World Travel Fair and Other Updates

I've been noticeably remiss on attending sporting events lately. That's not to say that there's nothing going on here in Tokyo, but it isn't very compelling. The sumo world just ended its September tournament and Yokozuna Hakuho continued to dominate, winning all 15 of his bouts and extending his unbeaten streak to 62, second in history. I used to be a big fan of sumo; when I arrived it was at a peak with lots of interesting wrestlers and excellent competition. But lately there have been few exciting tournaments and a preponderance of foreign wrestlers has rendered the sport completely boring. As well, scandals related to drugs and gambling (on baseball no less!) have hurt their image and kept the fans away in droves. I too have stopped going, although am thinking about attending Chiyotaikai's retirement ceremony on Saturday just to report on it here.

In Japanese baseball, the regular season is grinding to a close. There is a fight for third in the Pacific League between the Chiba Lotte Marines and Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, while the Central League's top 3 teams had pretty much clinched spots back in May. The minor circuit saw Lotte win the Eastern crown, while the Western went to Hanshin. They play in a 1-game championship next Saturday in Niigata. I had hoped to see the final Shonan Searex game but bad weather and other commitments made that impossible.

In other sports, both men's and women's tennis are in Tokyo over the next two weeks. I'm going to try to get out to Ariake for at least one day for each tournament. The F League (Futsal) has an all-day event at Yoyogi on October 16th, which I am hoping to catch, if only to add another sport to the list. And the Asia Ice Hockey League just started their season, with games in Tokyo this coming weekend.

The F1 race comes to Suzuka on October 10th, while basketball's bj League gets started on the 16th. But the Tokyo Apache haven't announced where they are playing their first games, as the futsal has pushed them out of Yoyogi for the opening weekend. Looks like another year of no respect for them.

As you can see, there's lots to see in Tokyo. But too much of it is on weekends now, when I don't have as much time. So there will be extended periods of quiet over the next couple of months, until I head home in December for a nice hockey trip.

World Travel Fair

Although I haven't seen any sports lately, I did have the chance to attend the World Travel Fair at Tokyo's Big Sight complex (above). It was a large trade exhibition that showcased countries of the world, airlines, rental car companies, and other travel-related firms. Below is a picture of JAL's oneworld partners. Note that Mexicana also filed for bankruptcy recently. One poorly managed world perhaps.

There was a 1,200 yen charge to get in, and mostly it was just a chance to pick up brochures and pamphlets exhorting you to visit wherever, but some booths had a little extra to entice you. There was free wine tasting in a few spots, Belgian beer, some shows and contests, and a few ethnic restaurants on hand if you got hungry.

Unfortunately, road trips were not mentioned. It seems most places want you to experience nature and that sort of thing, rather than watch the local sport, whatever it may be. Still, it was interesting to see how each nation tried to market itself. For example, Swiss chocolatier Lindt had a frightening robot, (above) while Taiwan used dancers to illustrate the beauty of their nation (below). It was a well worth a few hours of time.

Boxing is Expensive

As I was leaving, I happened upon the WBA flyweight championship between a couple of Japanese boxers. I don't follow boxing at all, but was still intrigued. Until I saw the ticket prices. The best seats were 50,000 yen (about $600) while the cheapest were 5,000 yen. That's too much for me for a sport I know little about. I watched the bout at home though, and was glad I skipped it as it was rather one-sided and bloody. Not sure that I'll be adding boxing to my list of must-see events in the near future.

Next Up

As mentioned above, there's lots of things this coming weekend, so I'm going to choose one of them. Just not sure which one yet. Either the sumo retirement ceremony, the ballgame in Niigata, the tennis, or the ice hockey. Check back next week for an update.

Best,

Sean

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Blue Jays Spread Their Minor League Wings

Every two years, a few minor league baseball teams do a bit of a shuffle, moving affiliation from one major league franchise to another. The reasons for this are varied, but generally, minor league clubs want to be part of a decent development system that makes for entertaining baseball, while the big boys look for geographic proximity and a stable organization.

Unless you are the Toronto Blue Jays, that is. Two years ago, their affiliation with AAA Syracuse ended and they were forced to sign an agreement with the Las Vegas 51s of the Pacific Coast League. At over 2,200 miles, this is the furthest distance between any MLB club and its top affiliate. Although the agreement between the two is up this season, the only other AAA franchises without a contract are Portland (which will likely re-up with San Diego and move south to California) and Sacramento (which has had a long and successful relationship with Oakland). So don't expect any changes there. (Update: Toronto has indeed renewed their agreement with Las Vegas).

But Toronto has been busy on other levels. A couple of days ago they announced that they would establish a franchise in Bluefield, WV; a market that was recently abandoned by the Orioles after 53 seasons, the longest affiliation in history. Then last week came the announcement that the Jays would again look west, this time remaining in Canada and signing a 4-year agreement with the Northwest League's Vancouver Canadians, who replace Auburn, NY as the short-season squad.

This is great news for me, as I've been meaning to return to Vancouver for some time and will try to do so next summer to check out some games with the Jays' latest draft picks. Bluefield and the Appalachian League are also intriguing destinations.

But an entire Blue Jays minor league trip becomes rather daunting. With other teams in Manchester, NH, Lansing, and Dunedin, a six-team roadtrip comes in at 8,350 miles! Yankees' fans, on the other hand, only have 2,500 miles to see all five of their affiliates, while Atlanta comes in at a relatively easy 1,670 miles for their five teams, four of which are owned by the Braves. (Distances assume starting and finishing in the major league city and taking the shortest route, using Google Maps).

When all the schedules are out, I will try to put together some simple franchise road trips to see which ones might be the most enjoyable. For now though, I've got Vancouver and Bluefield on my radar for 2011.

Best,

Sean

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Why the Wild Card Sucks (and how to fix it)

The AL East sees the two best teams in baseball fighting it out for the pennant. The winner gets to enjoy the playoffs while the loser...gets to enjoy the playoffs. Such is the influence of the wild card, which allows the best second place team in each league a spot in the post season. It removes the excitement from pennant races, which are the most important part of a baseball season. That's why it sucks and needs to be fixed.

How to fix it

There are other imperfections in MLB, most notably the difference in teams per league. This is unfair to NL squads who have less chance to make the playoffs (1/4 or 25%) then their AL counterparts (2/7 or 28.6%). In a single season, that may not be significant but it does make a difference over an extended period. In particular, the NL Central has 50% more teams than the AL West, which makes a Cubs' division title that much more unlikely than one for the Mariners.

The other problem is the unbalanced schedule caused by interleague play. Teams with geographic rivalries (Yankees/Mets, Cubs/White Sox, etc) play each other 6 times while often their divisional rivals play those teams not at all. This season for example, the Jays had interleague games against Arizona, Colorado, San Diego, and San Francisco, St. Louis and Philly. 5 of those 6 teams are in the playoff hunt. The Yankees meanwhile got 6 against the Mets, and 3 each against Arizona, Houston, LA Dodgers, Philadelphia. Not really fair.

Jayson Stark of ESPN advocates another wild card team, but I am not happy with that idea. I think the point of the long season is that the best teams advance and then play each other in longer series. More playoff teams is not the answer. Instead, here is what MLB needs to do.

Expansion

Fifteen teams in each league is not going to happen. So in order to level the playing field between the two leagues, add two more teams to the AL. Portland, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Sacramento are all large markets that have AAA teams (well, Portland has lost theirs) and might be able to support a major league franchise. Of course, none of the big 4 sports will put a team in Vegas and Sacramento will be voted down by the A's and Giants, so let's stay that MLB decides to add teams to Portland as well as Salt Lake.

Realignment

The next step is to realign into four divisions of four teams. I would see the following as workable:

AL East      NL East
NY Yankees   NY Mets
Boston       Philadelphia
Baltimore    Washington
Tampa Bay    Florida

AL Central   NL Central
White Sox    Cubs
Toronto      Atlanta
Cleveland    Cincinnati
Detroit      Pittsburgh

AL Midwest   NL Midwest
Kansas City  St. Louis
Texas        Houston
Minnesota    Milwaukee
Salt Lake    Colorado

AL West      NL West
LA Angels    LA Dodgers
Oakland      San Francisco
Seattle      San Diego
Portland     Arizona

See how nice that looks? This makes 8 potential pennant races, keeps most divisional rivalries intact (Cubs/Cardinals is the most glaring one that would be lost) and removes the need for a wild card. Toronto escapes AL East purgatory too, good for their fans but probably not for the franchise who enjoy all those Boston and Yankee roadtrippers.

Meanwhile the White Sox and Cubs would be playing most of their games outside their time zone, which would definitely cause some problems. So we'll give them more of the expansion money.

Scheduling

The next step is to balance the schedule. It has to remain at 162 games, and the interleague rivalry matches must also be kept. Therefore, every season, each division plays its counterpart plus one other division from the other league. This means that the AL East and NL East teams would meet every year, and then the AL East would take on the NL Central one year, the NL Midwest the next, and then the NL West after that. Three game series are the norm in interleague play, so each team would get 24 balanced interleague games. Then the geographic rivals would get 3 additional games to match what is happening these days. In the divisions above, I've listed these rivals on the same line and think that this should be maintained year to year. Yes, Toronto and Atlanta are not natural rivals, but with 6 games annually, something could develop.

With 27 interleague games on the slate, there's 135 games left. This works out nicely to 7 games against teams in other divisions in your league (84 total) and 17 games within your division (51 total). Yes, there's a small imbalance with home and away matches but that is not significant enough to derail the plan.

That's it. A nearly balanced schedule, no wild card, and the possibility of 8 pennant races. Now that I've fixed baseball, I'll look at improving the NHL playoffs to make their season more meaningful.

Problems

I'm obviously ignoring many problems that would arise with this plan; dilution of the product, teams losing divisional rivalries, and the fact that Bud Selig likes the Wild Card. Oh well, it's just for fun. Enjoy and let me know your thoughts.

Best,

Sean

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Yomiuri Giants 5 at Yakult Swallows 2 - September 15, 2010

With my friend Meg in town finishing up her 12 parks tour of Japan, I decided to make a final visit to Jingu this year to join her in watching the Giants and Swallows. Yakult is technically still alive in the playoff race, lying 6.5 games back of 3rd place Yomiuri with 18 games left, but another loss would pretty much seal their fate. And so it came to pass.

The Game

Yoshinori Satoh got the start for Yakult against Tetsuya Utsumi. Satoh started by walking the first two Giants on 8 straight balls and I thought we were in for a long night, but he struck out Michihiro Ogasawara and Alex Ramirez before inducing Shinnosuke Abe to fly out. He then settled down, yielding just two hits and a walk over the next four frames.

Norichika Aoki pops out

Meanwhile Utsumi was also solid and we were still scoreless after 5 innings. That's when the rains came, just a light mist at the start but turning into a steady drizzle shortly thereafter. This seemed to affect the pitching as the Giants exploded for 4 runs in the 6th, including a 3-run double from Edgar Gonzalez (below grounding out in an earlier at-bat).

Yakult replied with a 2-run homer from Kazuhiro Hatakeyama in their half of the 6th. But Utsumi was replaced one batter later and the Giants relief corps, including ex-Blue Jay Micheal Nakamura, proceeded to shut down Yakult the rest of the way.

Pinch hitter Kenji Yano added a solo homer in the 9th for a bit of insurance as the Giants won 5-2 in a well-played if somewhat pedestrian affair. Yakult is still 6.5 games out of 3rd though as Hanshin lost, but I doubt they can make up the ground. Really, since they are a game under .500 (61-62-4), they shouldn't be part of any playoff discussion but that's what happens when half the teams make the post-season.

Minor League pennant race

The rains from last night have continued today and the minor league game between Shonan Searex and Giants has been postponed. This is unfortunate as the Eastern League is having a great pennant race. Yomiuri leads by a half-game over 3 other teams including the Searex with just a week left in the season. What's really interesting is that the second place teams are all 55-45 with a different number of ties, hence the different number of games left. The winner will play in a 1-game championship with the Western League in Niigata on October 2nd. I'll keep you posted; here's hoping the baby Giants are knocked off by somebody in the next week.

Update (Sept 17): The game has been rescheduled for Saturday, September 25th. It'll be the last game of the season and hence the last Searex game ever, and if the teams are still close, might decide the pennant. There's also a futsal game nearby after that so I'll try to catch both.

Best,

Sean

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MLB 2011 Schedule released - no trips for me

MLB has released their 2011 schedule and the news wasn't particularly good for me. I usually look for two things to plan a baseball trip: a new stadium (not happening) or an intriguing Blue Jays interleague series on the road. Unfortunately the Jays are in Cincinnati, Atlanta, and St. Louis; none of those cities are particularly enticing for me at this point.

I was hoping that Toronto might have a series in Houston as the state of Texas is the only place I haven't revisited since the 2001 trip. But the Astros make their first appearance in Toronto instead. Of course, the Blue Jays are in Arlington in mid-July but that's a regular occurrence and not something that'll get me planning a trip.

The season might begin in Taiwan and if that happens, I'll try to get to see that but otherwise, next summer looks to be a quiet one on the MLB front.

Best,

Sean

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World Judo Championships - Day 5 - September 13, 2010

Yesterday was the 5th and final day of the World Judo Championships. It was the open competition for both men and women, which meant any judoka could enter regardless of weight class. It is said that the essence of judo is in the open competition; the implication being that smaller athletes can use technique to defeat a larger opponent.

Therefore, I was hoping for some variety in the entrants, but generally it was only the bigger athletes who were present. Many of those I saw on Day 1 were back, as well as some judoka who only participated in the open competition.

In the women's tournament, the final bout was a rematch from the +78kg class with Japan's Mika Sugimoto again defeating China's Qian Qin, although this time she did it with a throw, having won on Day 1 when Qin committed 4 shido. That's Sugimoto in white below while Qin is in blue.

On the men's side, there were 3 Japanese in the final four along with +100kg champion, Teddy Riner from France. Riner defeated Hiroki Tachiyama in one semi-final while Daiki Kamikawa knocked off Keiji Suzuki in the other. Both Tachiyama and Suzuki won their bronze medal bouts which left us with just the final.

Kamikawa is a university student while Riner is a 4-time world champion, yet Riner is just 7 months older, having turned 21 back in April. Clearly the Frenchman would be the favourite, but Kamikawa was no slouch, having defeated +100kg silver medalist Andreas Koelzer of Germany with a perfect ippon in the second round.

Riner was strong early, but he couldn't find the necessary strength to throw Kamikawa despite several attempts and after 5 minutes, there was still no advantage. Which brought us to sudden death, where Kamikawa became more aggressive, nearly completing two throws but not enough to gain a winning point. After 3 more scoreless minutes, it was up to the judges to declare the winner.

In this situation, the referee and two judges each hold up a flag denoting who they believe fought the better bout. Kamikawa was wearing white and the referee and one judge held up a white flag while the other judge held up a blue one (below). Kamikawa was the world champion much to the delight of the crowd. Riner was visibly distressed by the decision, wagging his finger as much as to say "No Way" but I felt it was the right call. With the loss, Riner was unable to set a record with a 5th world title.

Despite the upset, I found the judo today to be rather dull at times; there were few ippons and mostly a lot of grappling and defensive posturing. Having the world men's open title decided by a split decision was disappointing, I would have liked to see the final action be a decent throw rather than judges raising flags, but it symbolized what was a disappointing final day for me.

Japan Dominates

Over the 5 days, there were 8 tournaments for each gender, which means 64 total medals awarded (two bronze are given in each tournament). Naturally Japan dominated the medal table, tallying 23 total, including 10 of 16 golds. France was second with just two golds and 6 total, so the rest of the world has some way to go to catch up to Japan in its homegrown sport.

Next Up

Tomorrow I'll check out the Giants and Swallows with Meg who will be hitting stadium #11 on her two-week journey across Japan, then on Thursday we'll go out to Giants Stadium for a minor league game.

That'll end the baseball season for me but there's plenty to see coming up. Top League Rugby is back, the J League still has two months left, the Emperor's Cup is underway, the bj League starts in a month, and there is a futsal league with a couple of teams in Tokyo that I'll be checking out shortly. As always check back regularly for updates.

Best,

Sean

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World Judo Championships - Day 1 - September 9, 2010

Japan is the birthplace of judo and Tokyo was the site of the first two World Championships in 1956 and 1958. In the intervening 52 years, the championships have been back to Japan twice (Osaka and Chiba) but this is their first return to Tokyo. Good news for me as it started on a Thursday which gave me a chance to head over to the Yoyogi National Gymnasium to catch the action in 4 weight classes.

Yoyogi National Gymnasium

Built to house the swimming, diving, and basketball events in the 1964 Olympics, the Yoyogi National Gymnasium actually consists of two buildings. The second, smaller gym is where the bj League's Tokyo Apache play, but it is the larger facility in which the judo is being held. It's an interesting looking venue from both the outside and inside as you can see below.

There are two levels of seating; for the tournament the lower level seats are reserved and cost 5,000 yen while the upper level seats are unreserved and going for 3,000 and 1,000 yen. No need to splurge here as the gym is small enough that you can see well from anywhere. However, only one side of the arena seemed to be open to the public, the other side was reserved for athletes, coaches, and other officials.

One cool thing was a giant judogi that must be used for the really, really, really big weight classes.

The Rules of Judo

A quick guide to the basics of judo for those who are not familiar with it.

Two competitors (judoka) face off in a match that lasts 5 minutes, with brief stoppages when they leave the mat area. In international competition, one judoka is in white while the other is in dark blue.

The object is to score more points than your opponent. Points are generally achieved by throwing or pinning your opponent. There are three levels of points: ippon, waza-ari, and yuko.

Ippon (one point) is the highest level and indicates the immediate end of the match. Ippon can be achieved in 3 ways: throw your opponent on his shoulder or back with force and speed, pinning him on his back for 25 seconds, or forcing him to tap out due to a hold.

Waza-ari (has technique) is awarded when the throw lacks in one of the three elements necessary for ippon or when the pin is between 20 and 25 seconds. Two waza-ari equals ippon, so essentially waza-ari is like a half-point.

Yuko (effective) is awarded when the throw lacks in two of the three elements necessary for Ippon, or the pin lasts between 15 and 20 seconds. However, no amount of yuko will equal a waza-ari, it is used merely as a tiebreaker.

There are also penalties, known as shido, which are given for being too defensive or for not attacking, among other offenses. Shido are similar to yellow cards in soccer, while red cards are known as hansoku-make (loss by penalty) and signify immediate defeat. An example of a hansoku-make would be to lift a prone opponent off the mat and drive him back on to the mat.

Two shido equals one yuko for the opponent, while three equals a waza-ari and four is considered an ippon and immediate defeat.

Should the match be tied after 5 minutes, a 3 minute "Golden Score" period is played. Much like sudden death, should a judoka get a point during this time, he will win the match immediately. If the match is still tied after Golden Score, the referee and two judges will then decide the winner, without consultation. Each independently raises a white or blue flag to indicate who they feel is the winner and the judoka with more flags is awarded the match.

Aesthetics and etiquette are an important part of judo with the beauty of an ippon throw being well respected and a big hit with fans.

At first glance, it seems like a simple sport, but there are nearly 100 recognized techniques that can be used, based on throwing, grappling, striking the body, and defense. I can't even begin to explain them so read the Wikipedia link if you are at all interested.

The Format

When the championship started, there was only the men's division and a single open competition where weight was not relevant. Over time, it has evolved to where there are seven weight categories for both men and women as well as an open category (where anyone can enter regardless of weight) that has been revived this year.

Each of the first four days has 3 or 4 tournaments with the heavier athletes performing on day 1 while the lightest are on day 4. The final day is for the open tournament.

Each tournament is a simple knockout until the final 8 are reached. If you lose in this quarterfinal round, you still have a chance at a bronze medal through the repechage system. This is where the four QF losers are matched up, with the winners then advancing to meet the semi-final losers for a bronze medal. Naturally the SF winners meet up for the gold medal. In this way, there are no 4th, 6th, or 8th spots. There are two bronze medals, while the bronze medal losers are given 5th place and the repechage losers finish 7th.

The Preliminaries

The first day saw the men's +100kg and -100kg (but above 90kg) weight classes and the women's +78kg and -78kg (but above 70kg).

The morning and afternoon are spent getting to the semi-finals in each of the four categories.

The first matches got underway at 10 am and all four mats were in use for about 4 and a half hours. I missed the first few matches but the program had the brackets so I was able to get caught up pretty quickly. There was no rest between the matches, all 4 mats were in continual use until near the end of the preliminaries. It was certainly fun to watch and learn, but you missed quite a bit while focusing on one match. Ippons were very common and the best one was from Japan's Takamasa Anai (1st in the world, below in blue in a later match against eventual bronze medalist Thierry Fabre of France) who flipped Lukas Krpalek (12th) of the Czech Republic in just 5 seconds.

I should note that there are world rankings for judoka and the program lists the top 15 from July 23rd and I'm using those here, though I suspect they are slightly out-of-date. As well, the brackets are seeded for the top 8 only so you can get top judoka facing off early.

As such, there were plenty of upsets early on. In the +100kg class, Japan's 3rd-ranked Keiji Suzuki lost to #15 Janusz Wojnarowicz of Poland in the first round, hugely disappointing the home fans. Meanwhile, American Kayla Harrison (#14) defeated France's top-ranked Celine Lebrun in the quarter-finals.

The Opening Ceremonies

Once the semi-finalists were determined, there was a 90-minute break before the opening ceremonies. Fortunately you were allowed out of the stadium so I was able to head over to Harajuku station to pick up some snacks for the afternoon. When I returned, it was time to get things started.

A 100-person shamisen (a Japanese 3-stringed instrument) ensemble, known as Oyama-kai, opened things up with a performance (below).

Then calligrapher Koji Kakinuma used a giant brush to write "Ippon" in Japanese. This was really interesting. You can see him and the brush below, and the way it looked on TV below that.

The flags of the 111 participating nations were marched out with Japan's arriving last and we all stood for the Japanese national anthem. Then it was speech time, with Tokyo mayor Shintaro Ishihara providing the most amusing moments when he decried the judo at the Beijing Olympics to be boring and hoped that we would enjoy a return to the real meaning of the sport (i.e. beauty, etiquette, etc - I guess the Olympics were rather dull for him).

Marius Vizer, the president of the International Judo Federation, then declared the championships officially open and we were ready for the medal matches.

The Medal Matches

First were the repechage and semi-final bouts. The two outer mats were covered up and each weight class held its two matches simultaneously in the center.

In one -78kg class semi-final, Harrison defeated 3rd ranked Ukrainian Maryna Pryshchepa,while 5th-ranked Japanese Akari Ogata won her repechage to advance to the bronze medal match.

In the +78 category, Mika Sugimoto (Japan, unranked, pictured above in white) advancing to the final while fellow Japanese and #2 Maki Tsuchida lost to #3 Qian Qin of China. I should point out that Sugimoto is quite short for her weight class, coming in at around 5'5".

Anai also advanced to the final in the -100 class, while world #1 Teddy Riner of France edged Japan's Kazuhiko Takahashi (#4) in a golden score battle in the +100 category.

This left 3 matches for each weight class: one for the gold medal and two for bronze medals. The third mat was covered and now each match would occur individually. The bronze medal matches were mildly interesting with Ogata and Tsuchida winning for Japan while Takahashi lost.

I was looking forward to the gold medal matches but they turned out to be anti-climatic. Harrison won her match against Brazil's Mayra Aguiar (#13) with just a single yuko during sudden death. She was naturally ecstatic to bring home the USA's first women's world judo gold since 1984. That's her and coach Jimmy Pedro (who won a gold in 1999) below just after the match.

Next up was the +78 class and Sugimoto defeated Qin who compiled for shido for non-aggressive behaviour. That's her below, hanging her head in shame for winning the championship in that manner I guess. She was smiling later though, so perhaps just exhausted after chasing Qin around the mat.

The two men's matches went as expected with Anai defeating Henk Grol (Netherlands, #10) based on Grol accumulating 2 shido. That's Anai celebrating below as Grol lies defeated behind him.

The final match was between Riner and Germany's 9th-ranked Andreas Toelzer. It went to a Golden Score and Riner won it with the throw shown below which was awarded a simple yuko.

I say that these final matches didn't meet expecations because there were no ippon throws, which is what people really want to see. Still, judo is as much defense as attack (if not more) so it shouldn't be surprising that the last matches were more sparring than anything.

Afterwards, the medals were presented. That's sumo Yokozuna Hakuho presenting Harrison with her gold below, while the following picture shows Sugimoto and Tsukada awaiting their medals.

The national anthem of the champion's country was played, which made the local fans happy as "Kimi Ga Yo" was heard twice. Japan was obviously the big winner on the day with 2 gold and 2 bronze but France also did well with a gold and two bronze themselves.

It was nearly 9pm by day's end, which meant I spent over 9 hours there. Of course, there was the break but still it was a very interesting time. So much so I plan to return next week for the open competition and suggest to anyone in Tokyo who has some time this weekend to check it out, even just for a few hours.

Notes

One of the interesting things about judo is that upsets are common so you never know what is going to happen. In many individuals sports where there are two competitors, the first rounds are usually run of the mill. In tennis, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal almost always advance to the semi-finals these days for example. But here, one bad move and you are done.

On the same note, to be world champion, you only have to win 5 or 6 matches in a day. In team sports, champions are decided over months, but in this case, you have to bring your best on just one day. That's why it was exciting to see unranked Sugimoto win as well as Harrison, who is moving up the ranks. In the men's side, both #1 seeds took the title, but there were times that they were in trouble.

All in all, a very exciting day and I'm looking forward to Monday's action.

Next Up

After the judo on Monday, there's a couple of ballgames I'll check out next week with my friend Meg who will be completing her 12 NPB parks in 14 days tour. One is the Giants at Yakult (yet again) on Wednesday and then I'll take her to the Giants minor league stadium the following day to see the soon-to-be-gone Shonan Searex. Check back next week for posts on all these and other events.

Best,

Sean

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