Cheers to the Yomiuri Giants for hiring strength and conditioning coach John Turney, recently let go by the Yokohama BayStars after leading the players on that team through stretching and calisthenics during pre-game drills for nine seasons.
The 37-year-old Turney is apparently the first foreigner to be listed as a coach on the Giants varsity staff in the 75-year history of the team, though Yomiuri employed Korean Kim Ki Ite as a batting coach on its farm team for three seasons, 2007-09.
In 2004, then-Giants manager Tsuneo Horiuchi asked his former Yomiuri teammate and ex-Los Angeles Dodgers star player Reggie Smith — they played together in 1983 — to join the first team as a hitting coach, but a member of Smith's family was seriously ill at the time, and he declined the offer.