Monday, December 03, 2007

Choji Murata is still awesome

Tonight I went to the Tokyo Dome to see the Sapporo Ambitious play against the Tokyo Dreams. No, these aren't new teams, they're old teams; that is, "old" in the sense that all of the players are old guys who used to play pro baseball, and are now in this Professional Baseball Masters League. I think the youngest guys playing tonight were 37 and the oldest were 63, to give you an idea about it.

But because I just spent the last hour transcribing my scorecard and am very tired, I'm just going to leave you with that for now and write a little bit more about the game tomorrow night.

Though, just to mention the coolest thing I saw, it would be that I saw legendary Hall of Fame pitcher Choji Murata pitch and not only did he do his traditional crazy windup but he was throwing strikes at 130-136km/h. (That's 80-85mph, for the metrically challenged.) HE'S FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD! FIFTY-EIGHT! And he throws faster than some of today's normal NPB pitchers half his age! He struck out three out of the five guys he faced! (Average age 45, but still!) That was awesome! I wonder what he could do against normal NPB hitters!

Anyway, I did this boxscore by hand from my written scorecard, not by my scripts, so it doesn't have the normal coloring. Here's the key for the score codes I use, though. It should be noted that Nakano's home run in the 5th inning was inside-the-park... but I didn't have a good way to denote "inside-the-park-due-to-slow-old-left-fielder-falling-over", so.
                      1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9   R  H  E
Sapporo Ambitious 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 3 6 0
Tokyo Dreams 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 4 X 6 12 0


Ambitious AB R H RB K BB SH SB E 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
M.Takahashi, cf-ss 4 1 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 D7 .. D7 .. D7 .. KS .. ..
Arai, rf 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 G4 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Kamikawa, ph-rf-2b 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. F9 .. G6 .. G4 .. ..
Wakamatsu, dh 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 f3 .. F4 .. .. .. .. .. ..
Shibata, ph-dh 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. D7 .. .. .. ..
Katoh, dh 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. G6 ..
Ishige, ss 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 F7 .. BB .. BB .. .. BB ..
Matsumoto, cf 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Hirose, 2b 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. G6 G4 .. KC .. .. d5 ..
Hagiwara, rf 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Ishii, lf 4 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. F7 .. KS .. G4 .. .. D8
Awaguchi, 1b 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. f3 .. F9 .. .. .. .. ..
Yoshinaga, 1b 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. KS .. .. BB
Y.Suzuki, 3b 3 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 .. .. BB F8 .. KC .. .. F9
Takada, c 4 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. S9 .. F8 .. G5 .. F8

Total 31 3 6 3 5 5 0 0 0


Dreams AB R H RB K BB SH SB E 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Nakano, rf 4 1 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 G3 .. KS .. H7 .. KS .. ..
Hourai, lf 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 F7 .. KS .. G6 .. F8 .. ..
Motonishi, 2b 4 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 F6 .. .. G5 .. S8 .. S8 ..
Komada, 1b 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. F7 .. G3 .. .. .. .. ..
Kakiuchi, 1b 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. .. .. .. S8 .. S7 ..
Ohmiya, c 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. S7 .. S7 .. .. .. .. ..
Ichikawa, pr-c 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 .. .. .. .. .. b3 .. BB ..
H.Satoh, 3b 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 .. KC .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
K.Suzuki, 3b 2 0 2 3 0 0 1 0 0 .. .. .. S7 .. s9 .. D9 ..
Ashizawa, dh 4 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 .. f2 .. F7 .. F4 .. S1 ..
Muraoka, ss 4 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. F6 .. G4 .. G6 S9 ..
Yashiki, cf 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .. .. S7 .. G6 .. G4 G5 ..

Total 33 6 12 6 4 1 1 1 0


Ambitious IP BF RA ER H BBH K WP HR
Tsuno 3 11 0 0 2 0 3 0 0
Y.Satoh 1 5 0 0 2 0 0 0 0
Ono 1.2 8 2 2 3 0 0 0 1
Matsunuma 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Niura 0.1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
Yagisawa 0.1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Ikegaya 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Yokoda 0.2 6 3 3 4 1 0 0 0


Dreams IP BF RA ER H BBH K WP HR
Nishizaki 1 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
Masumoto 2 10 2 2 2 2 0 1 0
Saotome 1 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
Kohno 0.2 3 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Ozaki 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0
Murata 1.1 5 0 0 0 1 3 1 0
Awano 2 6 0 0 0 1 1 0 0
Ishige 1 4 0 0 1 1 0 0 0

I was also a bit weirded out seeing Ken Suzuki playing in this league given that I swear I just saw him at Jingu in a Yakult uniform a few weeks ago, but whatever. He had a pretty big cheering section of Swallows fans anyway.

If you know who more than half of the guys are in this game are, then you're an even bigger dork than me. :)

Okay, more tomorrow. I promise.

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