The two best college hockey teams gave the pro sides scares as both games were tied heading into their 3rd period. And Halla’s 3rd goal seems to be an empty netter, so essentially the two pro clubs barely managed 1 goal wins over university teams. The pro sides are allowed to dress imports for this championship, and by looking at the goal scorers, it seems like these games were played with full squads (though maybe not at full effort).
Anyways, standings after the group stage:
Group A: High1 (2-0), Yonsei U (1-1), Hanyang U (0-2)
Group B: Anyang Halla (2-0), Korea U (1-1), Kyunghee U (0-2)
Semifinals:
11.6 14:30 High1 – Korea U / 17:30 Anyang Halla – Yonsei U
A great look back on homerun king and baseball martial artist Sadaharu Oh’s 50 year pro baseball career by renowned English language writer of Japanese baseball, Robert Whiting. This is part 1.
Joining the Yomiuri Giants in 1959, he was adjudged to have lost the pop on his fastball and converted to first base to take advantage of his natural power at bat. However, Oh experienced a lengthy period of adjustment because of a serious hitch in his swing. He went hitless in his first 26 at-bats as a professional and put up mediocre statistics during his first three years.
In 1961, for example, he could hit but 13 home runs with a .253 batting average. Said Hiroshi Gondo of the Chunichi Dragons, a 30-game winner that year, “Frankly, it was easy to get him out. He could not hit a fastball. You could just blow it by him.”
To overcome Oh’s defect, the Giants hired a batting coach named Hiroshi Arakawa, who was also a martial arts sensei. From January 1962, the portly, moon-faced Arakawa began working with Oh every morning at his aikido dojo and devised a most unusual remedy.
“Oh’s problem,” said Arakawa, “was a tendency to stride too soon and open up his body. I devised a one-legged stance to focus his center of gravity on a smaller area. I got the idea from watching batters like Kaoru Betto of the Hanshin Tigers, who also lifted his foot somewhat before swinging. But I made Oh lift his leg higher, to waist level, and stand there like a flamingo as he waited for the ball.
“At first, Oh found it very difficult to do. We practiced and practiced and he slowly got better, but he was afraid to use it in a game for a long time.”
But then came the time he had to try — a rain-soaked game versus the Taiyo Whales at Kawasaki Stadium on July 1, 1962. The Giants had been in a slump. The team had lost six games in a row and fallen back in the standings. Many were blaming it on Oh, who was hitting .250 with nine home runs and had killed many rallies by striking out.
The name “Oh” meant “king” in Japanese and the sports dailies had begun to derogate Oh by labeling him the “Sanshin Oh” or “Strikeout King.”
Giants manager Tetsuji Kawakami despaired Oh would ever step up to the next level. In desperation, he decided the moment had come to try his new stance in a game. He stepped into the batter’s box against Whales wiry right-hander Makoto Inagawa for his first at-bat, raised his right knee as high as he could, and stood there, waiting.
Out on the mound Inagawa thought to himself, “What the hell? He’ll never hit me with that stance.”
Inagawa wound up and fired a fastball, which Oh promptly lined into right field. Arakawa watched from the sidelines like a proud father. In his second at-bat, Oh slammed an Inagawa fastball into the right-field stands.
Arakawa leaped to his feet cheering. Oh finished the night with three hits and a beaming Arakawa told him afterward, “That’s it. You’ve got it. You’ll never go back now.”
Indeed, from then on, Oh was off and running. Using his bizarre new stance, Oh hit 10 homers in July, and 20 more after that, finishing with 38 to win the Central League home run crown.
Kyunghee took the lead in the 13th minute, held onto it to the end of the period. Then after having the game tied up at 27:43, they came right back to retake the lead at 28:59, but then just got pummelled by the pro side Halla.
Group A: Yonsei U (1-0), High1 (1-0), Hanyang U (0-2)
Group B: Anyang Halla (1-0), Korea U (1-0), Kyunghee U (0-2)
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Although the schedule is unfavourable, it’ll be interesting to see how the stronger university teams, Yonsei U and Korea U do against the pro clubs on the 3rd and final day of group play today.
Hikari TV (a fibreoptic internet TV service) will start broadcasting AL games. As a preview of the service, they have a nice stream of the Seibu-Halla game highlights from 5 Oct 2008.
This is good news as any additional exposure is good for the fledgling league.
Japan Ice Hockey Federation has announced the national teams for the upcoming Vancouver Olympics qualifying tournament on 6-9 November. The men’s team will train in Germany from 29 Oct, and will enter Poland on 3 Nov for the tournament against Great Britain, Romania, and the hosts Poland. The women’s team will play in Shanghai against Norway, the Czech Republic, and China.
Yonsei University played great in the preseason Anyang Cup in 2007 when they beat High1 2-1 and barely lost to Seibu 3-4.
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Interesting scheduling note: Japanese teams are on a national break from 10.27 to 11.14 due to the national team participating in the Olympic qualifier tournament in Poland. In the mean time Korean and Chinese teams trudge on with the schedule, and High1 even has a 3 game series against the Sharks in Shanghai in between the group games and the final tournament of the All-Korea tournament.
I had read about improvements in the Rays team heading into the 2008 season, but didn’t believe they’d be this good going from finishing last almost every season to suddenly winning the toughest division in baseball, AL East, and winning the ALCS (by defeating defending WS champs the Boston Red Sox) to reach the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
When I initially read these Akinori Iwamura (converted from 3B to 2B for the 2008 season) quotes during spring training, I thought it was typical athlete optimism mixed in with a media face, but Iwamura turned out to be right.
“The team was really dedicated during the offseason to strengthen the squad. When we got together in the first day (of spring training), I felt that not only were the players’ expressions different, I could also feel it from the team staff. This will be an interesting team if the pitching and hitting click together, and I think that we can really beat the Yankees and other teams. I’m really, really excited to be here.”
“I think that we are allowed to delude ourselves, in a good sense (that we are strong). It’s important that we’re all in this together to win, and mistaken confidence will lead to real strength. We have to gradually show that we’re different this year, and turn that into a good habit during the season. Even though this is still spring training, it’s important for us to get in the habit of winning.”
Some times when athletes talk, sometimes they’re not just merely paying lip service or being a bland quote machine but instead they’re telling rather interesting nuggets of truth. Not that Iwamura called the Rays’ reaching (or winning) the World Series or anything, but I should have given his quotes more credit than I did at the beginning of the season.
Posted by japanstats on 2008 October 22日 Wednesday
Straight from the horse’s mouth (from the excellent NY Times Slapshot blog):
Tuesday was a special day in the K.H.L. Vyacheslav Fetisov, already the Russian Minister of Sport and as of last week a senator in the upper house of the federal legislature, was elected chairman of the league board of governors. The 50-year-old ex-CSKA, U.S.S.R., Devils and Red Wings star promptlytold the K.H.L. Web site, “We should develop in the direction of the Far East, and make the league not only European but also Asian.” He said there was interest in joining the K.H.L. from businessmen in Japan, South Korea and China.
Given the 50 percent drop over the last three months in the price of oil — the basis of the Russian economy and of the Gazprom-funded league’s wealth — K.H.L. expansion into other countries seems more and more like a pie-in-the-sky proposition. Falling oil prices and a domestic financial sector hard hit by the current credit crisis have already forced the Russian government to rethink budget and foreign policy initiatives, as the Times’Clifford J. Levy reports. Given such circumstances, does Fetisov really believe that the Continental Hockey League will soon be icing teams in Seoul and Beijing?
He’s said this before, so I guess Slava’s really got KHL’s eyes on Asia, but chances are slim to nil for many reasons, including the ones in the blog post, but if the KHL is interested in Asia, they’re (or is it just he, as in Fetisov) more likely interested in absorbing the Asia League with existing franchises and fanbase (however small) rather than creating new franchises in the Far East. Then again with the level of play in the Asia League, the teams would get slaughtered in the KHL without heavy reinforcements, and that wouldn’t work out well in terms of fostering home grown talent and interest in the game.
But this is most likely just old man talking crazy without having read through any reports or thought through the logistics. Asia League games draw anywhere from a few hundred spectators to a couple of thousand fans at best, far cry from attendance numbers KHL is trying to put up to compete with the NHL. Hockey just isn’t a major sport in North East Asia. (But I’d love to see something like Amur Khavarovsk’s 2nd team play in the Asia League again, that’d be neat and good for Asian hockey development.)
Here’s a fun old time Fetisov and Larionov photo for kicks.
Japan, Hockey, Baseball, etc. 