NPB Tracker

Hanshin signed and introduced Craig Brazell on May 28 (JST). Craig gets a contract through the end of the season paying him $250k plus performance bonuses. No word current word on when he’s expected to debut but previous reports put it around June 5th. “I want to taste victory,” commented Brazell.

So I finally got to see Kenshin Kawakami pitch in a big league game. Being three timezones away from the east coast makes it tough to catch most Braves games, but this week they’re here in California, so in between helping with dinner and the dishes, I got to watch Kenshin pitch against the Giants.

And he didn’t have one of his best games.

On the upside…

• worked out of a couple of jams
• decent velocity — hit 94 mph on the gun one time, which is harder than I would normally expect him to throw
• got a sacrifice down (I wasn’t in the room when this happened, seeing in it the box score)
• speed giveth: Benji Molina’s lack of pace saved a run for Kenshin

On the downside…

• got into trouble in every inning he pitched
• poor control — airmailed a fastball, hit Aaron Rowand, catcther had a passed ball
• couldn’t get his breaking stuff over for strikes, had a hittable fastball
• speed taketh away: Rowand stole home

Kenshin’s breaking stuff basically wasn’t working at all. I only saw him get a couple of swinging strikes, and he had a pattern of getting behind on guys and then coming back with very hittable fastballs. 

Anyone else see the game?

Majoring in Baseball Science… I don’t know if it’s just me, but that sounds truly intriguing.

Shikoku Gakuin Daigaku is installing the major system, which is the most common college academic system in the United States. Starting from the 2010 academic year, the university is restructuring its academic system and installing the major system providing 19 majors and one minor of the students’ choice. This differs from the typical Japanese university system, where students choose a curriculum prior to entering the school, and in the event they want to change majors, have to basically re-apply to the school.

What is interesting about this new development is that the Shikoku Gakuin Daigaku is adding the major of Baseball Science, which is the first such program in any Japanese university. The main subjects the students will be able to study majoring in Baseball Science will be:

• History of Japanese Baseball
• Baseball Information Analysis
• Baseball Methodology
• Baseball Management
• Health and Sports Nutrition
• Introduction of Baseball Communication

The dream of the university is for one of their alumni to become a major league player and expand the business of baseball and develop more “Baseball People” who can contribute to the industry. The school hasn’t produced many NPB players. One of the few baseball alumni from Shikoku Gakuen Daigaku is former Hiroshima Toyo Carp Kouichi Amano, currently the manager of the Fukui Miracle Elephants in the Baseball Challenge League.

NPB Bullet Points returns with an all-photographic collection of non-sequiturs. Let’s begin.

In Japanese…

• Yokohama’s Seiichi Uchikawa can levitate, to the apparent dismay of the umpire.
• In other Yokohama news, Kimiyasu Kudoh, 46, become the oldest pitcher to win an NPB game.
• Rakuten manager Katsuya Nomura has a new watch. Where did he get such a lurid timepiece? You guessed it, from his goofy wife. For those of you that can read Japanese, I’ll include this link, where Nomura refers to his bullpen as not “stoppers” but “strippers”.
• Chunichi slugger Tony Blanco is big, but not as big as a sumo wrestler.
• Here’s a rare sighting: empty seats at Koshien. Hanshin drew fewer than 30,000 fans at Koshein for the first time in almost five years.

And In English…

• The incomparable Deanna snapped a shot of the Marines fans holding up signage indicating that 63,580 fans have signed a petition requesting the team to keep Bobby Valentine around beyond this season.
• My fellow Chicago ex-pat Matt of Yakyu All-Stars took a picture of Norichika Aoki’s WBC Gold Medal. I gotta say, that’s pretty underwhelming. Looks like it’s filled with chocolate.
• Simon has pics of Kazuhiro ‘Daimajin’ Sasaki throwing out the first pitch to Jose Canseco at a recent BayStars game. Fresh off his failure to knock out Danny Bonaduce, Canseco wanted to take Daimajin deep, but even though he got nine pitches he couldn’t do it.
• Marines lover Steve gives us a pic of a fairly typical Hanshin Tigers fan.