Seattle Marinerds
Congrats to the Fighters. I said that the key for the Dragons to win the series was to rough up the Fighters' pitchers, and ultimately, they failed to do so. Lot of credit goes to the pitchers, as well as the Fighters' power alley, but I don't want to take anything away from anyone else, as it was truly a complete team effort.
P.S. I'll try to make my Sapporo trip in the same time period as your trip. I'm begging to meet more English-speaking NPB fans. :D
Congrats to the Fighters and thanks to Deanna for forsaking sleep for a week!
Since 2000, six different teams have won the Japan Series and the Pacific League has won four of the seven series, three of those consecutively. Hanshin and Chunichi have each been the fall guy twice. So next season we get to see whether it will be Hanshin or Chunichi who gets to be the Buffalo Bills (or Atlanta Braves?) of NPB by dropping three Japan Series (if that happens) in a relatively short span.
Inaba has now won Japan Series titles with two different teams, one in each league. Kimiyasu Kudoh has done it with three different teams, two in the Pacific League and one in the Central, so Inaba isn't setting any kind of record. Nevertheless, considering how seldom there are trades or general player movement in NPB, that is still a rare accomplishment.
The Dragons and Tigers are clearly the top two teams in the CL, and that'll probably continue next year, but with the new playoff system, it's not as much of a sure shot anymore that it will be one of those two teams.
That said, it'll probably be the Dragons, now firmly (30 year gap!) holding the dubious record that the Cubs have in MLB.
I woke up around 4am, just in time to catch Seguignol's 2-run HR! Thank you very much for all your live blogging for the series. I wish I could see the 胴上げ& interviews. I tried to catch up with the posts on the Fighters コミュthis morning, but there were just so many. I am sure you can find someone among 6000+ fans who would let you stay and go to the games together(*^_^*)
Fire -- It's unlikely I'll go during Golden Week for sheer sanity issues, but you never know, I'll try to keep you updated when I figure out when I can go next year. Probly depends on baseball schedules (want to plan a full week of Fighters homestands)
Bob -- thanks! The fact that I didn't wake up until 2:30pm today when my boss called me, that might have been bad. On the other hand, I told him that the thing ruining my sleep schedule was finally over :)
Gary, oh, I was wondering about that, they just said that it was Inaba's fourth Japan Series, I knew it was with only two teams. Who knows what will happen next year... maybe the Giants will come back to be in the fray again, imagine a Fighters-Giants series at the Tokyo Dome? Riots may ensue to get tickets!
Noriko, me too, me too. I'm going to have to get the Series DVD when it comes out. (the Fighters' website is so clogged I have no idea what their plan for it is!) Haha, they don't do baseball homestays over there, do they? :)
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