NPB Tracker

I’d like to welcome NPB Tracker’s first contributing writer, Ryo Shinkawa.

Ryo is currently a senior at Baldwin-Wallace College majoring in Sports Management with a minor in Business Administration, expected to graduate in May, 2009. He is bilingual in Japanese and English and has lived in both the United States and Japan with an overseas study experience in England in his junior year. He spent the 2008 season with the Cleveland Indians as a Media Relations Intern/Interpreter and will take on a similiar role for the 2009 season. He will be looking for a full-time opportunity in professional sports after the season.

Ryo will be contributing articles on the baseball and sports management in Japan on a regular basis.

Some of you may have noticed that I posted an entry in Japanese earlier today. I’ve been thinking about giving writing in Japanese a shot for a while, and when the news of Ken Kadokura’s contract with the Cubs broke in English first, I thought I’d take it as an opportunity. The same content was available in English in a seperate post that was published moments before.

I don’t speak or write native-level Japanese and I’ll make mistakes, so I’m looking at this as an opportunity to improve. For anyone out there learning Japanese (and I’m sure there must be a few), ALC is a great resource for translating short Japanese-English, and this site is handy for getting the readings of tough Kanji characters. Both of those sites are intended for a Japanese audience, so they’re not really recommended for beginners. For a more novice learner (and up), jisho.org is a good resource.

今日は、初めて日本語でブログを書いた。しばらく日本語でブログを書こうと思っていたし、今日の門倉健のカブス入団というニューズがさきに英語で出たことをきっかけに、はじめようと思った。同じ内容も英語も記事もアップした。

ぼくは、日本語がネイティブ級じゃないから、たまに間違えるけど、上達するのが目標です。日本人の読者は、間違えに気付いたら、教えてくれてください。英語を勉強してる人には、英和翻訳サイトのALCがおすすめです。オンライン辞書のjisho.orgも便利だと思っている。

Last Tuesday, I discussed Kenshin Kawamakami’s move to the Braves on The Bill Shanks Show on WIFN SportsRadio 105.5 the Fan in Macon, Georgia. Bill was kind enough to send me the audio of the interview, and I’m happy to present it here: Part 1 Part 2

Subscribers to scout.com can also check out the interview here.

I’ll be appearing on Mike Silva’s NY Baseball Digest radio program Sunday evening at 7:00 pm est (check here for the time in your area). You can listen online here, and New York area readers can listen in on 1240am WGBB.

Happy New Year! I can’t believe it’s already 2009… it sounds like such a futuristic year, but here we are.

It’s been an interesting six months since I started NPB Tracker. The site has been significantly more popular than I anticipated, thanks mostly to links from mlbtraderumors.com and Japanesebaseball.com. There have certainly been others, but it all started with those two sites. So, a big thank you and Happy New Year  to Tim et al and Westbaystars-san for their support. I’d also like to say Happy New Year to the others in in the Japanese and Asian baseball blogging community, most notably Deanna, Simon, Aaron and Jackson, and the Tsubame-gun guys; and to Erik Schullstrom, Ted Berg, and Adam Hart.

My goal for 2009 is to spend a little more time creating original content, and a little less time regurgitating Japanese media reports. I’m also planning on writing more about baseball in a Japan, rather than Japanese players in America.

So, to everyone reading this, thanks for a great 2008, and let’s have a great 2009.

Ted Berg published an interview with me on SNY.tv today. Here’s the link.

It’s noon here in Silicon Valley, and cooking is underway in the NPB Tracker household. No guests, no travelling, just me and my wife at home. Maybe I’ll get to another post while the turkey’s in the oven, or maybe I’ll catch up on some Wii instead.

Here’s wishing all of my America-based readers a happy turkey and relaxing long weekend.

From the self-congratulatory dept: I’m a little surprised at how many mainstream media sites have linked to my content on Junichi Tazawa. Here are the ones that have come to my attention:

1. NBC Sports
2. Washington Post
3. AOL Fanhouse
4. Dallas News
5. Boston Score
6. Boston Herald
7. NESN

npbtracker.com was down for an hour or two this morning, due to issues my webhost was having. Apologies to anyone who couldn’t access the site during this time.

The outage was during my normal writing time, so there won’t be any real post for today.

My move is complete and my wife and I are getting unpacked. Hopefully over the upcoming weekend some of the half-written drafts I have piling up will start to make it to a readable state. Look out for new content soon.