Here's Norimoto's first BBM card from the 2013 Rookie Edition set (#65):
I've been enjoying watching the games this week except that I've been watching the English broadcasts from MLB. I almost wish I was listening to the Japanese broadcasts so that I wouldn't understand what they were saying. The mis-pronunciations have been grating (Yomiuri has a long "o" sound and Kenta Maeda's surname is pronounced My-da, not May-eeda) and the factual errors have been pretty bad as well - the Tokyo Dome does not seat 70,000, it's more like 46,000. MLB broadcaster Mark Derosa was bragging during the first game (the one at Koshien against the combined Tigers-Giants team) that he had done some research on Shuichi Murata and discovered that Murata had hit "20 home runs ten times in his 12 year career with the Giants". Apparently Derosa's "research" didn't reveal that Murata had only played three years with the Giants - the other nine were with the Yokohama Baystars. What would be nice is if they had someone in the booth like John Gibson or Jim Allen, someone who speaks English and is knowledgable about both NPB and MLB and could ensure they pronounced names correctly and didn't make egregious factual errors.
Of course, that would take the MLB broadcasters caring. I've felt they've had a very condescending attitude towards the Japanese players, fully expecting the MLB Stars to beat them handily. I've been hearing a steady stream of excuses and alibis all week - "they're not familiar with the ballpark", "you know it's been a long time since some of these guys have played any meaningful games", and "the MLB All Stars are doing a lot of tourist-y stuff and the baseball's kind of secondary on this trip". During yesterday's game, Paul Severino actually tried to bring up jet lag as an excuse but Daryl Hamilton pretty much shot it down. While I agree with the folks who say that this isn't a particularly star-studded MLB line up, I also think they've run into a much better Samurai Japan team than they were expecting.
1 comment:
That was an amazing game, I`ve been enjoying the games on Japanese TV. The upside of watching it here is that you don`t get the MLB announcers screwing up basic factualinformation. The downside is one of the games (fortunately it was the exhibition game between the all stars and the Hanshin/Yomiuri team) got cut off in the 9th inning to make way for regularly scheduled programming!
Actually watching the games I have had the distinct impression that some of the MLB players weren`t taking it seriously, which has kind of made me mad. In particular Yasiel Puig has definitely been dogging it. In the first game (I think) he hit what should have been a double but was easily thrown out at second after not running (or even trying to slide to avoid the tag, he looked like a little leaguer). In the third game a fly ball was hit directly over his head and he just stood there motionless watching it like it was a home run, only to look like a fool when it bounded off the wall for a double.
Other than that though, what an awesome series!
Post a Comment