Tag - baseball

 
 

BASEBALL

Katsuhiko Nakamura, secretary-general of the NPB, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2025
NPB teams to fine 16 players for using online casinos
The fines will be donated to organizations working to combat gambling addiction.
Artifacts that will be part of the Yakyu Baseball / The Transpacific Exchange of the Game exhibition at the Baseball Hall of Fame are displayed at Tokyo Dome on Sunday.
BASEBALL
Mar 19, 2025
New Japanese baseball exhibit to open at Baseball Hall of Fame in July
Ichiro, who has visited the Hall of Fame eight times, expressed his support for the project.
Shohei Ohtani gets a kiss from his dog Decoy at a game in August 2024. The Japanese slugger-pitcher’s return to his country to kick off the Major League Baseball season has sparked immense excitement, highlighting his unparalleled career and symbolic role as a national hero.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 18, 2025
Superstar Shohei Ohtani for prime minister
He’s unavoidable in Japan: His face adorns ads for cosmetics, mattresses, English conversation schools and, most recently, convenience store rice balls.
The Nippon Professional Baseball Organization revealed on Thursday that 14 people from seven teams had patronized online casinos after February 2022.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 28, 2025
14 people from seven NPB teams admit to patronizing online casinos
The voluntary admission of the 14, who include players and team officials, follows an announcement by Orix Buffaloes that its pitcher took part in an online poker tournament.
The Seattle Mariners Ichiro Suzuki watches the ball in the top of the third inning against Oakland Athletics during their baseball game at the Major League Baseball Japan Opening Series in Tokyo in March 2019.
BASEBALL / MLB
Feb 15, 2025
Ichiro to donate personal collection to Hall of Fame
Suzuki wants "to follow in the footsteps of Hank Aaron and Tom Seaver," two players who pledged their entire collections to Cooperstown, said a former Hall of Fame official.
Ichiro Suzuki finished his career with 3,089 MLB hits and is one of 33 players in the 3,000-hit club.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 22, 2025
Iconic Japanese outfielder Ichiro Suzuki elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
Ichiro, who rose to global superstardom with the Mariners, was elected in his first year on the ballot, but fell one vote short of becoming the second player voted in unanimously.
Former Seattle Mariners player Ichiro Suzuki during spring training workouts in Peoria, Arizona, in March 2022
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 21, 2025
Ichiro could be unanimous pick in Baseball Hall of Fame voting
Suzuki will likely become the first Hall of Famer born in Japan and may become the first position player to earn unanimous election.
Ichiro Suzuki had 1,278 hits and a .353 batting average in nine seasons with the BlueWave in NPB.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 16, 2025
Ichiro voted into Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame
Former players Hitoki Iwase and Masayuki Kakefu and former Central League umpire Hiroya Tomizawa were also voted into the Hall.
Tsuneo Watanabe (center) attends a gathering with former prime ministers Yasuhiro Nakasone (right) and Toshiki Kaifu in Tokyo in 2009.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 19, 2024
Tsuneo Watanabe, editor-in-chief of Yomiuri Shimbun Group, dies at 98
Watanabe was an influential figure in Japan's political and professional sports arenas.
Former Pirates star Dave Parker participates in a ceremony honoring the Pirates' 1979 World Series team in Pittsburgh on May 25.
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 9, 2024
Dave Parker and Dick Allen elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
Needing a vote of at least 75%, Parker received 14 of 16 votes and Allen, who died in 2020 at the age of 78, got 13 votes.
Ichiro Suzuki became one of the best hitters in baseball history during his 19-year career in MLB.
BASEBALL
Nov 19, 2024
Ichiro makes debut on Hall of Fame ballot
The superstar outfielder is considered by many to be a lock to gain induction during his first year on the ballot.
Masayoshi Son (front, center) poses with the members of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks after the team won the Pacific League championship at Kyocera Dome Osaka on Sept. 23.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Nov 18, 2024
Masayoshi Son’s aim for SoftBank Hawks remains, 20 years after buyout
This year, the team became Pacific League champions for the first time in four years. But its owner has loftier goals.
Players gather for a baseball game at an unearthed and restored baseball field that had not seen a competition in 75 years, at the site of a Japanese internment camp in Manzanar, California, on Oct. 28.
JAPAN / History
Nov 4, 2024
In an internment camp, all they had was baseball. They’re back to play.
Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, baseball was a source of connection between Japan and the United States.
Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada won the outstanding lead actress and actor awards in a drama series, respectively, for "Shogun" at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sept. 15.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 30, 2024
'Peak Japan' is now, so seize the moment, Japan
Japan has never been hotter! Japan is the number one country in the world right now, as voted on by everyone else except for the Japanese.
Japanese fans are signing up for expensive travel packages to watch the World Series, which will see the Los Angeles Dodgers — including Japanese players Yoshinobu Yamamoto (center) and Shohei Ohtani (right) — take on the New York Yankees.
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 25, 2024
World Series sparks travel frenzy among fans in Japan
Travel agencies are having a hard time keeping up with demand from baseball fans fired up by “Ohtanimania.”
Shohei Ohtani's success symbolizes a broader resurgence in Japanese sports, with contributing factors including increased investment in sports, modern coaching techniques and a generational shift in mindset.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 11, 2024
What baseball star Shohei Ohtani’s success says about Japan
The phenom has had what many are calling the greatest season ever. But his success is also a story of change in his home country.
To preserve the integrity of the game in the legalized gambling era, Major League Baseball must double down and maintain its now posthumous ban on Pete Rose.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 4, 2024
Pete Rose fans are wrong: He's not worthy of the Hall of Fame
Backing down would undermine the league’s zero-tolerance stance and signal that "permanently ineligible" isn't always permanent.
Ayami Sato is one of the best female players in baseball history.
BASEBALL
Oct 3, 2024
Japan great Ayami Sato helps shine light on women's baseball in new documentary
Ayami Sato has helped Japan win six straight Women's Baseball World Cup titles.
The Fair Trade Commission says rules preventing pro baseball players from freely choosing their agents for contract negotiations could violate the antimonopoly law.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 20, 2024
Japan FTC warns pro baseball body over agent rules
The body's rules have limited agents for players to lawyers and prohibited players from choosing lawyers who had already been picked by other players.
Wade Boggs is honored prior to a Rays game in St. Petersburg, Florida, in March 2018. The Baseball Hall of Famer revealed on Sunday that he has prostate cancer.
BASEBALL
Sep 9, 2024
Hall of Famer Wade Boggs announces cancer diagnosis
Boggs, 66, played 18 MLB seasons with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and the then-Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Longform

The sun shines from behind a waving Philippine flag at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Eighty years after the Battle of Manila, old foes forge new ties