 11 (07-08-18):
Game 1: (Tochigi) Bunseigei Daifu vs. Imabari Nishi (Ehime)
Game 2: (Nara) Chiben Gakuen vs. Teikyo (East Tokyo)
Game 3: (Niigata) Niigata Meikun vs. Ogaki Nichidai (Gifu)
Game 4: (Hiroshima) Koryo vs. Seiko Gakuin (Fukujima)

So when the Koushien broadcast (which can be found on the Asahi Shimbun website) ended I tuned into the top game of the NPB Pacific League where 1st place Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters took on 2nd place Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. Fighters starting pitcher Yu Darvish carried a no-hitter into the 6th inning, I think, when it was crashed by a single. That guy seems to be the new top prospect of Japanese baseball after Matsuzaka Daisuke went to the MLB. He also made his first big impact while playing at the Koushien tournaments and is currently engaged with Actress Saeko who seems to be pregnant with his child. So he's all set to fill in as the new star celebrity of Japanese Baseball.
Fighters, who are the defending Japan Series champions, went on to win 0-8. This was only the 2nd time I watched an NPB game, the other one being Tohoku Rakuten Eagles against a team whose name I forgot. What's most interesting is the noise in the stadium. The crowd is always chanting, shouting and singing, bands can be heard and theer is constant noise, even when the sides change offense and defense.