On August 25th, the AHL finally released their 2010-11 schedule. The reason it took so long is that four teams share arenas with the NBA, who only got their schedule out two weeks before. For sports road trippers, this final release means that it's now possible to plan those winter trips that we started dreaming about months ago. The World Junior Hockey Championships are taking place in Buffalo over the New Year. With the Winter Classic being held in nearby Pittsburgh on January 1st, and the Penguins opening the Consol Energy Center as well, the...
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
An Australian friend of mine who is in Japan for a few months had never seen a baseball game and so I offered to take him and some colleagues to a Yakult Swallows-Yokohama Bay Stars tilt. Both teams are in the bottom half of the Central League, although Yakult has recently gone on a tear to move back to .500 after being 19 games below just a few weeks ago. Yokohama is just horrid though, coming in at 37-72, barely able to win 1/3 of their games....
Sunday, 22 August 2010
I'm in the middle of planning a rather extensive trip home to Canada in December/January. Ottawa is no longer my primary destination as my parents have moved to Belleville, which is much better for short road trips to Toronto and Buffalo among other nearby destinations. I'm still waiting for the AHL schedule to be released this week to finalize the entire trip and will have a post on that shortly.However, Brett Favre's recent shocking announcement that he would return for another season with Minnesota had me looking at the Vikings' schedule. I...
Thursday, 19 August 2010
A couple of months ago, Armando Galarraga lost a perfect game on a blown call by Jim Joyce. Fans and media debated the increased use of instant replay while baseball stood its ground, declaring that the human element is part of the game. Turns out this is not entirely true.If umpires blow a call, tough luck to those who were on the wrong side of the decision. But if an official scorer makes a mistake, well, then we can go ahead and change that. Two weeks later if need be. I'm referring to an article on MLB.com that explains that Ichiro had a hit...
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
The Nippon Ham Fighters are back in Tokyo this week for a 3-game set against the Chiba Lotte Marines. The teams are locked in a battle for the 3rd and final playoff spot in the Pacific League, with the Marines holding a 2.5 game lead. Orix is also in the running just another game back. It's not quite as exciting as a pennant race, but with the NPB allowing half the teams into the playoffs, it's the best we can get.Interestingly, both teams' minor-league...
Thursday, 12 August 2010
The National Lacrosse League seems to have at least one team fold or move every off-season (1993 was the last time there was no franchise movement), and this year is no different. The Orlando Titans, who finished first in the East in their only year in Florida, have ceased operations for the 2011 season. No need to rehash the article, but the dispersal draft was held last week. Orlando had the league's best goalie in Matt Vinc as well as the MVP in Casey Powell, both will be leading other teams next season.Fortunately I had a chance to see the...
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Earlier this year I had planned a week-long trip to Osaka and Hiroshima. Circumstances forced me to cancel the trip, but I've finally managed to find the time and some interesting games that will get me to Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium in early September. The trip starts with a Nabisco Cup quarterfinal game between Gamba Osaka and Sanfrecce Hiroshima on September 1st. On the 2nd, I will take a day trip to Yuu in Yamaguchi Prefecture to watch a Western League game between the Chunichi Dragons and Hiroshima Carp. The weekend will then be spent back in...
The 2010-11 bj League season gets underway in just over 2 months on October 16th. There are 3 new teams this year: Akita Northern Happinets; Shimane Susanoo Magic; and Miyazaki Shining Suns. This makes 16 teams in the league with each club playing 52 games. Most games are weekend doubleheaders, meaning that there are games on Saturday and Sunday with the same visiting team. However, no team uses the same venue for all home games. For example, the Niigata club has 9 different gyms in which they play. This makes following the team slightly more difficult,...
Monday, 9 August 2010
There's usually no baseball on Monday here in Japan as both the majors and minors take the day off. But for some reason, there was a minor-league game between Lotte and Yomiuri at Tokyo Dome yesterday. These are the top two teams in the Eastern League, and I wanted to see how the crowd would be, so I went to check it out.The GameKeisuke Saito (above) started for Yomiuri. He's in his second season but hasn't seen much action this year. He has an odd...
Sunday, 8 August 2010
One of the reasons I started road tripping in the States is that I missed driving. Living in Tokyo, there is no reason to drive anywhere. Owning a car is prohibitively expensive, and highways are crowded and have high toll charges. For me, it was much nicer to fly back to North America, rent a car, and spend a couple of weeks on the highways and byways, checking out a variety of sporting events.My few "road trip" experiences in Japan were on trains. Although it's convenient, you lose control of your situation, relying on schedules and often unable...
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Yesterday was the last day of the WUBC. Japan knocked off Korea 9-0 in the 3rd place game in the afternoon to take the Bronze medal. On Friday, Canada took 5th place with a 15-14 extra inning win over Chinese Taipei while China grabbed 7th with a 10-0 win over Sri Lanka, who finished the tournament being outscored 94-0 in just 6 games.So we were left with the USA and Cuba, two undefeated teams battling it out for world supremacy at Jingu Stadium....
A couple of months ago I posted the MLB standings after 54 games. Each team has just completed 108 games and it's mildly interesting to see how things have changed.What is most notable is how most teams are quite consistent. Only the Chicago White Sox had a difference of more than 10 games, improving from 23-31 in the first third of the season to 39-15 in the second for a 16-game jump that propelled them into first. The biggest drop in wins was just 6, with Toronto (of course), Pittsburgh, and the Dodgers all falling off their early pace by that...
Thursday, 5 August 2010
The WUBC held its semifinals today after a quarterfinal round that was ridiculously non-competitive. Three of the four games were called in 7 innings, including Japan hammering Chinese Taipei 13-0. I was surprised that the Taiwanese couldn't do better after taking the USA to extra innings. The other two blowouts were as expected with the US beating Sri Lanka 11-0 and Cuba knocking off China 14-0.In the only competitive match, Canada lost to Korea...
Monday, 2 August 2010
Yesterday was the 4th and final day of the round robin games at the WUBC. Over the weekend, Cuba defeated Korea 18-0 and Japan 13-7 to take first place in group B. Meanwhile the USA had to go to extra innings to knock off Chinese Taipei 8-7 in a seesaw battle. The other games were all blowouts as Canada beat Sri Lanka 18-0 while China lost to Japan 15-0 and Korea 13-4.All of this means that group B is set with Cuba, Japan, Korea, and China finishing...
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