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NTT DoCoMo Inc., despite being Japan’s biggest mobile phone carrier, has been struggling against tough smartphone competition from KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp., which is leading in that area. But one edge that the cellphone behemoth — it has more than 60 million subscribers ...
Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...
If you don’t get into the ring once or twice, then you’re a coward, Geoffrey Ima says as he describes people’s attitudes toward boxing in his hometown in Uganda. Ima has been in the ring hundreds of times and came to love boxing so ...
Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...
The 27-year-old defender says he was ready for a change of scenery after helping Sanfrecce Hiroshima win theJ. League title last season.
Kudos to Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese player in the major leagues, on his recent appointment as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. “Mashi” is highly qualified to take the leadership role in supporting charities and, having been acquainted ...
Will this be the season the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles make it to the Pacific League Climax Series for the second time in their nine years of existence? Hardline disciplinarian manager Senichi Hoshino got the team bumped up a notch in 2012, moving from ...
There was a news item saying the New York Yankees were considering signing Hideki Matsui to a one-day contract so he can officially retire as a major leaguer with that club. The Jan. 10 Kyodo report quoted Yankees team co-owner Hal Steinbrenner as saying ...
The 2013 season will surely be a pivotal one for the Hanshin Tigers and their fans as the team attempts to halt a downward slide that has seen the club finish in the Central League’s second division the past two seasons. Hanshin dropped from ...
The year 2013 will mark a season of notable anniversaries for Japanese baseball franchises and ballparks. It is Japanese year Heisei 25, the 25th anniversary for Tokyo Dome, Japan’s first indoor stadium, and the 20th for Fukuoka Yahoo Japan Dome, the country’s first-and still ...
Happy New Year and welcome to 2013. One of the bigger stories to close out the 2012 baseball news year was the retirement of former Yomiuri Giants and New York Yankees slugger Hideki Matsui at the age of 38. The Dec. 28 announcement ended ...
Most foreigners who come to Japan to play baseball do just that — and only that. Whether a career lasts a few games or several years, the guys go back to their home country to continue playing ball, stay in the game as coaches ...
So, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters got a nice Christmas present with the decision by 18-year-old fire-balling right-handed pitcher Shohei Otani to play for the defending Pacific League championship club rather than head straight for a career in the major leagues. From this point ...
Trades are not a common occurrence in Japanese baseball, and deals involving star players — or at least starting players on most teams — are rarely made. Sure, there have been some trades in the past where the term “blockbuster” might have been used, ...
Three Japanese players joined the Meikyukai (Golden Players Club) during the 2012 season by reaching the career 2,000-hit mark. Tokyo Yakult Swallows infielder Shinya Miyamoto, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters veteran Atsunori Inaba and Fukuoka Softbank Hawks retiring slugger Hiroki Kokubo are the newest GPC ...
The Hiroshima Carp again failed to make the Central League Climax Series this time, but manager Kenjiro Nomura has been given another year — his fourth at the helm — to try to get the team into the postseason for the first time. Compiling ...
Choosing the 2012 Pacific League manager of the year is a no-brainer for me. It is Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters rookie skipper Hideki Kuriyama, who led his club to a pennant victory, a Climax Series sweep of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks and into the ...