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DRIZZLE/RAIN
Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
To say the Hanshin Tigers have been successful against the Yomiuri Giants is a somewhat of a misnomer. It’s probably more accurate to say the Tigers have owned the Giants in the early part of the season. Refer to the 2004 ALCS when Boston ...
There are so many written and unwritten rules around baseball that sometimes people in the sport tend to take things a little too seriously. That’s not a problem for new Yokohama BayStars outfielder Nyjer Morgan, who has the utmost respect for his craft, but ...
The last ‘homegrown’ foreign player to make any major impact for the Yomiuri Giants was volatile pitcher Balvino Galvez, whose reign of terror lasted from 1996-2000. Before him, there was Warren Cromartie, the 1989 Central League MVP who hit .321 with 171 home runs, ...
So why did the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters trade away arguably the best player on their team, if not in the entire Pacific League?
Last week, pitcher Mitsuo Yoshikawa became the first Pacific League MVP winner from the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters since 2009. The last Fighters player to earn the honor was former ace Yu Darvish, who won in both 2007 and 2009. Yoshikawa’s triumph also marks ...
Japan manager Koji Yamamoto said his World Baseball Classic team would mirror previous Japan squads and be built around pitching and defense. An admirable ideal, if not for the small issue of his best pitcher not wanting to play. What’s more, the second or ...
Stretching on the field hours before Thursday’s Game 5 of the Japan Series, Hokkaido Nippon Ham outfielder Daikan Yoh smilingly said that he hoped to go to South Korea. That meant that he wanted to advance to the Asia Series in Busan by winning ...
Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters youngster Kenshi Sugiya and his father, Mitsuru, are a unique father-son tandem. Both of them have been professional athletes. Mitsuru Sugiya was a Japan featherweight champion boxer, who also fought in a WBC world title match, in the mid-1980s. But ...
You could call it a coincidence, but going into Game 3 of the Japan Series on Tuesday there was a chance something uncanny could happen in baseball on both sides of the Pacific. Both the Giants of the United States and Japan had the ...
Despite a lopsided 8-1 loss to the Yomiuri Giants in Game 1 of the Japan Series, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters manager Hideki Kuriyama came out in front of the media throng in a cheerful mode before Sunday’s Game 2 at Tokyo Dome. And the ...
Perhaps Shuichi Murata is the one who’s psyched up the most on the 21-time NPB champion Yomiuri Giants in the Japan Series. The 31-year-old slugger joined the club via free agency before this season after playing for nine years with the always-struggling Yokohama BayStars. ...
The Yomiuri Giants wrapped up the Central League pennant last week. Now the spotlight shifts to the Pacific League race, which is getting tighter by the day. Entering this week, there are three teams — the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, Seibu Lions and Fukuoka ...