JPN-KOR Championship to replace the Asia Series

An idea to replace the money losing Asia Series (since it lost its title sponsor Konami, the Series lost 2-oku yen (approx. $2m) last year, yeah small change for a Hanshin Tigers import suketto) has been floated.

It will pit the Japan Series champions against the Korea Series champions in an one game showdown at a regional stadium in November (no dome? must be in southern Japan then).

Japan used to host Korea in an all-star series (similar to the now defunct NPB-MLB all-star series) format back in the 90’s but it got cancelled due to lack of fan interest. But the champion clubs meeting each other in this manner will be a first.

The problem with this newly and severely reduced format is the exclusion of Taiwan. The Uni-President 7Eleven Lions made it to the Asia Series final last year and only lost to the depleted Saitama Seibu Lions in a sayonara walkoff fashion. The Taiwanese clubs have been putting up solid efforts, so it’s a shame to lose them. Maybe once Taiwanese baseball is back in order from its current post-scandals shambles, they can host an NPB-KBO-CPBL championship, as their climate suits November ball the most.

The one game showdown idea will be put forth in July for approval.

Seibu uniforms

A couple of Seibu uniform announcements for both their baseball and hockey teams.

First the Saitama Seibu Lions baseball team is apparently completely overhauling its uniform next season with new colours, logo, and uniforms. This may or may not be their primary logo, colour, and uniform, but this photo was taken at Tokorozawa station (home of Lions) but before a public announcement. Weird, but Seibu has never been good at marketing. Personally, moving away from the Tezuka Osamu designed Leo logo to a generic claws and baseball logo is a huge mistake, along with darkening the skyblue that has been the Lions colour since the team moved to Tokorozawa some 30 years ago, the new navy makes them similar to Chunichi Dragons, Tokyo Yakult Swallows, and Yokohama BayStars. Then again, I suppose this move in the new direction is probably meant to signal their new attachment to their hometown “Saitama”, but just seems like a bad move right after winning it all (Japan Series and Asia Series champions).

Now onto the Seibu Prince Rabbits hockey team that has just announced that they will be folding (or hopefully selling) the team after this season. The team will play in throwback Seibu Railway (Seibu Railway and Kokudo teams merged to form the current Seibu team a few years back) uniforms. The ads take away from the mood, but a classy move nonetheless as it’s a classic uni that I should’ve bought while the Railway team was still alive. The throwbacks will be worn in the game on 11 January 2009 against long time archrivals Oji Eagles at the Dydo Drinco Ice Arena home game (Higashifushimi, Tokyo). The ceremonial faceoff will be taken by the brothers Mel and Herb Wakabayashi who led Japanese hockey through the 70’s and beyond as player and coach on Kokudo, Seibu, and the Japanese national team.

By the way, Seibu wore this uniform for a while after the SEIBU era:

Either way, much better than the Kokudo bunny donchya think?

I used to be a fun of the rough and exciting Seibu Railway team, but could never support the team after it was merged into Kokudo even though many of my favourite players like Ryan Kiyoshi Fujita (the Theo Fleury of Japan, he led the Japanese league in PIM and goals once or twice, I think) play on the team. Just for good measure, here’s Ryan who’s been playing in Japan since 1995 and played on the 1998 Nagano Olympic team:

Asia Series in financial trouble

There’s a brief article in Sankei Sports explaining how the poorly attended Asia Series (all group games drew less than 10,000 and the final less than 20,000, had a popular NPB team made it to the Series, attendance figures would’ve been quite different) is in financial trouble, its future may be in jeopardy, and of course the current financial climate does not help. Here goes the rough translation:

Asia Series Lack of Sponsor Means Trouble

17 November 2008 Sankei Sports (via Yahoo news)

The NPB commissioner Ryozo Kato commented on November 16th that he wanted the Asia Series to “continue no matter what” beyond next season, indicating the NPB’s stance on the Series’ future.

The title sponsor the for the first 3 incarnations of the Series, Konami, withdrew their sponsorship which was a 3 year 3-oku yen (approximately $3 million) deal. There was no terrestrial television coverage of the Series either. Therefore, the 1-oku yen prize and operational costs (Ed: including airfare and accommodation for the foreign teams) were all paid for by the NPB. There are dissenting voices among the 12 NPB teams, endangering the future of the Series.

Commissioner Kato further commented that “the Asia Series is a necessary step for Japanese teams to aim for the world in the future. I want Japan to take leadership on this issue and continue with the Series”. The future of the Series will be under discussion within the executive committee, where issues such as finding new sponsors and decreasing the prize money will be raised.

Original article (Japanese) preserved after the break:

2008 Asia Series

The 2008 Asia Series has opened with an upset resembling the Beijing Olympics as the Uni-Presidents Lions of Taiwan (CPBL) lost 3-4 to the Tianjin Lions of China (CBA). The nightcap features the third Lions team in the NPB champs Saitama Seibu Lions hosting the powerful KBO champs SK Wyverns (who defeated Chunichi Dragons once in the previous edition of this championship). (Correction: Uni-President won the game 7-4 on a 3 run walkoff “sayonara” homerun, the official Asia Series site update puts a 0 in the scoreboard while the inning is still in progress, hence my mistake.)

The Asia Series narrowly missed out on being a Four Lions affair, as the Korean Samsung Lions bowed out in the Korean postseason semifinals, ah well. It’ll be good to see the full squad of the SK Wyverns, they could very well take this tournament as the Saitama Seibu Lions are missing half the key players from the regular season and postseason due to contract obligations (import outfielder Hiram Bocachica and closer Alex Graman), injuries (shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima, catcher Toru Hosokawa, outfielder GG Sato, and first baseman Craig Brazell), and veteran non-participations (starting pitchers Kazuhisa Ishii and Fumiya). Seibu may even drop a game against the Chinese or Taiwanese Lions.

Anyways, with the total lack of coverage and promotion for this event, it makes you wonder whether the NPB brass are trying to kill the series. Japan is in much the similar situation with the Asia Series as the US is in with the WBC. Nothing to gain and everything to lose. But both events are useful tools for international baseball promotion and NPB and MLB should really get behind these events.

There’s the issue of playing baseball in mid-November, but this is because the Japan Series is now played in early November due to the Climax Series playoffs implemented in both leagues. But with a 6 games a week schedule, I don’t see why NPB can’t reschedule make up games for rained out games on many of these days off instead of dragging the season on with meaningless make up games right through October. There’s something with Japanese labour law that requires employees not to be working for so many consecutive days, so maybe that is the cause…

The Four Lions of Asia

The possibility is remote, but it is there.

The Four Lions Asia Series (official site – Japanese).

Let’s take a look at the 4 leagues that participate in this Asian club baseball championship and how their Lions are faring as this post is being written.

CBL (China)

The Tianjin Lions have won the championship series 3-1 over the Beijing Tigers, thus being the first Lions team to clinch their spot in the 2008 Asia Series. In 2008, the CBL is being represented for the first time by a club team instead of the China Stars selects team, thus enabling the possibility of this Lions Battle Royale.  

 

CPBL (Taiwan)

The match fixing scandal tainted league’s 2008 regular season 1st place team is the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions. The Lions must win the upcoming Taiwan Series against the Brother Elephants – LaNew Bears (1-0 right now in the best-of-5 series) semifinal winner.

 

KBO (Korea)

The Samsung Lions defeated the Lotte Giants in the first round of the playoffs, and are now tied 1-1 against the Doosan Bears in the best-of-7 semifinals. The Lions must win this series first before challenging the powerful SK Wyverns in the Korea Series.

 

NPB (Japan)

The Saitama Seibu Lions are currently leading the Pacific League championship series (or Climax Series stage 2) by a margin of 2-0 in a best-of-7 game series with the 10-3 thrashing of the 3rd place Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters yesterday. The series can only go maximum 6 games due to the first place Lions having entered the series with a 1-0 advantage. The Lions must defeat the Darvish-armed Fighters by winning 2 of the next 5 games, then win agaist the Central League champions (reigning Japan Series champs Chunichi Dragons, slumping Hanshin Tigers, or red hot Yomiuri Giants) in the Japan Series.

 

Now, if you’re a neutral baseball fan, or a Lions fan, or your team’s already out of the playoff picture in any of these countries, how could you not cheer for the King of the Jungle Royal Rumble Asia Series? Now seriously, it would be so much fun. Oh the possible headlines, in all these languages!  😛