The Pro Yakyu Report Vol. 1.30 - Tokyo SABR July 2013 Meeting

The July 2013 SABR Tokyo meeting held at the restaurant Shiba-no-Tori Daiichi near Mita Station in Tokyo had three speakers. First up was Kunugi-san who spoke about ranking managers in NPB. Next up was Ikei-san who discussed Japan-Taiwan baseball relations. And finally we had a slide show of one member's trip to watch the 2013 MLB All Star game.



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Pocket Calendar
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This week's Japan Baseball Weekly Podcast will feature Jim Allen having a sit down with Lotte's "new" slugger Craig Brazell. Jim and John then plan on discussing the first two of three All Star games and break down the pennant races through the first half of the season.

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Further Resources
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Managerial Leaders (Japan Baseball Daily)
近藤兵太郎 (Kondoh Hyotaro - Japanese Wikipedia)
National Chiayi University (formerly Kagi Nohrin High School) (Japanese Wikipedia)

Enjoyed your show as usual

My introduction to NPB was more because of Taiwanese players. Is there data available or easy to find which relates to how players adapt from CPBL to NPB and also for that matter KBO to NPB?

I remember reading 'Playing in Isolation' which is about Taiwanese baseball. I read how lots of Taiwanese players use to play in the Industrial Leagues earning good money, some even had 6 figure salaries (when put into US dollars) and how a number of players who earned good money in Industrial Leagues decided to hop back to Taiwan when the CPBL was founded even though they earned less money there.

They have a rich history, that's for sure. It's just a shame about the corruption. If it wasn't for that I am sure the CPBL would be much stronger and perhaps they may have had a chance of keeping some top players for a while longer if the money and environment was more suitable.

The defining moment in post war Taiwanese baseball was when Hongye School defeated a Japanese team in a Little League game which I guess was similar to Venezuela beating Cuba in the Amateur Baseball World Cup, the whole place just burst with enthusiasm for the game. I think one of Taiwan's banknotes even depicts it, or at least Little League.

Learning from old school Japanese style, there was a long history of arm abuse by managers on pitchers, and like in Japan, lots of talented hurlers burned out early in their careers.

Paul Gillespie who writes the blog "From Beyond RIght Field" was the one who told me about Go Shosei. He has great stories on Japanese baseball, I always like researching about some of the Taiwanese players because I am of Chinese descent myself. So thanks for your video this week.

Thank you, Azza-san, for that additional information/history lesson about Taiwanese baseball.

One of the things that bothered me most about the scandals that have taken their tole on Taiwanese teams is that the CPBL appeared to be the problem, yet they absorbed the TML (Taiwan Major League) which, in my somewhat distant and perhaps uninformed opinion, was doing everything right. Whereas I feel that if they'd have stayed separate for a season or two longer, the TML could have emerged as the stronger, scandal free league. But since they merged, all but one TML team were disbanded and baseball in Taiwan went down with the CPBL alone being in charge.

Nonetheless, I think a country of origin study may make an interesting show in the future.

One of the many issues in Taiwanese baseball was, politicians used certain clubs as a political tool and also to some extents, money laundering, basically in taiwan... being a politician is pretty much the same as being a gangster

I know in comparison to the population, there is a disproportionately high number of taiwanese aborigines in pro baseball, genji kaku is one of them, they are usually physically bigger and they use baseball as a means to achieve some status