This post is about baseball

[dr4b]

Kazuhiro Sasaki remains in Japan -- yup, guess that means Guardado is our closer this year (or Hasegawa. *sigh*). Wow. I mean, Sasaki had a pretty bad year last year, but it would have been great to see him get back into form and be our closer again. Sucks. I wonder, it doesn't say, but I'm betting he'll go back to playing for the Yokohama Bay Stars.

Also, man, the Nippon Ham Fighters just can't get any loopier, can they? From Gary Garland's column:

"Outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo has reportedly given up on finding a home or apartment in Sapporo since he can't find adequate enclosed parking spaces for his three luxkry cars, which includes a Ferrari and a BMW. In Japan, due to the scarcity of open land, you often have to buy a parking space and it isn't uncommon for auto owners to actually have to take the train to that space. So even though he is hardly in the filthy rich class of ballplayers, the ex-Met is considering using a $1500 a night hotel room as his base of operations during the season....Well, I don't know what is a bigger waste of time, me writing about the article or Hochi Sports spending resources to track this story down, but anyway, a member of the monstrously popular all girl teen group Morning Musume, Eri Kamei, lives in the same neighborhood as Fighters rookie pitcher Hideki Sunaga and they know each other from elementary school. Hochi insists that Sunaga wants her to come to see him pitch, but Sunaga bashfully laughed that off. No quote from Kamei, though."

Hmm, if Sasaki really does go back to play for Yokohama, that means I not only need to get up to Sapporo to see the Fighters, but I'm going to have to somehow try to catch at least one Central League game... would be great to see Yokohama vs. Hanshin or Yomiuri, but I'm not counting on much.

/me goes back to trying to do work and get home at a decent hour.

Comments

[aquatwo.livejournal.com]

i heard about Kazu earlier today i figured you had already heard about it. i was right. :-P
sad, ne? not sure if it was injury or age this year... he will be missed.

[the2belo.livejournal.com]

This is no lie, although in my case it's the reverse: I pay Y6000 a month for a parking space next to the bus stop 3 km away from my house -- because I'm too far away to walk there -- and drive to the bus stop to get on the bus. The spaces near the train station 10 km away would be more logical, because it removes a mode of transportation from my daily commute, but those spaces can cost upwards of Y12000 a month. That's $113. And this is a hick town in comparison to Sapporo.

If I were Shinjo, I'd just sell off the stupid luxury cars. But that's just me.