NPB Tracker

In the last week or so, we’ve seen a near-handful of individual milestones reached… at least. Actually, it feels like I’m leaving something out. Anyway, here are the four I picked up on.

• Yomiuri veteran Michihiro Ogasawara notched his 2000th career hit last week. Our own Ken Dick summarized the game in which he reached the milestone.
• Yakult lefty Masanori Ishikawa recorded his 100th career win in style with 8.2 innings of shutout ball over Yokohama.Ishikawa commented, “it’s not a number that is won by an individual’s strength. My family supported me at times when I struggled.”
• Softbank captain Hiroki Kokubo reached 400 career home runs on the 12th. I leave the reporting in the capable hands of John Gibson.
• Two days later, Kokubo’s teammate, veteran suketto Alex Cabrera cranked out his 350th NPB home run. Cabu reached the mark in 1169 games, the fastest pace ever. Here’s my translation of Cabrera’s remarks, along with the original Japanese.

“This is the result of 11 years of hard work, so I’m feeling happy. I’m very happy. When I came to Japan, the first home run I hit was with the Lions. And today our opponent was the Lions. It feels like coming full circle*. I want to hit a lot more home runs for everyone.

(Commenting on the length of time it took to hit the last home run, pointing to him self and speaking Japanese) ‘I suck!’ This morning I chicken pot pie(?)* that I made myself, so I guess it was thanks to that.”

「１１年間、一生懸命やってきた結果なので、うれしく思っています。とても幸せです。日本に来た時にライオンズで第１号を打ちました。そして今日の相手も ライオンズでした。不思議な巡り合わせを感じます。これからもたくさんのホームランをみなさんのために打ちたいと思います。
（残り１本から時間がかかったことについて、自身を指差し日本語で）『ヘタクソ！』。今朝、チキンを包んだパイを自分で作って食べたんだけど、そのおかげかな（笑）」

* The bilingual members of my audience might have noticed that I took a few liberties with my translation, which I have denoted with asterisks. If anyone is inclined to answer, how would you translate 不思議な巡り合わせ or チキンを包んだパイ? And while we’re at it, how about conveying the humor indicated by（笑）? I always struggle with that one.