Search - baseball

 
 
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 6, 2021

Japan’s travel ban has left foreign baseball players in limbo

Colin Rea — like more than a dozen other players who joined Japanese clubs in the offseason — is in limbo.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Feb 9, 2021

MLB will change its baseballs after record home run rates

After years of fielding questions about record home run rates and variations in its baseballs, Major League Baseball informed its 30 teams in a memorandum Friday of changes to the balls — and how they will be handled — for the 2021 season. Chief among the differences will be a slightly reduced weight...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Dec 8, 2019

Handful of players from 'Matsuzaka Generation' still holding on

Daisuke Matsuzaka returned home on Wednesday, solidifying a deal to spend his 20th season in pro baseball with the Saitama Seibu Lions, the club he spent Year 1 with back in 1999.
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Mar 24, 2017

Leyland motivated Team USA on way to WBC victory

This, Jim Leyland insisted, was it.
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Mar 13, 2017

Israel's Fuld seizing chance to play at WBC with both hands

Team Israel outfielder Sam Fuld is as appreciative as any player in the World Baseball Classic to be able to hit the diamond and play the game.
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Mar 10, 2017

Buck Martinez looks back on inaugural WBC, remains pleased with global growth of game

Former Team USA skipper Buck Martinez said he recalls everything from the game in Anaheim, California, where his team and manager Sadaharu Oh's Japan squad squared off in the second round of the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006.
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Mar 7, 2017

Versatile Meng does it all for China

Meng Weiqiang may patrol left field at some point for China during the 2017 World Baseball Classic. He's also going to pitch and might even strap on a catcher's mask. There's a chance he'll do at least two of those things, maybe even all three, during the same game.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Jan 30, 2017

Samurai Japan's stars have to come to grips with WBC ball

Throwing a baseball isn't rocket science. Unless, apparently, that ball is the official baseball of the World Baseball Classic and is being thrown by a member of Samurai Japan.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Aug 1, 2016

BayStars' Ikeda ready to turn club into winner on diamond

Second in a two-part series
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Apr 18, 2016

Baseball pauses to reflect on Kyushu earthquakes

Seiichi Uchikawa had to pause during his hero interview Friday night following the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks' victory over the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. A rush of emotions had left the Hawks captain searching for words, as tears welled up in his eyes while he answered a question about the situation...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 26, 2016

Maeda inquiry illustrates challenge of translating baseball's nuances

Something might have gotten lost in translation after Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda was asked by his manager Dave Roberts to demonstrate his warm-up routine in the team clubhouse. Newspaper articles described Maeda's arm-waving motions as a "dance" but, unless he has added some choreography...
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Nov 7, 2015

Premier 12 begins with Japan-South Korea clash

One day before the inaugural Premier 12 debuts, Japan national baseball team manager Hiroki Kokubo and South Korea skipper Kim In-sik addressed the media at a Sapporo hotel on Saturday evening.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Apr 18, 2015

'You Gotta Have Wa' is still the best analysis of Japanese culture seen through the lens of sport

Robert Whiting's baseball classic, "You Gotta Have Wa," (updated in 2009) remains the definitive text on Japanese culture seen through the lens of sport. Whiting has an engaging style, his research is exhaustive and his first-hand knowledge has ensured this book is just as entertaining now as it was...
BASEBALL
Nov 18, 2014

Samurai Japan pitching coach Katori embraces serious demeanor in preparation for 2017 WBC

The MLB-Japan All-Star Series is sort of a deceiving event, because it's uncertain what kind of physical condition the players are in and how close they are to their top level.
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Nov 16, 2014

Rays outfielder Zobrist gets crash course in Japanese baseball culture

They play the game with the same rules on the same diamond. But how they develop their game based on practice looks to be a little different between Japan and the United States.
EDITORIALS
Jun 18, 2013

No excuse for NPB's deceit

It is unfathomable why Japanese pro baseballl chose not to announce the simple fact that it was making baseballs 'more lively' for the 2013 season.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 2, 2012

Doctoring the baseball a tactic as old as the game itself

This column is about "the ball," but it is not what you think.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 26, 2010

2010 Japanese baseball season featured many memorable moments

Every year, Japanese baseball produces some great stories, and some not-so-wonderful ones. During this last week of 2010, let's take a final look back at some of the good and bad events that occurred over the past 12 months.
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Mar 29, 2009

The Japanese way carried the day in World Baseball Classic

Baseball may have been invented in the United States, but it's being perfected in Japan.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 31, 2008

Results in Beijing prove that baseball has a place in Olympics

After watching that cliff-hanging, nail-biter, barn-burner of a victory by South Korea over Cuba in the gold medal game at the Beijing Olympics, I am more convinced than ever that baseball — and softball — belong in the Games.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat